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Adventures in Vintage Computing Part 3

So I got the IBM PS/2 Model 50 286 all cleaned out and fired her up after a 30 miutes juice up period.

I think something blew on the mother board. By itself the power supply cranks up just fine, but when connected to the mother board it fails and theres a high pitched squeal coming from the mother board. I think it's one of the clock crystals (they used to used clock crystals soldered to the mother board to determin the frequency of the processor, ie a 48 MHz clock crystal would be devided in half for a 24 MHz processor)

So, what to do... it's not like there's a ton of them for sale on ebay (in fact there's none right now)

So I'll move onto another machine and come back to this one at a later date.

Adventures in Vintage Computing Part 2

Well, I got another computer up and running after cleaning it out.

It's a Zenith Z-151 8088 clone. What was neat about these machines is thge fact there was no traditional mother / system board. There was a backplane board with components plugged in (like a CPU card, memory card, serial card, etc...) This made upgrading the system as simple as pulling the CPU card and replacing it with a nerver revision.

The system also has a Plus HardCard 20MB hard disk card. But on boot it produced an error 1701 meaning the drive was dead.

I could possible get another on on ebay, but since the hardcard was an upgrade to the original system, I may leave it out to keep it as stock as possible.

I also began bathing the keyboard cases for the TeleVideo Model 925 and the Zenith in a peroxide / oxi clean bath.



I found out real fast this stuff will dry your hands out exceptionally fast.



The Zenith system also came with an EGA card (remember those!) and lucky for me it has an RCA video out which worked nicely with an LCD TV and projector.

I also unboxed the Tandy Color Computer 2 which I will need to get an RF to component converter for. I then boxed it back up. :( I don't want it to yellow before its time.

I won't get to bath the body of the TeleVideo 925 until this weekend as I have to go out of town, but be sure I'll post photos when I do.

Tonight I'm going to clean out the IBM PS/2 Model 50 and get it up and running. A little WordPerfect 5.1 anybody?

Adventures in Vintage Computing

My collection of vintage computers is growing.

Last night I picked up a TeleVideo Model 925, Zenith Data Systems Z-120, Tandy TRS-80 Coco2, IBM PS/2 Model 50.

This brings my collection to:
Apple IIe
Apple IIe Platinum
Apple IIc
Apple IIgs
Apple ///
Apple Macintosh Plus
Apple Macintosh SE
Apple Macintosh Performa 575
Apple Macintosh PowerMac G3
Atari 800
Compaq 486 Laptop
HP 9000 RP2430 Server
IBM PC / XT x2
IBM PCJr
IBM PS/2 Model 50 286
IBM PS/2 Model 70 386
IBM RS/6000 43P Model 123 PowerPC running AIX
Kaypro 2
NEC 386 Speed Step Luggable
NeXT Station N4000A
Packard Bell 486 Model PB440
Sanyo 8088 Luggable
Sun Ultra 1
Sun Ultra 5 x2
Sun Ultra 10 x2
Tandy TRS-80 Model 100
Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer 1
Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer 2
TeleVideo Model 925
Toshiba T1200 286 Laptop
Zenith Z-120
Zenith 8088 clone

Last night I started the restoration of the TeleVideo Model 925 terminal.

It looked as though a mouse has made a home in it. (It was found in a barn.)

I took it apart and vacuumed it out then pull out the logic board.

It was gross.



Here's a shot about halfway through cleaning the main logic board.



And finally the machine reassembled, plugged in for a few minutes to let the capacitors and such juice up they don't blow immediately after 15+ years of nonuse and then switched on with the setup bar at the bottom.



I plan on taking it apart again and bathing the case in a peroxide / oxi-clean solution to restore the case coloring. Apparently the plastics used from the mid-seventies to the mid-nineties contain a chemical that yellows over time when exposed to ultra violet light.