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Good morning guys and welcome back to the ValorosoIT channel, the channel dedicated to retrocomputers and vintage electronics. If you are interested in these topics, I invite you to subscribe to the channel and activate the notification bell. Today we are dealing with this gentleman, this Philips VG5000 computer, of which I showed you the unboxing the other day. It is a computer that was produced by a French company and resold by Philips from 1984 to 1986. It is equipped with 24 KB of RAM, although in reality of these 24 kilobytes declared on the computer, only 16 are related to the program and 8 are intended for video memory. It also comes with 18 KB of Rom.
Together with the lot I had purchased, there was also the Philips VG-0022 power supply, which is very useful for powering this computer, certainly, but also this one here, the Philips VG-8010 which I had already shown you in the video and which I had to use all the connectors and crocodiles to power... In short, a mess! But finally, with this power supply, if it works, it should also be able to power this computer here.
The first test I do when I have to connect a vintage computer to the mains is to test the power supply voltages. I suggest you do it too. I have published a series of videos in which I show that it is a necessary operation, since, if a power supply were damaged and gave the wrong voltage, perhaps even higher than the nominal value of, I don't know, 5 Volts, let's say it gave 7V, 8V, it could damage the electronics of the computer and we don't want that. So, first of all, I will test the power supply voltages of the power supply with the tester.
Next, we try to connect this computer to the monitor and see if it works, but I am convinced that it works because the seller stated that it is tested and working and also posted a photo of the computer running. Finally, if everything is OK, I will also connect the Philips VG8010 with its video cable, because it is different than this one here, which is SCART, of the VG 5000, and let's see if that computer also works. The Philips VG8010 is an MSX computer and therefore complies with the MSX standard, while the Philips VG5000 is not compliant. The software used on the VG5K is proprietary to this platform, but they can be found, given that there are both emulators and software relating to the Philips VG 5000 on the internet.
Let's get to the heart of testing the supply voltages of the Philips VG5000 computer power supply. So, first of all, what should we test about the connectors? There are little pins. Me on my website www.valoroso.it I very often publish the computer data sheets I have in my collection. For example, the Philips VG8010 or even others, such as Commodores. In short, not everyone, because it takes a lot of time to complete these cards. But I have done it on several computers. And I also put some documentation inside these computer cards. In this case I also included the pinout of the power connector and, below, the list of pins.
So, in this case, we see the connector with the two rotation identification tabs. Obviously because the connector must be inserted in a specific position. We see him with one up and one left. In this case, I have to put one at the top and one on the right. Because, in this case, the connector can be seen as it fits inside the computer. So, from behind. From behind it is exactly like this. So, one up and one left. Instead, by turning it, one will come up and one to the right. At this point, if I know that there must be 5 Volts at the bottom left, when I go to check at the bottom right compared to for example at the top left, instead of at the top right as it is written here on the diagram, because I am seeing it in a mirror.
So, first of all, we connect the power supply to the electrical network, try to turn on the plug. And you can't see any smoke and this is already, in any case, a fairly positive thing. With the tester, being careful not to make short circuits, and if you don't know how to do it, let someone who knows how to do it, let's check... the television in the back also turned on! We check the voltages, therefore at the bottom right +5 Volts, at the top left GND. No... So it's not like there's a power switch? Yes, exactly, it was on zero, so now I'm going to put it on one. Here on the ValorosoIT channel there are always problems, let's try. Ok, nothing exploded even now, so let's do the voltage test again.
We expect to find 5 Volts. That's fine, 5.28 V. Still with respect to Massa which is at the top left, we need to find the +12V at the top right. And there it is. And at the bottom left the negative, the -12 Volt. And there it is. Perfect, the voltages are correct. You have seen that the wires dance a little, so if you want you can use crocodiles, but isolate them as I have shown in other videos. But if you don't feel like it because you think you'll ruin, perhaps the connector, or make a short circuit between a pin and the metal casing that should be connected to Earth, at that point, what I really suggest is to have it done by a technician, because if you make some short circuit you run the risk of doing more damage than actually checking the supply voltages.
Another question that I get asked every now and then is: 'But isn't it dangerous to check the voltages on the power supply?' Yes, it could be, because if someone played a joke and connected the 220 volts directly to these pins, the situation would become very complicated indeed. I don't think the power supply can short circuit enough to bring the mains voltage directly to the connector. But something that is not probable could still be possible in very, very remote cases. So yes, it's risky, but I do it. You don't do it. No, I'm joking! You do it anyway, but using all the precautions you need to use.
Now, the power supply we have seen that it works. We can easily connect it to the computer and connect the computer to the television. Ok, power off. We can also remove the tablet. The video connector of the Philips VG5000 VG5K has a SCART socket on one side which must be connected to the inside of the television. It's a bit dark here, but there's SCART. The round DIN connector that is connected to the back of the computer. So, we connect the SCART and, behind the computer, this here is the video connector... we connect it. Always behind the computer, we connect the power connector. You see that it has these two location identification keys, so up and to the left.
Well, it's all connected as we saw before: computer connected to the TV and also connected to the power supply. The television is already on audio/video input and therefore we can proceed to turn it on. Let's see what happens. Yes, he's gone! We see the writing VG 5000 Basic version 1.1 with 13,500… no… 13,758 bytes available. Obviously it is written in French because the computer is French and also has a French keyboard, as we also saw the other day during unboxing. It doesn't have the normal key layout, so it's not as we know it with the QWERTY layout, but it's an AZERTY layout.
I hadn't pressed 'M'. Now it will give an error. Let's see if we can do a simple 'Print' maybe '10' 'Print'... are the quotes there? Yes, shift + 3. My website 'www.' What's the point here? What's the point? Shift. valoroso.it, shift +, shift 3 for the quotes, enter. Let's see if we can give the 'Run' and, at this point, it should simply write 'www.valoroso.it'. Exact! So, the computer is working, we're ready.
Now, for the second test in the video, we will try to power the Philips VG8010 with this Philips VG0022 power supply and obviously connect it to the television. To connect this computer to the television, I had already shown how to build an audio-video cable for the Philips MSX, therefore for the Philips VG8010, VG8020 and also VG8000, but in a version with composite video output, because those with RGB output need that other RGB cable. So, behind the TV, now I connect these three wires, I already showed you in the other video, so I won't show you any further. The video connector, audio video, connects behind the MSX computer, in this case MSX, and it fits. And the power connector, again paying attention to polarity, plugs into this position here.
How exciting, if we can connect this computer with the original power supply! With just one purchase, I solved two problems: 1) having an extra computer in my collection and 2) powering this Philips. Let's try! Yes, it turned on. Then you see badly, but this is the fault of the television. So with this TV every now and then it gives me these problems. It does it with the Vic20, it does it with many retro computers. That's why I bought another TV that I painted white, and there are short videos to prove it. It arrived destroyed and I had to dismantle it, fix it up and paint it white. Let's try to connect that. Let's see if it works.
So, in reality, I had painted this white monitor white 1) because it arrived broken and 2) because it goes well with white vintage computers, like the Commodore 64. This way I could make a nice video with an LCD monitor that goes well with the Commodore 64. This is why I initially put the black monitor that went well with this Philips VG8010, also with the previous Philips VG5000 that we tried. But, if it looks bad, before thinking that maybe the computer isn't working, I said: 'Okay, let's put the TV in white'.
Come on, let's put the television in white, even if it doesn't match, and, as you can see, it looks very good. It is precisely that other television which, for whatever reason, is unable to tune the audio-video input well. That is, not even the antenna, just the audio-video: it's a very strange thing. Sometimes you have to turn it on three, four times, and then after that it can display the image fine. But normally, I mean, it takes a little bit of time. But we are not here to play, that is, we also have to hurry to do these things, it's not like we can spend three hours behind a television.
Well, I'm happy, the power supply works, the computer works, everything connects perfectly, and so I have another computer to add to the collection. If this video has been useful or inspired you in any way, please give a like, leave a comment, subscribe to the ValorosoIT channel, activate the notification bell, and we'll see you in the next video. Bye bye!