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I washed the backplane board 3 times with warm tap water with dish soap. I used a dish brush to remove the dried rodent urine & other residue off the board and connectors. As per Zippysticks' suggestion I also used a tooth brush to really go over the connectors in detail. To finish I used my...

Got the front panel wiring de-soldered & the whole backplane is now free for cleaning. First I wanted to remove the heavy gauge copper wire soldered onto the positive rail. This wasn’t too hard. However, on the ground rail there was this nasty corroded mess of grounding braid, soldered on in...

OK guys, I had a bit of a hiatus with this project due to the first half of my summer holidays, but I'm back now! > Look at http://www.the-planet.org Thanks Gary, those look really nice! This is an excellent option if my backplane turns out to be unsalvageable! I took the backplane off the...

After Day 2 After Day 2 Thanks for your help guys! I have to apologize if it seems I’m ignoring your input. As a new forum member, my posts are quarantined for an unspecified amount of time. I already posted an update for the 1st day of restoration results before I saw your posts. (FWIW, even...

First day First day The first steps have started. I have partially dismantled the system and removed all of the rodent debris. I did the work outside and used a half-mask respirator & gloves to protect myself. What a sweaty and nasty job! The cards are waiting in anti-static bags for their...

I recently acquired an Altair 8800 from a fellow Ham. This was a unit that was in actual business use 40+ years ago, and had been updated to be able to run perhaps CP/M or the Cromix Operating System. The system has just 3 cards in it, the ZPU board (Z80) from Cromemco, the 64KZ Dynamic RAM...