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Lanier Model 103 "No Problem" word processor

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I removed the UART from the keyboard (sole purpose is to provide a serialized version of the parallel data) because it was causing some lines to hang high.
Now, pressing a key makes it repeat onto the screen, pressing another does the same. A bunch of keys don't work; made a list and will see if there's a common line they share.
Need to see why the data keeps repeating though.

Phil
 
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"ERROR : ERROR : ERROR : ERROR. OK"

I think that is the maximum amount of error it can display.

Keyboard failure now looks to be the the decoder chip. I'm going to desolder it and see if that kills the repeat.

Phil
 
Removing the AMI SW-10667 and bridging the contact from "key pressed" trigger on the controller returns a keyboard press for all keys other than return, space, backspace and 7.

Bridging the bus causes different characters to occur.

Looks like maybe the 7 key is bad?
 
Desoldered 7. No change, though holding REPT causes many 7's on the screen repeated. Holding shift gives slash and CTRL gives divide.

So, part of it functions. However, the chips both take -12V and every chip that has that went pop when the +5V died.

Phil
 
That's incredible! It's always nice to have that one moment where you fix a problem you think might not make much a difference but it does anyways! Well done!
 
RingingResonance said:
That's incredible! It's always nice to have that one moment where you fix a problem you think might not make much a difference but it does anyways! Well done!
Click to expand...
Particularly when it's something you had fixed but failed, and didn't think about it because it was fixed...

If you want a computer to act weird, remove the ground from the boot ROM. Signal floating with respect to +5 gives some really weird and random results.

Troubleshooting process was remove the RAM, it should try to boot but crash when the stack always returns 00
Same result, random trash on the screen.
Figured if that logic was acting up, let's pull the boot ROM and then the processor would just execute infinite NOP. That's when I saw the pin had broken off again, the solder joint had failed. Cleaned it up, soldered it back on (better this time) and reinserted it. Powered up, stuck a random floppy in the top drive and the screen filled with 1's. (Correct behavior). I then removed the screen blanking bypass on the video card, rebooted it and it initialized the screen correctly and filled it with 1's again. At that point I bit the bullet and put the boot diskette in.
Kudunk kudunk kudunk kudunk krrrrrrt and the screen lit up with the word processor screen.

Phil
 
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Man that green CRT is beautiful! Would love to get a high quality picture and make a nice poster with it just as it is in your picture with the random chars on display. You should write a matrix screen saver for it! Would look really cool.
 
RingingResonance said:
Man that green CRT is beautiful! Would love to get a high quality picture and make a nice poster with it just as it is in your picture with the random chars on display. You should write a matrix screen saver for it! Would look really cool.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately it's got a thick implosion shield on the front which is beginning to cataract.

I did have it where it was dumping random to the video card... See YouTube video there.
 
PhilipA said:
Unfortunately it's got a thick implosion shield on the front which is beginning to cataract.

I did have it where it was dumping random to the video card... See YouTube video there.
Click to expand...
are you sure that's cataract or just the anti-glare coating degrading? If it's the former then you can do what shango066 does

if it's the later then you can use Mother's aluminum oxide polish to remove the rest of the coating. I had to do it to mine because the weather and flooding and eroded it away and made it look awful. https://www.pepboys.com/mothers-mag-and-aluminum-polish-5oz/product/1047178

That's a really cool video, looks a lot like the matrix code. I plan on writing something that will do just that once I can figure out how the video processor works on the dt80 even thought it's CRT is B&W
 
A brief moment tonight to troubleshoot. Sending data down the keyboard bus results in sane replies on the screen.
A little digging shows the switches are actually open collector design. I'll make a divider circuit tomorrow to see if the one I pulled out works correctly.
If they're all good and the controller chip is bad then technically I should be able to build a microcontroller to replace it.

Phil
 
Okay, got 4 failed keys on the board.

Found out how the matrix works; ground the lower pin and that trips the "key pressed" trigger circuit (monostable pulse).
Top key hits the key decoder matrix independently, and sets the last pressed code into the output.

The failed keys are all Type K, self-repeating. All three repeat despite not being pressed (removed the board from the key body and put it onto the board and all of them just sit and repeatedly trigger the keypress circuit.

I may just pull the options keys on the left and substitute to see if that makes it behave.
If so, I'll be looking for a few keys.

Phil
 
RingingResonance said:
are you sure that's cataract or just the anti-glare coating degrading? If it's the former then you can do what shango066 does

if it's the later then you can use Mother's aluminum oxide polish to remove the rest of the coating. I had to do it to mine because the weather and flooding and eroded it away and made it look awful. https://www.pepboys.com/mothers-mag-and-aluminum-polish-5oz/product/1047178

That's a really cool video, looks a lot like the matrix code. I plan on writing something that will do just that once I can figure out how the video processor works on the dt80 even thought it's CRT is B&W
Click to expand...

One of my favorite youtubers!

Nice to see you figured it out and the machine is alive again! Great work!
 
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