It was relatively cheap so I took a gamble on this Eaca EG-2000 Colour Genie Untested rare piece of retro history. Besides it was something very out of the ordinary.
The EG-2000 was released back in 1982 the same year the Commodore 64 , Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Tangerine Oric-1 and Dragon 32 as well a few others so it was a very busy marketplace which was probably why I never saw one back then and why it had such a short production life. The EACA company was already in deep financial trouble when this computer came out and by 1983 the owner, Eric Chung, basically ran off with £10million in a suitcase which resulted in the company’s collapse.
Anyway back to this particular example. The case has some battle scars and the keyboard has seen a bit of yellowing but all the keys have a good feel when pressed and it has no rattles from inside.
A look around the unit shows its in fairly good condition externally.
Interesting way to remove the cassette cable! Just chop it off instead of removing the plug.
The underside has a few marks but no serious issues. It looks like there are 3 screws securing the case so time to have a look inside.
Its a bit dusty and there’s a rats nest of a keyboard keyboard cable but all looks intact.
Pressing the top case away from the back allowed the top and bottom to separate. The keyboard cable detaches with a bit of persuasion.
The power supply is situated on the left side with one four wire connector to the motherboard.
The motherboard has two daughter boards sat on it. The middle is the memory expansion board which expands the memory of the machine from 16k to 32k. The top right board houses the system rom.
I thought it best to test the power board first before powering on the whole machine. I disconnected the four wire connector. There are three voltage regulators for 5v, 12v and -12v.
The voltage regulators pins are measured as follows.
The results
7805
1 – Input voltage 12v
2 – Ground
3 – Output voltage 5v
7812
1 – Input voltage 18v
2 – Ground
3 – Output voltage 12v
7912
1 – Ground
2 – Input voltage -18v
3 – Output voltage -12v
Note the this last VR’s ground is pin 1
The 7912 was giving a strange result so I just replaced it.
The capacitors showed no signs of bulging or leakage so I’ve left them for now.
With all the voltages looking good I connected the power cable to the motherboard , connected a composite video to my TV and turned it on.
Yes!. That was a pleasant surprise we have a prompt but what is the answer to MEM SIZE?
The technical manual says just press return and the max available will be detected.
Unfortunately the return key wasn’t working. In fact the only keys that would work were ‘R’,’5′.
Time to diassemble the keyboard. I hope its not a membrane based design as it will be next to impossible to go any further.