Alex

In Blake 7, the flight computer of the Scorpio was in fact powered by an Acorn System 1. 6502 rules the universe!

Wasn’t that on a cover of The Micro User, Acorn User, or one of those?

I'm at my local. One of the guys asked if I'm trick or treating later.

I said that I'm a grown up. What would I trick or treat for? Whisky?

He has a radio show.

I think I may have just started something.

🤦‍♂️🤣

😂

Right tool for the job, right?

I got into Tarn-X for cases like this. Not a great picture of the Z80 in the socket, but you can kinda see how all the legs are super oxidized from the CRT goop. And then after 10s of treatment (taken just now).

yep - definitely have to wash tarn-x off, and don't leave anything soaking in there for long. Nokorode looks hardcore, will check it out!!

...and I knew I'd seen those keycaps somewhere before!

This time, I decided to try sous-vide method. Liquid Salon 20 in the freezer bag, run at 50C for about six hours. I also added a UV flood light and metal foil wrap just to be sure.

Comparing keyboard before and after retrobrite

It’s awesome. Dip and agitate for a few seconds and then a thorough rinse with water. Let me know how you get on @jeriellsworth.bsky.social

I removed two of the ICs on the other path, all good there.

The other two ICs on that path were also affected pretty badly, but cleaned up great. I needed to use some odorless mineral spirits to remove the last of the stubborn goop. Tarn-X helped clean up the IC pins once more.

No surprise that the Z80 socket didn’t fair so well, but it cleaned up just fine. The CPU itself took a dip in Tarn-X that cleaned up corrosion on the pins.

The CRT river of doom took two paths through the ICs.

The anode lead on the fly back transformer is not in good shape 😭

The cracks and the chip in the wire are going to cause problems, assuming they didn’t already when the seller turned it on.

I have some special conformal coating on the way. It comes in pints.

The ribbon cable to the power supply is delaminating and corroding. Added a low profile socket to the power supply, and waiting for a replacement to arrive.

What’s next, @jeriellsworth.bsky.social?

The SMK replacements arrived for the superbrain. Small snag in that the stems were wrong, but swapped out perfectly! So that’s the keyboard repair complete.

The next project arrived already. Was not counting on this DECwriter to previously be a mousey house.

This is furlough, not firing, right?

Brilliant!

YOLO.

FujiNet - The Future of Retro Computing The Future of Retro Computing

I keep trying to tell people about #FujiNet.
That it is a WiFi adapter for your favorite #Atari8bit, #Apple2, #ColecoAdam, #TRS80CoCo, #Commodore, #Atari2600, #AtariLynx, and #MSDOS machines, with more to come.

But word isn't getting out.

Can u help?

fujinet.online

For sure. I have a SPARCstation Voyager I replaced the RTC on a few years ago, but nervous about my old work Ultra 60 that’s been unloved for too long.

Batteries can be nasty and often no coming back! I love when folks in the community reverse engineers PCBs for replacements though!

Thanks 😀 just don’t look too closely for the overspray or paint scuffs where I assembled too soon.

Pic from work in progress - even the PCB cleaned up okay with some scrubbing followed by fresh flux and solder. And more scrubbing.

There was one key that was too far gone (switch on the left), the others cleaned up ok.