Issues with my Vic 20

[ral-clan]

Those sound good, but I have a two-prong VIC. I would be looking for a replacement for the power supply for that. Or would there be any point in replacing the power supply for a two-prong VIC - isn't part of the power supply actually inside the older VIC model?

The power supply is inside the VIC but, correct me if I am wrong but I thought one of your objective was to get rid of the heating parts of the PSU inside your VIC.

Yeah, I really only meant replacing the external power adapter part. I don't know enought to start removing power supply parts inside the VIC.

I guess I really don't have a full understanding of why the 2-prong VIC has part of its power supply inside and part outside. So....9VAC goes from the external power adapter into the VIC, then what happens? This is converted to 9V DC and 5V DC inside the VIC?

I don't really understand why the external power supply would output any AC at all. Why doesn't it just send 9V DC to the VIC, since the VIC motherboard doesn't need any AC at all to operate - all the chips use DC, right?

You can see I don't really understand electronics all that well.

Oh, and I'd just like to remind everyone of the nice, fairly comprehensive power supply article we have in the Denial Wiki:

http://sleepingelephant.com/denial/wiki ... r_Supplies

[Clockmeister]

That's interesting. I think, but am not sure, that when the fuse blows inside the 2-prong VIC, the machine doesn't work at all (can anyone confirm?).

Confirmed.

Thermal cycling kills chips, and the greater the temp differential between ambient and operating, the quicker they will fail. That is why adding a heatsink which will lower the operating temperature will increase the life of the chip and that is also why chips that run the hottest have the shortest lifespan. The best way to keep chips from dying, ideally, is to not cycle as often.

[6502dude]

The best way to keep chips from dying, ideally, is to not cycle as often.

This was one consideration in MegaCart design.

With reset switch to end game and toggle back to the menu, there is not a need to power Vic-20 off/on.
This is a bit easier on the hardware and hopefully will help prolong the life of our favoutite little computer.