It's amazing to me how you're able to get these old mass-produced machines working again with clever usage of repair store parts. The face that you're memorializing these machines while essentially giving a repair tutorial for something that likely never had a service manual is awesome. Keep up the great work, your channel is a gem.
Radio Shack used to have the exact foam you need. It was a 1/4"-thick closed-cell foam that was used to prevent air-leaks in speaker cabinets -- you'd put it on the edge of the cabinet, and then screw the back onto the cabinet, compressing the foam and sealing the cabinet to the back. It would've been perfect for this project -- if only Radio Shack was still in business. :-(
The Color Computer community, where 8-Bit Guy actually did an interview recently, also did a remote at the first full-on Radio Shack store that's reopened, AIUI. It's in Keller, Texas, north of Forth Worth and hence in his neighborhood. (No promises that they have that particular foam in stock.)
This comment is especially funny to me as someone familiar with their first attempt at making an electronic keyboard, the 1970s Optigan. That too was a disaster due to awful engineering and build quality, despite having some pretty clever and original ideas behind it.
@@jamesbennettmusic Neat. And great to know there's at least one of them in the UK; crossing my fingers that Techmoan gets a chance to borrow it someday, because it seems right up his alley and would make for a fascinating video.
The funny part is that this statement is coming from someone who is dealing with crappy toy keyboard mechanisms on a regular basis. So that means that is the mechanical design of this device is up there with the worst keyboards, or down there, well how ever you want to put it. ;)
When we were kids (circa 2002) my brother and I were playing the army tank game on Intellivision. We put it down switched off the tv and went to eat or something and forgot to turn the intellivision off. We had several game consoles and only 1 tv so some time later we decided to play n64 or playstation or whatever and swapped the video input to the other console. A year or 2 later we decided to play intellivision again, we reached under the cabinet to get it out and noticed it was warm... We plugged the video back in to the tv, and the 2 army tanks were still sitting right there where we left them!!! So we resumed our game! Haha!
@@jcdowen must live under an unreliable power grid if you're resetting your microwave clock more than once a year... I can't remember the last time I had to set mine outside of daylight savings.
@@timothy2830 while personally I do live on an island 30 miles off the coast of Scotland where we have powercuts 30+ times a year, but even in a major city the likely-hood of a completely stable electrical supply are quite slim, even if it isn't a wide outage, surely a trip-switch (circuit breaker) would be tripped once in that amount of time, especially in America with the awful plug/socket design there
I had one when I was a kid. It was awefull for programming. It had one really good game called "mind strike". The word was they made the computer add on because they were being fined for showing a keyboard adapter for years as "coming soon" in ads, and were starting to be fined for not actually having one.
You know, I was thinking about this. I could totally re-engineer this thing with a 3D printed mechanism and some bubble contacts or something. It would of course never be worth the trouble but it could be done! On the other hand, that exact foam is sold at Home Depot in the cabinet area for padding. I have some of it in my shop storage bin. You should have called me!
I had also thought about 3D printing something that could be epoxied into the back side of the keys, which would then have some sort of rubberized carbon contact or something on the bottom. This would eliminate the need for the foam completely. But, didn't have the desire to undertake that.
8-Bit Keys Just big standard bubble contacts and some mechanical padding to hold up the board. Not as authentic as keeping the original plastic strip, but no custom manufacturing needed.
I think it was more of a case of getting frustrated with the project, and sometimes it's best to just walk away for a while, and come back when you are not, plus it could be eating into time needing to be spent on other videos.
Can we take a moment to appreciate David cutting out 48(!) little circular conductive things, checking the conductivity on each side of each circle, putting all of them up to the right place, and doing all this masking and overall putting that much effort into this thing?
Well... oldcomputers.net/pics/ti994-sidecars.jpg And Apple has only dongle hell because you aren't upgrading your stuff in tune with technology. You see everyone else comes after half a decade later.
@@GeirEivindMork : Yup. The great Apple gets to decide when people should throw out their older but perfectly usable technology. How dare people not throw out something that works for them!
When I saw that I wondered if the color coding was because BASIC was storing the commands themselves as tokens and the rest as plain text. I seem to recall a number of different BASIC versions doing that, and you could save the program as "tokenized" or all text.
Totally amazed and delighted that I came across this video tonight. I grew up with playing the Intellivision I & II with my siblings in the early 80's, and I still have both consoles along with the voice synthesizer and system changer and tons of games. Also, I'm a musician who plays 80's retrowave / electro pop on several analog and digital synths. so this video was a total gem for me. ~ Never knew Mattel had a keyboard and ECS unit for their system. I know it takes some time for me to upload videos when I'm managing two or three camera angles on a synth session, but dude... all this footage and clips of you breaking down the chassis and running around to hobby shops to find the right materials, and then putting it together... more patience than anyone I know. You really made such an informative and interesting video here and followed through on all of your hard work. Very impressive! Thanks so much for sharing.
if you run into difficultly finding foam again, hit me up, we have place here in Australia called Clark Rubber, that has a large range of foam rubber and foams in multiple sizes, as they are a specialist in stocking foam rubbers
12:57 you could have sprayed the non-conductive side of the whole sheet with some sparse pale paint before punching circles. This would saved you a lot of multimeter testing time
This video is not just an 8-Bit Keys, but also an 8-Bit Guy style video at the same time. Never before have I felt so intrigued to click faster on the replay.
You are awesome. I'd had given up after the finding of the painted foam strip. But not only did you come up with a solution how to restore this piece of ... electronic waste, in the end and many hours of nerve wracking one shots you brought it actually back to life. Chapeau!
Absolutely do an ECS video. Retro Man Cave just did an Aquarius series (And it's fantastic by the way, check it out), He mentioned these in the history of that machine and now I'm intrigued by these little weird computer add ons I've never heard of.
I just figured something out. I've watched a number of _8-Bit Keys_ videos, as well as computer restoration ones, but it was not clear to me why you even wanted to do some of the stuff you do. The answer hit me while watching this one. *You are a "hot-rodder"!* Just that instead of cars, you use old computers and keyboards, striving to get them back to "cherry" condition. Cool!
"So, I'm going to have to test eeeach individual one with a multimeter to figure out which side to put them on.." Why didn't you just blanket mark/color the non-coated side /before/ punching them out..? o_O
I had a good laugh at the vlc joke, I laughed even more at that part of the video XD I bet just didnt think of it before... like when remembering heat shrink after wire is soldered :D
@@YyXblu thanks, I must've been reading the comments or something because if it were real it would've slapped me right in the face with how obvious it was 😂
@@enjibkk6850 : Except that you can get this vinyl paint-on "heat shrink" stuff (they actually call it liquid electrical tape), so _that_ one you can easily (even if messily) fix.
Although not really interested in the music side of things, I still found myself watching this just for the fantastic presentation and walkthrough of the repairs. Superb vid as ever! 🙂
it sucks when u put so much effort and time on a project and it "just kinda works" but at the end you realize you need to restart the whole process; but I appreciate your video showing these no-so-good results, because if you are a hacker at heart you always keep trying no matter how many times "it just kinda works" or dont work at all
There's also a BASIC adapter for the Atari 2600, believe it or not. Yes, please do a video (or two) on the Matell ECS! I would love to see just what's in the box and how it works!
I believe every console from the 80's had a BASIC computer available for it. Even the NES did, but wasn't as easy to start due to the fact that it doesn't have the same expansion ports its Japanese counterpart, the Famicom, have.
2:58 Wow, I’ve never expected syntax highlighting on machine that is over 30 years old. Syntax highlighting is very common these days, but I’m pretty sure it was very uncommon back then.
@Lassi Kinnunen I replied to a different comment before seeing this one; I remember a number of BASICs doing that, storing commands as "tokens" of a byte or two. Since these were interpreted BASICs back then (not compiled into a pure executable binary) using tokens saved space like you said, and was faster, sort of like pre-interpreted a bit.
I've been thinking about fixing my Intellivision Synthesizer for years, but could never find any kind of tutorial. Thank you so much for this video! It's not a great keyboard, but as far as I know it's the first one for a game console. That's worth something, right?
Yup, the keyboard foam strip in these are horrible. Ran into this myself on the original brown model. But I love that fix. I simply cleaned up the existing strip as best I could, but it was still terrible. I might have to do a Part 2 on my original video. Nice work David.
You're pretty good at the coding, the disassembly, the electronics, the soldering, etc. But you're also really good at stuff like figuring out that foam strip. No manuals out there to read to learn how to fix things like that. You're adaptive!
Lost count of the number of times you called it a 48 note keyboard when in fact it's 49: four octaves plus the extra top C, same as most other keyboards. Great restoration well done.
David keeps saying he runs out of time in order to make the videos he posts short, but I think a lot of us, including myself, would absolutely adore videos double the length. I love this content so much.
That was so familiar. The Lisa2/Macintosh XL keyboard was foam and conductors and the foam was mostly disintegrated. What an incredibly cheap design for such an expensive computer. For my project I attached a mylar sheet to a double-sided adhesive foam sheet and punched out each foam mylar circle. Like your situation, the foam ended-up being too stiff but all keys worked.
Growing up I did not know anyone with an Intellivision and only just started collecting for it (mostly because of the D&D games). I am constantly amazed at the number of things I was unaware of for this system when I was a kid!
Removing the pcb from the plastic is really easy: Just carefully cut the melted plastic flush with the pcb. You should now be able to remove the PCB. You are then left with plastic tabs which you can use to mount the pcb onto later. When reassembling, just slot the pcb back onto the tabs until they are flush with the top of the keyboard. Now, to get the pcb to stay put, here's what you do: Get a small phillips head screwdriver which. Heat the tip of the screwdriver almost glowing hot with a lighter or similar. Then, carefully press the tip of the screwdriver into the flush cut tab. This will force the plastic out in a sort of cross which locks the pcb into place. I've used this method a hundred times in situations like this. Works every time.
I grew up with the Intellivision 2 but I didn't know they were offering all these things!!!! I watched your video and I'm not sad that it didn't know keyboard and shit existed! Back in 1980, my parents bought the intellivision 2 for me as a xmas gift and I had so much fun with it!!!!
Quality show that I enjoy. Maybe the foam/keys will loosen up a bit after playing it over time. The determination is appreciated! A few breath holding moments! I could almost smell the spray adhesive.
That kind of patience comes only from love to old technology... Great job. I always enjoy your work... Please keep up with it. Greetings from Argentina...
David, if you need to make other keyboard circles, I found it works well to draw on one side of the mylar with marker before you cut the circles. When I do KeyTronic foams, where the conductive side is away from the board, I use the marker on the conductive side. In this case it would work well to do the opposite.
Welcome back!!! I’ve been waiting for a new video on this channel. Don’t get me wrong, I love 8-but guy videos but the repair videos are my absolute favorite.
Very interesting fix to a very unique and troublesome problem. Foam weather strip is what came to mind. THD has some that is very squishy and comes in various widths and thicknesses.
Wow, that was such a quest to restore the keyboard, no surprise video took so long to be made. Nonetheless, that's a great job, I guess that's what makes the review so interesting. Thank you!
You rock. In some ways, I admire you. After day #4, I would have chucked the whole thing in the can. You certainly have far more perseverance than I do. The same thing for your 8-bit computer that you are working on. I certainly have the skills to design it (MSEE). I have even toyed with the idea myself. But you are the one with the perseverance to actually make it happen.
Glad to see a video on this channel. May wanna put a disclaimer that you're able to get PCBs wet as long as you let them dry, some people's don't know that.
It's amazing to me how you're able to get these old mass-produced machines working again with clever usage of repair store parts. The face that you're memorializing these machines while essentially giving a repair tutorial for something that likely never had a service manual is awesome.
Keep up the great work, your channel is a gem.
Too limp, too thick, a pair of balls, we've all been there...
I'm honestly suprised he didn't make a dad joke at that part.
@@matthew65536 Hello Honestly Surprised, I'm Dad!
@@matthew65536 Just an LGR joke waiting to happen
Nice
sweet
Radio Shack used to have the exact foam you need. It was a 1/4"-thick closed-cell foam that was used to prevent air-leaks in speaker cabinets -- you'd put it on the edge of the cabinet, and then screw the back onto the cabinet, compressing the foam and sealing the cabinet to the back. It would've been perfect for this project -- if only Radio Shack was still in business. :-(
You can get it at almost any hardware store as weather striping
I mean a few stores are still around, at least they were last I checked...
Yup, I can confirm that there are at least two Radioshacks still around.
It's at all the home stores. It's called weather stripping. Simple.
The Color Computer community, where 8-Bit Guy actually did an interview recently, also did a remote at the first full-on Radio Shack store that's reopened, AIUI. It's in Keller, Texas, north of Forth Worth and hence in his neighborhood. (No promises that they have that particular foam in stock.)
Home Depot sells weather stripping that looks like it would have been a good match.
Blimey... now that I think of it, yea, that really is a legit idea. +1
@@slightlyevolved Exactly what I came here to say!
So much this, would have been the perfect size and only adhesive on one side too
First thought I had too.
David lives in Texas so they probably don't need it as much as we do in Canada. That's probably why it hasn't crossed his mind.
An external nearly useless box attached to a far less popular games console from the middle of the video game crash.
I can't imagine how it failed.
Its like fuck, I haven't been doing that good man, I wanna support the children and the channel it tough though
"The contact system here is probably the cheapest, most horrible design I've come across so far" - that's the Mattel® way!
This comment is especially funny to me as someone familiar with their first attempt at making an electronic keyboard, the 1970s Optigan. That too was a disaster due to awful engineering and build quality, despite having some pretty clever and original ideas behind it.
@@stevethepocket look on my channel and you'll see I'm inclined to agree...I documented the repair of one a couple of years ago.
@@jamesbennettmusic Neat. And great to know there's at least one of them in the UK; crossing my fingers that Techmoan gets a chance to borrow it someday, because it seems right up his alley and would make for a fascinating video.
The funny part is that this statement is coming from someone who is dealing with crappy toy keyboard mechanisms on a regular basis. So that means that is the mechanical design of this device is up there with the worst keyboards, or down there, well how ever you want to put it. ;)
You can tell it’s Mattel, it’s swell!
OK I have to admit the VLC joke made me laugh out loud
Same
Something about the nonchalantness of it made me crack up.
@@DecayingReverie Similar
yee
those would go great with some 3d printed save icons :)
"Look, they're selling 3D icons of VLC-player"
I wonder what their use would be. Decoration perhaps
@@flightlesschicken7769 Breaking Windows
@@flightlesschicken7769 you wear them as hats when you're on a pub crawl.
Obviously its for a halloween costume duh
Just add Raspberry Pi done
I dedd Xd lollllololol
When we were kids (circa 2002) my brother and I were playing the army tank game on Intellivision. We put it down switched off the tv and went to eat or something and forgot to turn the intellivision off. We had several game consoles and only 1 tv so some time later we decided to play n64 or playstation or whatever and swapped the video input to the other console. A year or 2 later we decided to play intellivision again, we reached under the cabinet to get it out and noticed it was warm... We plugged the video back in to the tv, and the 2 army tanks were still sitting right there where we left them!!! So we resumed our game! Haha!
Oh my gosh lol that reminds me of the time I left my got glue gun plugged in for 2 weeks by accident. The barrel is still golden to this day😁
No powercuts/outages in 2 years? /R/quityourbullshit
@@jcdowen must live under an unreliable power grid if you're resetting your microwave clock more than once a year...
I can't remember the last time I had to set mine outside of daylight savings.
@@timothy2830 while personally I do live on an island 30 miles off the coast of Scotland where we have powercuts 30+ times a year, but even in a major city the likely-hood of a completely stable electrical supply are quite slim, even if it isn't a wide outage, surely a trip-switch (circuit breaker) would be tripped once in that amount of time, especially in America with the awful plug/socket design there
@@jcdowen "surely" -- why? Doesn't take much to not trip a breaker.
"If you need a pair of Balls, they do keep those in Stock" - 8-bit guy 11:00
I was looking for this comment as soon as he said the line :D
It doesn't look like he bought them.
@@Okurka. He's already got balls of steel.
that "computer" addon along with the Aquarius seems to be why nobody's talking about Mattel computers today.
you leave the aquarius alone! tron deadly disks was a great game :)
I had one when I was a kid. It was awefull for programming. It had one really good game called "mind strike". The word was they made the computer add on because they were being fined for showing a keyboard adapter for years as "coming soon" in ads, and were starting to be fined for not actually having one.
Mattel had computers? I knew about he Odyssey by Sears, but Mattel!? That's so weird.
@@Zenas521 RetroManCave did a video series on the Mattel Aquarius. Probably one of the most pathetic computers of the early 80's.
Aquarius had Utopia, which was killer!
I love how all of these projects are like a labor of love for you. I never dreamed I would find all of this retro electronic stuff interesting.
Next time before punching them out take marker pan and make lines on non conductive side to spare yourself extra work.
You know, I was thinking about this. I could totally re-engineer this thing with a 3D printed mechanism and some bubble contacts or something. It would of course never be worth the trouble but it could be done! On the other hand, that exact foam is sold at Home Depot in the cabinet area for padding. I have some of it in my shop storage bin. You should have called me!
I had also thought about 3D printing something that could be epoxied into the back side of the keys, which would then have some sort of rubberized carbon contact or something on the bottom. This would eliminate the need for the foam completely. But, didn't have the desire to undertake that.
8-Bit Keys Just big standard bubble contacts and some mechanical padding to hold up the board. Not as authentic as keeping the original plastic strip, but no custom manufacturing needed.
@@8BitKeys can you not buy standalone bubble domes?
Too bad you ran out of time on this one. I could have watched 30 minutes of this.
I think it was more of a case of getting frustrated with the project, and sometimes it's best to just walk away for a while, and come back when you are not, plus it could be eating into time needing to be spent on other videos.
i do hope he comes back to it, i love this channel
@@CommodoreFan64 Same story if you get married.
@@Ndlanding Or you have a girlfriend who has moved in with ya LoL!
LOL, he didn't "run out of time." He could have given you 10 hours if he had really wanted to.
Can we take a moment to appreciate David cutting out 48(!) little circular conductive things, checking the conductivity on each side of each circle, putting all of them up to the right place, and doing all this masking and overall putting that much effort into this thing?
I gotta admire this guy's patience and innovation! Many thanks for filming and posting.
This is where Apple got their new dongle-adapter hell scheme from! 😂🙈
ua-cam.com/video/kAG39jKi0lI/v-deo.html
Well...
oldcomputers.net/pics/ti994-sidecars.jpg
And Apple has only dongle hell because you aren't upgrading your stuff in tune with technology. You see everyone else comes after half a decade later.
@@GeirEivindMork : Yup. The great Apple gets to decide when people should throw out their older but perfectly usable technology. How dare people not throw out something that works for them!
Not Apple - Tim Cook, bet his favorite toy was Barbie doll, as thin as possible to sell clothes (covers, adapters) once it's broken get another one.
Syntax higlighting!
When I saw that I wondered if the color coding was because BASIC was storing the commands themselves as tokens and the rest as plain text. I seem to recall a number of different BASIC versions doing that, and you could save the program as "tokenized" or all text.
Totally amazed and delighted that I came across this video tonight. I grew up with playing the Intellivision I & II with my siblings in the early 80's, and I still have both consoles along with the voice synthesizer and system changer and tons of games. Also, I'm a musician who plays 80's retrowave / electro pop on several analog and digital synths. so this video was a total gem for me. ~ Never knew Mattel had a keyboard and ECS unit for their system. I know it takes some time for me to upload videos when I'm managing two or three camera angles on a synth session, but dude... all this footage and clips of you breaking down the chassis and running around to hobby shops to find the right materials, and then putting it together... more patience than anyone I know. You really made such an informative and interesting video here and followed through on all of your hard work. Very impressive! Thanks so much for sharing.
if you run into difficultly finding foam again, hit me up, we have place here in Australia called Clark Rubber, that has a large range of foam rubber and foams in multiple sizes, as they are a specialist in stocking foam rubbers
Those Clark rubber ads scared me when I was little
Fun fact
Can they deliver in plain, brown paper, sealed packages without the firm's name on?
@@Ndlanding hold up
If you're getting two balls, you might as well get some foam rubbers while you're at it.
I was able to stop by and visit David while he was finishing this video up. Such a nice guy and great to his fans.
My brother lives in Ft. Worth. I'll be visiting him in Feb 2020, would love to meet David as well.
12:57 you could have sprayed the non-conductive side of the whole sheet with some sparse pale paint before punching circles. This would saved you a lot of multimeter testing time
This video is not just an 8-Bit Keys, but also an 8-Bit Guy style video at the same time. Never before have I felt so intrigued to click faster on the replay.
Damn, you put a lot of work into that foam thing
This was such a ridiculous undertaking, I was always impressed by the ingenuity it took to get it to work, even if it wasn't perfect.
everyone: never have water near electronics
this man: hold my casio
You are awesome. I'd had given up after the finding of the painted foam strip. But not only did you come up with a solution how to restore this piece of ... electronic waste, in the end and many hours of nerve wracking one shots you brought it actually back to life. Chapeau!
I was kinda thinking you’d end up using weather stripping foam. Cause I think that’d be an appropriate alternate.
That restoration took a whole new level of dedication, you can't help but be impressed.
Absolutely do an ECS video. Retro Man Cave just did an Aquarius series (And it's fantastic by the way, check it out), He mentioned these in the history of that machine and now I'm intrigued by these little weird computer add ons I've never heard of.
I binge watched every episode and you inspired me to pick up an old Casio on Ebay. Thank you for the trip down memory lane.
My goodness, that was really a pain in the ass to repair this keyboard!
I just figured something out. I've watched a number of _8-Bit Keys_ videos, as well as computer restoration ones, but it was not clear to me why you even wanted to do some of the stuff you do. The answer hit me while watching this one. *You are a "hot-rodder"!* Just that instead of cars, you use old computers and keyboards, striving to get them back to "cherry" condition. Cool!
"So, I'm going to have to test eeeach individual one with a multimeter to figure out which side to put them on.."
Why didn't you just blanket mark/color the non-coated side /before/ punching them out..? o_O
I had a good laugh at the vlc joke, I laughed even more at that part of the video XD
I bet just didnt think of it before... like when remembering heat shrink after wire is soldered :D
@@enjibkk6850 can I have a timestamp for the vlc joke? I seemed to miss or it it went over my head 😕
@@Ryan1456100 here you go: 11:17
@@YyXblu thanks, I must've been reading the comments or something because if it were real it would've slapped me right in the face with how obvious it was 😂
@@enjibkk6850 : Except that you can get this vinyl paint-on "heat shrink" stuff (they actually call it liquid electrical tape), so _that_ one you can easily (even if messily) fix.
Although not really interested in the music side of things, I still found myself watching this just for the fantastic presentation and walkthrough of the repairs. Superb vid as ever! 🙂
Does the intellivision require retrobriting or are the accessories a different colour anyway?
Looks like the keyboard could stand it, but the other parts are their original colors.
All 3 devices are Intellivisions.
Dave, you're truly an expert, at fabricating some interesting solutions, to the problems that arise.
Who else is screaming self adhesive draft excluder that is made for doors and windows?
(hand up)
aaaaah!
i admire your tenacity to get this thing fixed. I would of gave up long ago.
"3-dimensional icon for VLC media player"
😂
it sucks when u put so much effort and time on a project and it "just kinda works" but at the end you realize you need to restart the whole process; but I appreciate your video showing these no-so-good results, because if you are a hacker at heart you always keep trying no matter how many times "it just kinda works" or dont work at all
"I suppose if you need a pair of balls..."
Are they made of steel?
I just LOVE when the synth music kicks in, and the restoration begins!
There's also a BASIC adapter for the Atari 2600, believe it or not.
Yes, please do a video (or two) on the Matell ECS! I would love to see just what's in the box and how it works!
I believe every console from the 80's had a BASIC computer available for it. Even the NES did, but wasn't as easy to start due to the fact that it doesn't have the same expansion ports its Japanese counterpart, the Famicom, have.
@@Chaos89P The *Famicom* had Family Basic. It was never officially released for the NES in America.
Did the Master System have a BASIC mode?
@@AiOinc1 Not specifically, although there was a keyboard and BASIC cartridge for the Sega Mark-III (ie. the Japanese version of the Master System).
Ppl would die for a channel like this. And he's so busy that he let's it die
2:58 Wow, I’ve never expected syntax highlighting on machine that is over 30 years old.
Syntax highlighting is very common these days, but I’m pretty sure it was very uncommon back then.
Well, the ZX Spectrum does it too, sort of. It actually checks for code syntax in real time as you're typing!
@Lassi Kinnunen I replied to a different comment before seeing this one; I remember a number of BASICs doing that, storing commands as "tokens" of a byte or two. Since these were interpreted BASICs back then (not compiled into a pure executable binary) using tokens saved space like you said, and was faster, sort of like pre-interpreted a bit.
Yes! I hit LIKE for any 8-bit keys video. It’s like Christmas. 🙏
I've been thinking about fixing my Intellivision Synthesizer for years, but could never find any kind of tutorial. Thank you so much for this video! It's not a great keyboard, but as far as I know it's the first one for a game console. That's worth something, right?
Hey, I have one in the mass of old console/computer crap in the basement so at least 3 of them were sold!
@@SirWussiePants Yeah, they turn up from time to time. The darker ones that match the original system color are pretty rare though.
All of this effort for a piano for the Intellivision. David you are a saint!
"Obviously this could be fixed [...] but, guess what?
I'm actually not going to do that."
Right choice. :D
A whole 4 months! Missed this channel!
A remarkable amount of genius and industry to repair a complete piece of crap!
Such is restoration.
Yup, the keyboard foam strip in these are horrible. Ran into this myself on the original brown model.
But I love that fix. I simply cleaned up the existing strip as best I could, but it was still terrible. I might have to do a Part 2 on my original video.
Nice work David.
This old foam looks like it's from a yoga mat.
You're pretty good at the coding, the disassembly, the electronics, the soldering, etc. But you're also really good at stuff like figuring out that foam strip. No manuals out there to read to learn how to fix things like that. You're adaptive!
woo hoo! a new 8-bit keys!
Lost count of the number of times you called it a 48 note keyboard when in fact it's 49: four octaves plus the extra top C, same as most other keyboards. Great restoration well done.
If he counts like that, I hope he's still got all 10 fingers and toes!
*"I suppose if you need a pair of balls, they do keep those in stock"*
_- The 8-Bit Guy, 2019_
I love how tenacious and thorough you are.
12:55 dangit i wanted that last hit
This is, like, the most work that you’ve ever done. I salute you, man.
I can't wait until they start selling the Save Icon from Microsoft Word!
I'm waiting for them to sell the save icon from San Andreas!
It is still a surprise to me even after years of being a technician, how easy the 8bit guy figures out how to fix stuff like kinda mcgyver.
11:18 "VLC media player" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
So fun to watch how one can overcome the little obstacles you have when you are trying to make things great again. Interesting
Where is that "demo" part?
Before the repair part
David keeps saying he runs out of time in order to make the videos he posts short, but I think a lot of us, including myself, would absolutely adore videos double the length. I love this content so much.
Could have just grabbed door weatherstripping foam from Home Depot.
That was so familiar. The Lisa2/Macintosh XL keyboard was foam and conductors and the foam was mostly disintegrated. What an incredibly cheap design for such an expensive computer. For my project I attached a mylar sheet to a double-sided adhesive foam sheet and punched out each foam mylar circle. Like your situation, the foam ended-up being too stiff but all keys worked.
David why didn’t you mark the mylar sheet with a sharpie BEFORE cutting them out 😂
Wow so much time and effort restoring and repairing that keyboard, I salute you sir
Hobby Lobby...UGH!
?
@@Pookie2112 They're bigots
Growing up I did not know anyone with an Intellivision and only just started collecting for it (mostly because of the D&D games). I am constantly amazed at the number of things I was unaware of for this system when I was a kid!
Glad to have you back. This channel has been quiet for far too long
My local Goodwill just acquired tons of casio and yamaha keyboards! I thought if only David were here!
Removing the pcb from the plastic is really easy: Just carefully cut the melted plastic flush with the pcb.
You should now be able to remove the PCB. You are then left with plastic tabs which you can use to mount the pcb onto later.
When reassembling, just slot the pcb back onto the tabs until they are flush with the top of the keyboard.
Now, to get the pcb to stay put, here's what you do:
Get a small phillips head screwdriver which. Heat the tip of the screwdriver almost glowing hot with a lighter or similar.
Then, carefully press the tip of the screwdriver into the flush cut tab. This will force the plastic out in a sort of cross which locks the pcb into place.
I've used this method a hundred times in situations like this. Works every time.
What about a blob of super-hot glue? Not with the glue gun, with the hot air station or the paint stripper gun. Super hot glue bonds better.
I grew up with the Intellivision 2 but I didn't know they were offering all these things!!!! I watched your video and I'm not sad that it didn't know keyboard and shit existed! Back in 1980, my parents bought the intellivision 2 for me as a xmas gift and I had so much fun with it!!!!
Quality show that I enjoy.
Maybe the foam/keys will loosen up a bit after playing it over time.
The determination is appreciated!
A few breath holding moments! I could almost smell the spray adhesive.
Finally, a new video from 8bitguy. I missed his videos
That kind of patience comes only from love to old technology...
Great job. I always enjoy your work... Please keep up with it. Greetings from Argentina...
"I suppose if you need a pair of balls, they do keep those in stock"
Funny
I had the ECS when I was a kid. It was really fun typing in the BASIC programs from the book.
David, if you need to make other keyboard circles, I found it works well to draw on one side of the mylar with marker before you cut the circles. When I do KeyTronic foams, where the conductive side is away from the board, I use the marker on the conductive side. In this case it would work well to do the opposite.
A new 8 Bit Keys video? How the day is blessed with such wonder!
Welcome back!!! I’ve been waiting for a new video on this channel. Don’t get me wrong, I love 8-but guy videos but the repair videos are my absolute favorite.
11:00 been needing a new pair! thanks, 8-bit guy!
Very interesting fix to a very unique and troublesome problem. Foam weather strip is what came to mind. THD has some that is very squishy and comes in various widths and thicknesses.
Wow, we didn't realize that you also did Inty stuff. Pretty good coverage. Thanks for doing+sharing!
Wow, that was such a quest to restore the keyboard, no surprise video took so long to be made. Nonetheless, that's a great job, I guess that's what makes the review so interesting. Thank you!
Thank you for your videos. I have anxiety and i find your channel incredibly calming and so interesting.
You rock. In some ways, I admire you. After day #4, I would have chucked the whole thing in the can. You certainly have far more perseverance than I do. The same thing for your 8-bit computer that you are working on. I certainly have the skills to design it (MSEE). I have even toyed with the idea myself. But you are the one with the perseverance to actually make it happen.
Glad to see a video on this channel.
May wanna put a disclaimer that you're able to get PCBs wet as long as you let them dry, some people's don't know that.
This is a really impressive fix david way to go!
Very impressive. You have far more patience than I do.
Holy cow at the work on this. He has the patience of Job. Yes, you have earned the right to move on to something else!
A foam rubber workout/yoga mat would probable be the exact match to the foam you need.
Back in the early 2000’s I had that full setup, it was really cool to have
congrats on 200k subs
Congratulations on 200,000 subscribers!!