Used a cheap bulk tape eraser on a Trinitron from 1997 and it scrambled the colors permanently. Now I just leave them on for 30 minutes after moving. Anyone else kill a tube by accident?
I spent last Sunday recapping the power supply and got the disk drive to spin again after cleaning the heads with a q-tip and some alcohol. It actually booted up my old copy of Oregon Trail on the first try without any glitches. Anyone else have luck getting a stubborn vintage machine running again with a simple fix like that?
I was showing my nephew how to load a game from a 5.25 inch floppy and suddenly smoke came out the side of the 1541 drive. Slapped it off real quick and unplugged everything, but now I'm scared to turn it back on. This happened around 9pm Wednesday and I spent the next hour opening it up to see if anything smelled burnt. Found a capacitor that looked a little puffy near the power connector. Has anyone else had a drive just give out on them mid use like that?
I picked up a Commodore 64C at the Vintage Computer Festival in Atlanta two years ago for $40 marked as untested. The seller swore it just needed a new power supply but when I got it home half the keys didn't register and the SID chip was dead. Now I only buy things I can see powered on at the show or from people who actually describe the problem instead of hiding behind that word. Has anyone else had better luck with untested gear than me or am I just being too cautious?
I used to just grab any old CRT monitor and plug it in, no worries. Now I've got a multimeter I test every secondhand screen with before even turning it on, after one blew a fuse and took out my power strip last Tuesday. Anybody else checking caps and shorts on their vintage finds before powering up?
I was reading a coding manual from 1982 and it blew my mind that they crammed a whole programming language into less space than a single MP3 file takes today. Anyone else ever dig into the technical specs of old hardware and get surprised by what they pulled off?
He was talking about his T420 still working after 12 years, and I realized my new laptop has already been to the shop twice. Has anyone else gone back to an older machine and been surprised how solid it feels?