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The INCREDIBLY Dusty insides of my newly acquired CBM 3016! (lemmy.blahaj.zone)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Follow up to this Post: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/8771226

As promised yesterday, here is a look inside the machine! Before it also had spiders and spider webs inside but I cleaned those out!

Beside the dust, one very interesting thing I've found inside on the board are 2 seemingly modded chips with labels on them! The left one read "Ex Basic 2 | Sockel: Mitte | UD4" (Sockel: Mitte is german for Socket: Middle) And the right one just says "Ex Basic | Re 1"

On the back of the machine there is another Ex Basic related Label that says "Ex Basic=sys37100" I wonder what this is all about.

Gonna take an electric Bike pump and see if its powerful enough to get rid of the dust on Saturday, then its time to boot her up for the first proper time!

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

make sure to wear a mask when blowing that thing out! you don't want 40 years'-worth of that crap in your lungs!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I wish I had more hands so I could give this four thumbs up!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

It took Covid to teach us New Yorkers that we’d been breathing in 100 years’-worth of subway brake dust every time we stood on the platform. It really got me thinking of all of the other times and places we encounter environmental particulates that we shouldn’t be breathing. As a geek who likes collecting old computers, this one is often on my mind!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (2 children)

If there's a voltage regulator in there, make sure that it doesn't suffer from the same problem as later computers from CBM did. If it does, it will fry the board.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Do you happen to know what kind of issues they are and how to recognise them ahead of time?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

In Commodore 64 there is a short circuit in the voltage regulator (9V to 5V) after +20 years that sends more than 5V into the 5V line on the system board. Effectively getting one or more essential chips and the computer becomes a desk ornament and a memory from forgotten times.

I would disconnect the power from the system board, connect power and measure the voltage with a multimeter. Might sound like a lot of work but it can be the difference between a working vintage experience and a dead vintage experience.

I had a look at the pictures and the capacitors look fine. There is a known problem with "swollen capacitors". Old things didn't work like they used to. If they are not cylindrical and do not have a flat top they might need to be replaced.

I'm not saying you have to do all this work, I'm just saying that these two things are known problems in some vintage computers.