View Single Post
Old 28th Nov 2021, 12:59 pm   #10
SiriusHardware
Dekatron
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
Posts: 11,482
Default Re: Yet another MK14 tape interface (ESP32).

I was never happy with how hot the regulator ran when installed on the PCB itself and so when mine ended up in the wedge-shaped plywood 'console' which would become its permanent home I moved the original regulator offboard and onto a largeish finned heatsink mounted on the rear of the 'case'. The suggestion from S.O.C. that it '...might require a heatsink' was a bit of an understatement.

My Slothie 'Issue VI' replica has the traditional stand-alone configuration with the regulator and heatsink on board, but I run it on a regulated 7.5V supply to minimise voltage drop across the onboard 5V regulator.

I'm sure your crystal (grey shrink wrap, black lettering) is the one provided with the VDU kit.

I'm glad you have obviously decided to dust yours off and get to the point where you can easily demo it working.

It's a sobering thought that the Pis / Arduinos / ESP32s which we use as mere MK14 accessories nowadays are all many times more powerful than the machine they are supporting, but the MK14 was what it was, it was the only affordable 'computer' at the time, and if I had not had one and had not owned a computer until the BASIC computer era a few years later I might never have learned about microprocessors at machine level, so I will always be grateful to it for that.
SiriusHardware is online now