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Lear Siegler ADM 3A Terminal - Raspberry PI
- Thread starter taos23
- Start date
glitch
Veteran Member
What about the terminal was modified? Or is it just connected to the Raspberry Pi?
What's done to it:
-Disassembled, thoroughly cleaned
-Painted top bright white (bottom remains dark brown)
-Removed all keys and retro whited them to get brighter letters
-Covered dip switch plate with white printed decal
-Added switch to the motherboard to eliminate column 72 beep
-Added lower case rom (from another motherboard).
Here's before photo, and new pictures of the keyboard
-Disassembled, thoroughly cleaned
-Painted top bright white (bottom remains dark brown)
-Removed all keys and retro whited them to get brighter letters
-Covered dip switch plate with white printed decal
-Added switch to the motherboard to eliminate column 72 beep
-Added lower case rom (from another motherboard).
Here's before photo, and new pictures of the keyboard
geoffm3
Veteran Member
Cool. Mine is blue. A few of the keys are sticky, it doesn't have lower case, and I'm missing the cover for the option DIP switches that you have. I need to get me one of those. The display on mine is perfect and white phosphor.
It was gifted to me by one of my former co-workers who assembled the kit himself back in the day!
It was gifted to me by one of my former co-workers who assembled the kit himself back in the day!
RadRacer203
Veteran Member
I have a blue one I really want to get working to do exactly that! Looks great! Did they all have lowercase?
Hey thanks for the kind words everybody! Absolutely my favorite "vintage device" at the moment. There's a lot you can do with PI/debian and scripts, even at 9600 baud. I ended up buying two of them, one for parts to get the lowercase ROM. It's was an option for the 3A back in the day, and I'd say 50% or less had it. Really easy to install, 2 RAM chips, 1 ROM chips, and set a dip switch. There's a great document online about how to identify lower case ROM and install it:https://www.esocop.org/docs/LearSeieglerLowerCaseOption.pdf
Frankenrose
New Member
This is exactly what I want to do if I can get my hands on one. It’s one of the only things I want from the vintage computer space. Let me know if you ever decide to sell.
Slob
Experienced Member
I have two ADM3a's, one is beige with a brown base and one has a blue top. I put in new CRT's (old-timey blue-white, not the later paper white available in the late 80's+ color). I've been paranoid about burning those screens and on my to do list is a hardware screen saver for them.
One of mine had the 2513-L, and I made a 2716 copy and an adapter for the other one. This page ( http://www.juliepalooza.com/sl/adm3a-2.htm ) describes it and contains a downloadable 2716 image of the 2513-L. I worried about copyrights until I realized that there are darned few ways to make a font for a 5x7 matrix for lower case English!
I didn't have the "dip switch doors" for either of these, so I made aluminum plates for them.
I can't believe how expensive these have become. But a brilliant design really is timeless and therefore desirable.
One of mine had the 2513-L, and I made a 2716 copy and an adapter for the other one. This page ( http://www.juliepalooza.com/sl/adm3a-2.htm ) describes it and contains a downloadable 2716 image of the 2513-L. I worried about copyrights until I realized that there are darned few ways to make a font for a 5x7 matrix for lower case English!
I didn't have the "dip switch doors" for either of these, so I made aluminum plates for them.
I can't believe how expensive these have become. But a brilliant design really is timeless and therefore desirable.
Slob
Experienced Member
What's done to it:
-Disassembled, thoroughly cleaned
-Painted top bright white (bottom remains dark brown)
-Removed all keys and retro whited them to get brighter letters
-Covered dip switch plate with white printed decal
-Added switch to the motherboard to eliminate column 72 beep
-Added lower case rom (from another motherboard).
Here's before photo, and new pictures of the keyboard
On refinishing keys that have discolored, when I had time and un-diagnosed OCD, !!!AND AFTER DETERMINING THAT THE KEYTOPS WERE DOUBLE-SHOT MOLDED!!! (the ADM-3A's are), I would sand the keys with 1000-1500 wetordri (wet) and then polish them with automotive polishing compound by hand (machines can melt the plastic). This works especially well on 1970's HP equipment. Nowadays, I use automotive PLASTX (which is actually useful in several of my hobbies).
!!!DO NOT do ANY of this on pad-printed keys!!!!