Another weird old computer from the Bins – Crown TEF-12

Saw this weird box with the Crown logo on it in the reject bin right by the checkout as I was leaving and turned right on around to check it out more closely. Once I figured out how to open the front (push the two ‘top’ feet inwards!) I saw it was an old luggable in an interesting format. Bought it without hesitation for the perfunctory price asked, and took it home to dig in further…

The front is pretty familiar as far as early 80s luggable computers go.

The back gets interesting. Bunch of audio I/O that very unusual.

And inside we find this built like a tank modular machine with all kinds of extra audio handling functionality.

I haven’t researched it thoroughly yet, but it looks like it was capable of pretty groundbreaking acoustic data collection and visualization for its time. I’ll leave the specifics to another post by someone who used one of these things to great effect back when it was new: https://www.tvtechnology.com/opinions/audio-breakthroughs-with-tef-analysis

Night Rider – Puttin’ the hammer down

Picked up an aftermarket MPU and got this one going again real quick.

Besides the new MPU and some cleaning and rubber, the only thing it really needed was a lot of connector rework, and clean up on a few old splices.

For the smaller .100″/2.54mm pitch KK 254 connectors, Molex 08-50-0114 contacts were what I used. For the larger .156″/3.96mm pitch KK 396, Molex Trifurcon 08-52-0125 contacts.

Series of reference pictures I took of each connector before I repinned it linked below:

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Besides Night Rider I’ve been digging up a bunch of long dormant projects in the shop, including a Williams Defender. I’ll post more about that one as I get deeper into it.

Beige and Green II – Beiger and Greener

Found another box of disks, which means more cracked by screens!

Rescue Raiders

Racketeers – The Time Lord, Apple Rebel, Disk Man

Black Bag – The Cloak, The Intern
thx to the Chief Surgeon
Trading Post and South Pole BBSes

Pool 1.5

The Unicorn

Where in the World is Carmen San Diego

MKM – Red Rebel
call out at The Cloak
Werdna BBS

Gemstone Warrior

Midwest Pirates Guild – The Burglar
thx to Blue Adept and The Warezird
The Forge BBS

Captain Goodnight

SIX PACK and D.I.S.C.
Black Bag – Hot Rod
thx to The Sandman
calls out Loze and Torch with a brutal illustration