New Zealand Vintage Computer Forums

Apricot arrived today (purchased from Trade-Me)

Opened box, took it out, placed it on the table, took Standard D-Plug connector, plugged it in....

*Boom-shanka* lots of noise coming out the speaker, clearly D.O.A.

was very easy to find out it didn't work, I mean in less than 1 minute the results where in...

There is a loud buzzing sound coming out of the speaker when powered up ?

It's been said here before, but if something's listed as "untested" assume it's DOA and bid accordingly. If something is trivial to test and is listed as "untested" there's a good chance it has been tested and and is guaranteed to be DOA

Computer is now working, I switched it on and off a couple dozen times because I was laughing (to myself) about how every time it was switched on it made a different pitched note, (was laughing because it sounded like a synth) , I took out a couple of screws and did the *atari drop on it*, now it works

Comes up 512K RAM on keyboards LCD Display after a few seconds (and date, seconds are ticking away) .

Nice little Beep now instead of screaming constant notes coming out of the speaker !

According to motherboard it was made in the UK by Act Computers LTD, has 1984 on version sticker.

Next job is to figure out the video connector...

RonTurner wrote:Next job is to figure out the video connector...

I love the Apricot PC/Xi. They're very British; technically and aesthetically brilliant, ahead of their time, unreliable and incompatible. They run a variant on MS-DOS but aren't PC compatible. They have a proprietary 800x400 monochrome display. This might help:


[EDIT: removed accidental paste]

Ian West
Aug 30, 2003


The PC video connector pinout is:

Pin Description
1 +12v out
2 no connection
3 0v
4 horizontal sync
5 vertical sync
6 frame ground
7 no connection
8 ground (signal ground?)
9 video signal

This is the same as the Xi (I ran the same monitors on both at one
time), but I am not sure if the F1 is the same.

Text below table in tech. ref. manual:

"Both sync signals are at standard positive TTL levels. The frequency
of the Horizontal Sync pulses to match the standard 9 inch Display Unit
is 15.79 kHz; the frequency of the Vertical Sync Pulses, 72 Hz. The
amplitude of the video signal is fixed at 0.3V for normal intensity
video, 0.4V for high intensity. The maximum current allowed to be drawn
from the +12V suipply is 1.0A."

http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/acta ... ssages/174

Yeah, it looks like an Xi, I also found PDF's for the manuals.

Its one of those brief case computers (has a carry handle)

Thanks for the info , I will (try and) make up a video cable for it over the next few weeks.

There is a card inside it with two ribbons cables attached, looks like a HDD would have connected to it (maybe)

it will be interesting to see what comes up on the screen, probably something like *Missing Drive*