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Need some advice from the vintage computer community at large....

didnt Curious Marc cover this? I thought he had several he needed to repair. Its a nice computer. Was yours the one that sold for $400 plus shipping?
 
VERAULT said:
didnt Curious Marc cover this? I thought he had several he needed to repair. Its a nice computer. Was yours the one that sold for $400 plus shipping?
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Curious Marc was doing videos on the HP85, which is a different computer. Similar family, but different computer. Mine sold for 2 dollars at the local thrift store. I found it laying on the ground outside in one of them rubbermaid plastic tubs.
 
br44 said:
Curious Marc was doing videos on the HP85, which is a different computer. Similar family, but different computer. Mine sold for 2 dollars at the local thrift store. I found it laying on the ground outside in one of them rubbermaid plastic tubs.
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Actually it was the HP 9825 series he did I was thinking about. My mistake.

$2.00 huh? Thats a price worth bragging about I'd say.
 
I went back to the same thrift store today, and managed to score a Hewlett Packard 97 calculator. Complete with case, power adapter, program strips, and documentation. I wouldn't be surprised if it came from the same fella who donated the HP 86b.

I paid 4 dollars.
 
Anyone here try a light coat of clearcoat after retrobrighting? Curious if it still yellows the same...
 
I am against painting machines that dont need it. I posted a link earlier in the thread. Someone painted the top half of an apple IIgs a pastel yellow. It was a nightmare to remove the paint.
 
twolazy said:
Anyone here try a light coat of clearcoat after retrobrighting? Curious if it still yellows the same...
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Or here's an even crazier idea. I wonder if car wax with UV protection would help? It's not "permanent" so to say, so maybe someone would try it? It might be good for a display computer. Not sure how well it would work for a computer being actively used.

Worst case scenario, I suppose it would be wiped off with alcohol.
 
I was thinking about car wax, or even uv protectors like armor all... Could be a fun project to try. Kinda like I took 1 tsp of bleach, and drop of dawn, and threw in some keys from an old keyboard that were yellowed. Threw that and near boiling water into a jar and sealed it on my kitchen sink window. Its been there for about a year. And the keys are almost back to their original color. Guess I could pull them out soon and treat all them with something different and throw them on a windowsill for a few months and see what happens.
 
I would not use armor all, it leaves a gross slippery residue. Personally I would rather have plastic that is yellowed but clean. Rather than coated in paint, clearcoat, wax, or anything else weird.
 
My feeling about this is that the best cosmetic plastics refreshing technology for our needs* probably hasn't been invented yet --- there's downsides to everything we have in our arsenal right now. I don't like seeing my machines as yellow as they look today, but my own taste will tolerate it in the spirit of leaving well enough alone for now. I'll hold out for a later version... Retrobrite 3.11 for Workgroups maybe.

(* "For our needs" is an important qualifier: while lots of people like fresh-looking plastics, and while there are successful products that do related stuff, it's not clear that what we specifically need is a real moneymaker. So just because it doesn't exist doesn't mean that top polishing scientists over at Mothers have tried to find it and failed!)
 
So I pulled the HP 86b apart to clean the plastics under some warm running water, and I discovered several hand written date codes and other markings inside. If I were to guess, it's either from when the computer was manufactured, or when it was serviced sometime in it's life. I don't want to erase those, so I won't be retrobrighting it. I'm afraid the submersion into the hydrogen peroxide water bath would eat away at the markings. Washing away the tar definitely reduced the yellow though, so that's a plus.

If Shango066 were around, he would have definitely called it "flavor country".
 
Not just sunlight- I have a nearly orange crt monitor that spent its life in a windowless concrete building, illumined 24/7 by fluorescent lights.
They emit enough UV to do the same as sunshine.
Your 86 is hardly yellowed at all. My 85a is much worse- I think it adds to the character. It'll never be new again; if it still works properly, enjoy it, use it!
 
In that case, an echo; don't. It's temporary at best and will end up looking much the same as it does now if you're going to use it or keep it in a sunny or lit room.
 
VERAULT said:
The sun has nothing to do with it. It happens to things sealed in boxes. We dont have all the answers.
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Must have something to do with it, at least with many materials.

You see vast differences in yellowing between where monitors have sat and the surrounding areas.
 
Gary C said:
Must have something to do with it, at least with many materials.

You see vast differences in yellowing between where monitors have sat and the surrounding areas.
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Yeah like all the stuff that yellowed on the side facing a nearby window, but not the opposite side. Or all the stuff that yellowed except where something shadowed it, like the keys on a keyboard or the monitor sitting on a case (like my 86b). Or of course the ones that are yellowed on the outside, but not on the inside where the light didn't reach.
 
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