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macintosh had a battery that could be exchanged from the back but what about later computers

hollandusa

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Jan 29, 2022
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the battery is and was needed for the CMOS. Why was it put on the motherboard and no langer accessible from the back of a computer?
 
And you are referring to the original macintosh lineup. ITs good that it was off the board (to save it from leakage which I am sure WAS NOT THE REASON, but in the vertical orientation it causes damage to the analog board.
I just changed the CMOS battery 7.2V pack on my 1999 Dell Latitude CPj laptop. Thankfully the type of battery packs it take rarely leak outside thier wrapper.

But you can also look at the IBM 5170 AT. IT has a battery pack removeable from the rear.. But noone thought to do it so many of them are rusted solid in place and the leakage poured inside the case too.

The early years were rough.. Those rechargeable Varta packs on multi IO boards all leak too. When they went to coincell it was a blessing.
 
the battery is and was needed for the CMOS. Why was it put on the motherboard and no langer accessible from the back of a computer?
Probably because companies wanted you to buy a new computer long before the battery became flat and would have required a replacement.

Or maybe just because these batteries last at least 10 years anyway and were not considered to be user-replaceable parts.
 
As annoying as they were, the Dallas batteries at least didn't leak.
I have a no-slot Dallas 1216 piggyback RTC which says this is completely untrue. The potted cells will eventually corrode and expand enough to rupture the resin. I keep one on my desk as a demonstration of this. They don't leak anywhere near as much as the larger batteries, but they do.
Also as stated, the battery was moved internally because the cell would last years. If it needed replacement a service center could open it (remember this was the 80's and 90's so long T8's were still a mail-order or "you knew a guy" stuff) and do the job. By the time it became necessary to remove the battery before it leaked it was often a decade or more since the machine had been retired and wasn't worth the cost or time to open the machine and remove it. I don't think many people really cared about it being a problem until the mid-2000's and by then we still didn't yet know about capacitor issues other than "sometimes the machine starts after being left on/plugged in for a bit"
 
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