This is so cool I just have to share it with you all. Today I picked up a parcel from the post office. I’ll let the pictures tell the story…
So now I am the proud owner of two brand new ZX81 kits and a couple of new ZX81 books. The kit boxes have been dinged slightly, but considering these are about 25 years old, that’s to be expected. This is so fricken cool! 8^)
A few days ago I started to see blog posts about three new Atari 2600 keyring games appearing all over the blogosphere. These games can be found over at ThinkGeek.com and sound really neat – mini joysticks (or paddles) that contain two or three classic Atari 2600 games.
Then I stumbled across this thread over at AtariAge.com… Bugger! These sounded like a nice idea – shame about the implementation. 
I’ve been searching the internet for information on the Soord M5, but while there are a large number of hits on Google, there is not a great deal of technical information, unless you can speak Czech…
I’m trying to find the pinout for the power supply so I can builld a replacement because the Sord M5 I won on eBay didn’t have a power supply. The PS connector is a 6-pin DIN and the voltages are +5V, +12V and -12V so if I can work out which voltage goes to which pin I should be able to build a replacement easily enough. I did find a schematic in my searches so I should be able to use that to determine the voltages required on the pins of the power connector…
Today I picked up a parcel which had been waiting at the post office since last friday (unfortunately I have been out of action with the flu ) and it contained the Sord M5 I recently won on eBay. The Sord M5 is definitely an interesting little beastie and quite a rare one at that. In the years that I have been collecting old computers I haven’t come across one for sale, so I snapped this one up when I saw it. (Although to be honest, I probably paid too much for it…)
The Sord M5 is a cute little machine with a chicklet keyboard and this one is in excellent condition – some of the included tapes and cartridges are still sealed in fact! Unfortunately one thing that was missing from the box is the power supply, so I can’t fire it up and test it. At the moment there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of information on the Sord M5 on the ‘net, so coming up with a work-around for the power supply might be a bit tricky…