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I miss the green and black :)

Gary C

Veteran Member
Joined
May 26, 2018
Messages
2,256
Location
Lancashire, UK
Whats this, my eyes ! where is the soothing green and black !

Anyway more time spent in the garage this week.

The IIcx is now up and running. It was as everyone said, the SMD capacitors at fault so when they were replaced, not only did it power on reliably it also started up to the chimes. The hard drive was a bit of a surprise. The heads were getting stuck on a deteriorating sticky bumper, but a bit of squashy plastic jammed in the case prevents the heads from touching the sticky bit while still landing in the landing zone and allowing the headlock vane to move to the lock position. Machine boots up nicely to OS 7.5.5 but there is nothing else on the machine.
An oddity, is that it seems to think it has a Mac portrait display attached despite the ID code of 1.0.1 being soldered into the plug. Think I might try 0.0.0 as it looks as if sense 2 is being pulled down giving code 0.0.1 maybe and the 21" display code will suite my 4.8 card (with £6 memory upgrade !) better.
Could not get the floppy to work, I could see data being written to the (two !) read/write heads, but on verify, nothing was read from the disk despite both heads showing ok resistances. Mystery for another day as I managed to find a replacement cheap at a recycling place.

The performa 6200 is also boxed up and looking good, just need a suitable keyboard and mouse.

Ah, keyboards.
I got my hands one two Apple keyboard II's with the Mitsui membrane switches. Despite looking in ok condition, both have multiple key failures. Looking closely at the membranes, you can see the failed tracks as small black marks, almost looking as if they have shorted but I suspect corrosion. Its a painful job, but some carbon conductive paint does the job but scratching down to expose enough track is difficult, you tend to take the track as well as the green plastic. But in the end I have managed to get one fully working (including fixing the caps lock locking mechanism, now that was fiddly. Had to make up a new pawl out of a bit of wire but it works great now)

Not a bad month. Always seemed to be buying something (bought a Mac LC for pennies) but still have money in the bank before payday, hurrah !

Still have projects though.

Apricot PC needs powering up
PDP 11/73 needs powering up
Multibus 286/10 - Now have a new fan and duct fitted. Need to make up a control panel to finish the case then its time for software :)
DEC Rainbow - This will be the next fun project. Have a fully working 100A in really really nice condition, bright tube, clean case etc but a little devil on here who will remain nameless (wont you paul :) ) tempted me with an Ebay advert for a 100B case with memory and video upgrades that I may be able to transplant. Just need to find a HD interface card and the original colour monitor.
 
I've no business with anything extra but have been eyeing a Mac LC as well, they just look so nice! Congrats on the pickups. Indeed the Apricot deserves a proper powering up :D
 
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