Hello

[dinotron]

Hi there,

new member here.  Last night I won an ebay auction for a Bee - (Microbee Series 2 16K Personal Communicator, Cassette Data Unit, Printer and monitor).  It appears to only have had 1 owner - and kept in good condition - but it was listed as untested - have yet to get my new baby home yet and see if there is life!

I have been trying to get a Bee for a while now - had one as a kid - but we parted ways when I moved interstate about 22 years ago.

Ironically this ebay unit, I think, is the same model I had - no fancy floppy drives and only 16K ram.

I suspect I might need some guidance on restoring it and getting it operational.

Hopefully I pick it up this Friday.


Cheers
Dean

[someone]

Welcome aboard and we're happy to help.

It is very likely that the bee work for the exception of the keyswitches. (Even a totally sealed packet of switches when open all failed!)
Microbees hate transit and you'll probably have to jiggle the connection between the coreboard and the baseboard a few times to get good contact.

Ensure that you don't use too high of an input voltage when powering it up.
(The monitor power supply can be a tad too high for old bees.)

You'll probably find that some of the electrolytic capacitors have lost their capacitance to some degree but often not enough to need replacement.

[ChickenMan]

Arr so you acquired that 'Bee, nice one, congratulation and welcome to the forum

Well it might have been a Series 2 originally but its been updated to a PC85 which was the last of their ROM based 'Bees and I'm sure it will be 32k as well. It has a Colour sticker on it also so the optional colour board added, nice. Will be interested in what version of PC85 you have as I have just upgraded mine a bit recently, see - https://microbeetechnology.com.au/forum/...hp?tid=366 The power pack that came with it is labelled 12v 2amp, as "someone" said I would find and use a 9.5 - 10v unit to power it up initially. I personally use a Compaq Laptop 10v power pack or a PS/2 9.5v power supply.

All the books we have in the Repository already and the tapes as well. But its the stack of other docs that may have something missing,

[dinotron]

Thanks for the info guys.

I intent to be very cautious with it. And I will inspect and check the caps and voltages before powering it up.

Very keen to find out what I have actually acquired - sounds like I am getting a little more than i expected. That will be nice.

Pick it up tomorrow - busy weekend ahead!