Big Box of Retro Cables and Mystery Parts

Elliot Foulger, a good friend from Facebook, sent me what was billed as a big box of crap: mostly cables and things that don’t work, plus a few oddities. It sat unopened for about two weeks under a layer of dust from our building works, so by the time I filmed this I’d forgotten what was in it. Some of it I still can’t identify, so if you recognise anything, let me know.

A power supply case for an Amiga A1200 project

The first useful find was a power supply case, something I’d needed for a while. I suspect my A1200 is underpowered, as a lot of them are, so the plan is to house the guts of an ATX power supply in this case to feed it. Next out was a mystery beige device with an infrared window, labelled Mobile Action Technology MA600. I’ve no idea what it does.

Power supply case for an Amiga A1200 ATX power supply project, from a donated box — A PSU case for an A1200 ATX power project

Cables, an Electron interface and joysticks

Then came the cables: RF leads, an aerial extension, IDE and floppy cables, and a lead with a seven-pin DIN that I think is an Acorn Electron cassette cable with motor control, which is worth a pinout. There was also a First Byte add-on that I’m fairly sure is a joystick interface for the Acorn Electron, as it uses the same style of port as the back of the Plus 1.

First Byte joystick interface for the Acorn Electron from a donated box of retro parts — A First Byte joystick interface for the Electron, I think

Joysticks included a pair of the hilariously named Cheetah Annihilators (shockingly bad, with lots of play, and I always assumed the name was because you annihilate them quickly) and a sturdier Spectravideo stick that is probably Atari/Commodore standard, though I’ll check the pinout.

Spectravideo joystick from a box of donated retro computer cables and parts — A sturdier Spectravideo joystick

The oddities

A project box with a DB9 connector that seems to connect to a Neos ball-less mouse; the micro switches inside may get borrowed.
A five-pin DIN to five-pin DIN lead, an RCA to aerial adapter, a five-pin DIN “hydra” and lots of other DIN leads, probably audio.
Something that looks like a Mac adapter.
A bag of surface mount Ubicom SX28AC chips, plus some small components I couldn’t identify (possibly capacitors).

A non-starting Amiga 600

At the bottom was an Amiga 600 that doesn’t start and has taken quite a beating, possibly on the way here. Alongside it were a monitor expansion cable, a motherboard and some loose keys. The A600 is going to donate parts to various projects, including some of my upcoming Amiga fixes.