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Hi again, starting another thread for a different question about the same device. The drives in my Commodore 8250 disk station don't seem to know when they're at track zero, and I wonder whether that's normal like for the Apple ][ drives, or whether there should be a track 0 sensor that is...

Hi all, I got a Commodore 8250 disk station last weekend. It's working mostly fine, but the drives needed some service and I removed the filter cap after it blew up on me. (I looked for Rifas, didn't find any and thought I'd be safe - I was wrong! It stank about 100 times less than a Rifa...

Hi all, (TL;DR: My Profile got more and more unreliable in the last two years: It worked fine two years ago, then sat for the better part of a year after which it required multiple power-off/power-on cycles to initialize properly. After an additional 20h of runtime Lisa started crashing more...

Hi all, I got a Compaq Portable II with a Miniscribe 8425 HDD. It's an MFM drive that has an MFM to IDE adapter board bolted to it's underside, labelled WD1001-IWH. The system HDD controller is IDE. The drive seems to be fine mechanically, but seems to be unable to find tracks. Any read to the...

Hi all, I recently acquired a mystery computer from a local auction, which turned out to be some sort of machine controller built from a 16k Apple ][. I've documented this with tons of pictures here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Hf6aCHKaDx42Xncg7 The floppy drive in there is a Wangco 82 with a...

Hi all, some things happened so long ago that best practices have fallen out of my memory. TL;DR: Do not use write-enabled floppies on unknown / newly acquired systems before doing a full virus scan. I was surprised to find that I was no longer able to mount some floppies on my Linux Mint...

Hi all, I'm digging into a Compaq SLT 386 "laptop" and tried starting its HDD. It's a 3.5 inch 61 MB drive, and the closest documentation I could find is https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-drives-hdd/conner/CP-30064H-61MB-3-5-SL-IDE-AT.html. The first time I connected it to power in a modern...

Hi all, I've recently managed to get hold of an Apple Lisa 2 in pretty nice condition, including an external 5MB Profile in working condition. I have one issue with it though: The Lisa power supply emits some whine or buzz that seems to modulate based on load. Changing the screen brightness or...

Hi all, I recently picked up a Compaq SLT 386s/20 at a local flea market. It is missing the power supply, and it has a very nonstandard plug of which I cannot find the pinout. Q: Does anyone have the pinout, or have its power supply and could measure the voltages? Long winded post with...

Hi all, Edit: I found the missing 128KB, they are right next to the RAM sockets: I guess the chips themselves or something on their path is bad, and I need to debug this. Leaving the rest of my post for posterity - thanks everyone for being my rubber ducks. :D Any suggestions on how to debug...

Hi all, I recently got a Compaq Portable III which had been upgraded from the original Intel 286/12MHz to a 386SX/25 via a Kingston CPU upgrade board: The Compaq turned on but was completely dead, no POST, the internal display didn't even get power, nothing was initializing. I checked...

Hi folks, I'm slowly accumulating a selection of classic computers, mostly laptops and portables (e.g. IBM PC Convertible, IBM Thinkpads and PS/2 portables, some generic early-90s PC laptops) and some compact Macs (Plus, Colour Classic). They're to cool to just store in boxes or as a stacked...

Hey all, I recently got two NEC PowerMate Portable Plus computers from a local flea market. They both had bad PSUs in which some of the capacitors had leaked so much that there was a puddle of electrolyte in at the bottom of the case. Some traces were visibly corroded but none cut. I tried my...

Hi all, TL;DR: I need to identify a fault in a connector board that seems to only house connector headers and passive components: capacitors, resistors and some mystery things I need help identifying. What are the things marked "F1" through "F12" on the silkscreen? I'd have guessed fuses, but...