#maxiol

So sometime last year, I bought this interface because, hey, it’s relatively cheap right? And who cares that it comes without a case?

Well. I kinda did after getting it. Inserting it into a cartridge slot with a lid is incredibly annoying, because it’s difficult to align it to the actual cartridge port.

However, a little while ago, a friend gave me some hardware, and among it was a Philips NMS 1250 modem. Not very useful in these modern times, so it sat on the shelf for a while, and although I did try to convert it to an RS-232 interface at one point, the project wasn’t a very successful (or useful in my case).

I had considered putting the Maxiol into this case before, but never really fully attempted it because of how it would fit; I’d have to dremel out the screwholes and everything… but today, I just thought “screw it”, and went ahead.

Some rough measuring did make me find out I had to cut a slight hole for the PATA connector (which I’m not using, so I didn’t cut it out in full… yet), and a hole for the socketed chips (which are a bit too tall to fit otherwise).

A little while of dremeling later, and this is the result.

It’s not pretty, but it does work, and it’s a bit more protected. I might end up trying to make it look a bit tidier later on as well, but functionality was a bit more important at first ^^

Still to do: drilling 3 small holes to make the LED’s visible. Maybe even putting LEDs in the case itself so they’re properly visible, but I’m not too sure yet if I want to attempt soldering directly on the cart… I’d hate to break my only mass-storage device for MSX ^^