Retro Repair Bear

TurboGrafX TurboExpress Recap

claire — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 10:52:13 +0000

Something fancy today! Fun fact: This is the console they’re searching for in the top 90s movie Enemy of the State, with Will Smith. Lots of pictures, bear with. This one has been languishing in the repair queue, along with its even fancier cousin, as I needed to allot more time to the two of […]

Atari Lynx II Recap, Screen, Buttons & USB Power

claire — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 09:26:14 +0000

That’s a lot isn’t it! The Lynx is a really underrated system. With some modern, quality of life mods it is really playable. I really like it. Perhaps even prefer it to the Game Gear. An Atari Lynx may one day be added to the shopping list! The Lynx comes in two versions. The original […]

Schneider CPC464 Grey Screen of Death

claire — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 10:44:48 +0000

Another 8 bit system. There’s been a bit of a run of them recently. The Schneider CPC 464 is essentially the Amstrad CPC 464 used by most of Europe. Not very commonly seen in the UK. It follows the same Schneider styling seen in the recent 6128. This one came in as not loading tapes. […]

Load-It C64 Datasette

claire — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 22:03:00 +0000

Something different this time, this is a Phonemark Load-It style datasette for the Commodore 64. It’s in a bit of a rough shape. A Datasette is just what Commodore like to call the data recorder. Data recorders are cassette recorders designed for loading data. Cassettes are… This is making me feel soooo old! It’s normally […]

Game Gear Screen Replacement

claire — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 10:44:03 +0000

A continuation of the Game Gear that was recapped last week. It’s not ideal doing this in two stages but it’s often the case with these. You can never really tell what state the original screen is in until the system has been recapped. We’re fitting a RetroSix Clean Screen v4 to this lucky Game […]

A Flaky ZX Spectrum 48k

claire — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 16:20:42 +0000

This Spectrum came in having become a bit flaky. It was actually booting though, which gives a good indication that the lower RAM is OK. There are two banks of RAM in a 48k Spectrum. The Lower RAM is 16k and needed to boot. You typically get strange patterns on screen if there is a […]

Schneider CPC 6128 Not Reading Disks

claire — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 09:26:17 +0000

Although essentially an Amstrad CPC 6128 and common in Europe, these are quite unusual to see in the UK. They differ mostly in styling, with the grey keys. The floppy drive in these is a 3 inch CF2 drive. This model (Matsushita EME-150A) is slightly unusual in that the head travel mechanism is all contained […]

Game Gear Red Light On then Off

claire — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 15:25:11 +0000

Game Gears will always need a recap unless they have already been done. They are one of the consoles that absolutely need it. They suffer from leakage, which causes corrosion. Left unchecked it can cause significant damage. This one came in, likely the same, but it would boot and the red light would come on. […]

A Vectrex with a White Dot

claire — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 16:58:50 +0000

This is a common symptom on the Vectrex. It can have many different causes but this one was one of the more unusual. When the Vectrex isn’t receiving an output from the logic board, you end up with a white dot. It’s important to turn it off if this happens to yours, or at least […]

Panasonic 3DO FZ-1 Power Issue

claire — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 14:16:01 +0000

This 3DO came in reported as just having stopped working. It was a recent purchase which worked initially and then stopped while being used. We’re having a really unpleasant heatwave at the moment so keeping this short! Bench Temp: 37C These are one of those unfortunate consoles that really badly suffer from capacitor leakage. It […]