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Projects

With vintage computing hardware you are dealing with older machines with possibly many power cycles of the electronics. Old capacitors die and seem to be the culprit behind the early death of power supplies and monitors. In order to keep machines in running order you will have the occasional need for circuitry repairs simply due to age. If you are not careful in handling older electronics, a static discharge could also do something nasty to the electronics. Repairs may be needed if you make a mistake or a previous owner was careless.

This is a list of maintenance and expansion projects related to my collection. A maintenance project involves anything from testing new additions to the collection for faults, performing routine maintenance on existing hardware, or repairs on existing hardware. An expansion project is generally one of building an interface between older hardware and newer hardware. This might let you use your PC's hard disk for a boot image of an older machine by emulating its drive interface.

Maintenance Projects

  • Inspect Televideo 925
  • Inspect SGI R10000
  • Inspect C2N
  • Inspect HP2648A #1
  • Inspect HP2648A #2
  • Inventory RL01 disk packs
  • Image RL01 disk packs worth saving
  • Restore 68000 processors to 2 E&S RDC units
  • Video adjustment on VT-100
  • Repair HP2621A power supply
  • Repair ESV/50 power supply
  • Repair H/Z-19 terminal CRT tube mounts

Expansion Projects

  • Add more books
  • Create list of databooks
  • Fujitsu 2444 tape drive:
    • Mount drive on 19" portable rack: done
    • Attach new power cord
    • Mount Pertec interface in 11/03
    • Mount Pertec interface in VAXserver
    • Attach drive to 11/03 interface and verify
    • Attach drive to VAXserver interface and verify
  • CBM 8032
    • Interface CBM 8050 to an IEEE-488 bus on a PC for data interchange
    • Interface CBM 8032 to PC by serial connection. Get a data exchange program running that sends files to/from the serial connection.
  • Interface the 11/03 disk interface to the PC to provide a way to run the 11/03 from disk storage on the PC.
  • Create a graphics hack interface board for the VT-100's internal bus
  • Create a graphics hack interface board for the Tektronix 4010/4014 internal bus
  • Upgrade 8032 to SuperPET board