Production for 464 Plus Tape lids and Cartridge Cases!

[Winslow Leach]

I have been given a 464 plus which i plan to restore, its not in the best of condition but is recoverable.


The tape deck lid is missing and would like to source a replacement


cheers


Dave

[Gryzor]

A bit hard... only if you find a non-working, for-spares 464...

[steve]

I would not hold my breath waiting for someone to say they have a tape lid you can have, you might be better off making a simple lid to cover the tape compartment.

[BluesBrothers]

Would seriously like one of these myself and I realise that it's highly unlikely I'll find someone willing to part with one.
Soooo..... What I wondered was if anyone was able to lend one for a week or two. I have developed a partnership recently with an old friend who makes stuff out of plastics and has an injection moulding machine and we could potentially knock out a small run of these but need an original to work from. If I could lay hands on the loan of one to take a mould then we could get it done. Would this interest anyone?

[steve]

I could lend you a tape lid to copy, send me a PM with your address, we are also looking for a way to make cartridge cases, do you think your friend could make these as well?

[Winslow Leach]

I would be very interested    The computer has come up really quite nice considering the state i received it in. Amazing what hydrogen peroxide and sun can do for yellowed plastics. Just need a tape lid to complete it 

[BluesBrothers]

Cheers Steve PM sent.
No worries Winslow if I can get a good colour match up I will certainly look to make a batch of lids available here.

[TFM]

Soooo..... What I wondered was if anyone was able to lend one for a week or two. I have developed a partnership recently with an old friend who makes stuff out of plastics and has an injection moulding machine and we could potentially knock out a small run of these but need an original to work from. If I could lay hands on the loan of one to take a mould then we could get it done. Would this interest anyone?

Could you do Cartridge shells for the 6128 Plus too? I would be very interrested in that.

[BluesBrothers]

Could you do Cartridge shells for the 6128 Plus too? I would be very interrested in that.

I would of thought that would be possible. Thing is I'm not going to get carried away promising that I'll have everything anybody wants in plastic made up for them, but.... given a modest but resonable enough demand, i.e. enough to justify creating the aluminuim cast, then yes we'd certainly try to fulfil that demand.
I am intending to trek over to my friends place with some samples this weekend coming with a view to creating some repair parts for my own purposes. One thing I was also seriously considering was remanufacturing a decent joystick or even a small range of sticks for various machines but there are other developments in pipeline also so watch this space.
Anyway bottom line being let me know what your after and in what numbers and I'll find out what is possible in due course

[steve]

Regrettably I am unable to lend the plus lid, I forgot he wanted a plus lid and so I was offering a CPC lid which is not what is wanted, so if anyone has a plus casstte lid they could lend Bluesbrothers it could result in new spare lids becoming available as spares.
It seems that broken cassette lids is a common failure with the plus machines.

[steve]

I am commited to buying ten cartridge shells if they are made.

[BluesBrothers]

Regrettably I am unable to lend the plus lid, I forgot he wanted a plus lid and so I was offering a CPC lid which is not what is wanted, so if anyone has a plus casstte lid they could lend Bluesbrothers it could result in new spare lids becoming available as spares.
It seems that broken cassette lids is a common failure with the plus machines.

Cheers Steve and no worries my friend.
As I understand it the problem was that people actually took the tape lids off to aid better loading, put the lid away for safe keeping and lid and system were never reunited. That's what I'm told anyway
I'd need a larger order than 10 cart cases to justify a run but I'm sure that a group of people might add to that commitment and so make it worthwhile? It's certainly something which I think would get we'll used with people creating their own multicarts and such like

[steve]

Quite a few people here are waiting for someone who can supply cartridge cases, I am sure in the next few days you will get an idea of just how many would sell in just the first batch.
When cases are available, new cartridge games will be written.

[BluesBrothers]

Quite a few people here are waiting for someone who can supply cartridge cases, I am sure in the next few days you will get an idea of just how many would sell in just the first batch.
When cases are available, new cartridge games will be written.

Had a sneaky suspicion that would be the case and will be able to tell more on the situation after this coming weekend. I will certainly bear you in mind.

Till then anyone PLEASE, PLEASE, can you loan out a 464+ tape lid?

[steve]

And don't forget the polish bootleggers who will run out of amstrad cartridges sometime and will need a new supplier.

[Bryce]

There's easily a market for cartridge cases in the hundreds. I'd take quite a few too, depending on the price.

Bryce.

[arnoldemu]

I will buy some cartridge cases.

BTW, I know what you mean about the 464 plus tape lid. Thankfully mine does have one, but it too is sitting in a box seperate from the computer, because it is definitely easier to put the cassette in without it AND because there is no tape counter, you can look at the tape on the reels to know how far it's got!!

[BluesBrothers]

Ok fellas I'll get on it.

When you say 100's Bryce can you give me a bit more of a guide as to high or low hundreds and I mean just an educated guess, I won't hold you to it. I dont want to produce 1000 to find myself sitting on 900 two years down the line.

So I guess you guys would also like boards to go in 'em?  This could be possible to via another friend of mine. Obviously you'd put the proms in yourselves

[TFM]

Hi!
Well, I would need 100 Cartridges for my games. I will sell these Cart-Games for the price I have to pay for the hardware. I already have the ACID chips and the PCB is in the CPC-Wiki, to Cartridges is all I will need. All games are specifically made for the 464 / 6128 Plus and use the 512 KB of the Cartridge.

Sadly I don't have a 464 for the tape lid.

Oh, I don't mind the Cartridge shells being plastic of aluminium, as long as I can get 100 of them :-D
Greetings,
TFM

[BluesBrothers]

Ok, well looks like I'm going over to my mates Friday night through Saturday and will see what can be done and send him on a pricing up mission then.

Few questions;
1) are you all wanting to stick with the original cream colouring of the pluses or will other colours be prefered? Would prefer to keep to one colour but open to reasonable suggestions
2) are all cart cases standard or are any deviations required from the originals?
3) any other plastics required whilst I'm looking into this? - I may as well explore/suggest other ideas with him whilst I'm over there. If there's enough merit in making the cast then it could be a goer.

On a personal note I'm looking to see if he can produce me a case for a rather special 464+ (upgraded to 6128) add on/docking station with 3" & 3.5" floppies, surround speakers and lots of goodies. If he's able to produce me the case then I'll no doubt be posting more 'bout this on a seperate post. At the mo however it is still in the dream stage so I'll keep you all posted if it takes off

[steve]

The cartridge cases we want will be identical to the Basic/Burning rubber cartridge that is used by the PLUS models.
As for colour, I think we will be happy with whatever colour is chosen, but if alternative colours are possible then we could use one colour for cartridges that include an ACID chip, while the other colour would indicate cartridges that do NOT have the ACID chip and therefore could only be used with machines that have been modified with the "ACID inside" mod.

[TFM]

1) are you all wanting to stick with the original cream colouring of the pluses or will other colours be prefered? Would prefer to keep to one colour but open to reasonable suggestions

Oh, other colors are possible? WoW! Well, if I could have my 100 pieces in dark blue it would be great. But finally if it would make any problems I wouldn't mind to take any kind of color.

2) are all cart cases standard or are any deviations required from the originals?

IMHO there is only one single kind of shells for cartridges.

3) any other plastics required whilst I'm looking into this? - I may as well explore/suggest other ideas with him whilst I'm over there. If there's enough merit in making the cast then it could be a goer.

Of course there shall some merit for your friend :-D However, the quality is of importance too (cases should be stable).

[BluesBrothers]

Ok interesting to hear your thoughts on the colours, and music to my ears really as it'll be much easier to produce a geniunely different colour rather than trying to match up with original colouring.

Regarding devations from originals - I wasn't sure if anyone had any crazy ideas in mind with potential for switches/inputs and the like

I'd totally agree the cart cases seem well worthwhile so leave it with me but I may as well shop also for other projects whilst were on the subject. And yes quality is an absolute must and I've no intention of marketing a load of melted down old plastic milk bottles. Nice ridged cart cases are the order of the day

[TFM]

Yeah!
Please keep us updated!
A dream becomes true 

[EgoTrip]

Get a 3D printer and print your own that way