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Osborne 1 troubleshooting issues

Yes, it's a PROFESSIONAL APPROACH to repair PCB's to put them back in service.
The Last Copper Rivets I got came from Sweden, but there are Chinese Knockoff's.


Larry
 
So here's an update (kinda)

I ordered a replacement power supply that has already been recapped while I deal with the broken one, and I reseated all of the socketed chips and hooked it up and and I still have the same issue...

Unfortunately this means there was likely never anything wrong with my original power supply and that the issue lies elsewhere, as I still get just a blink from the drive lights and a beep and then nothing at all.

Also, when the lights are off in the room I can very vaguely see a faint orange glow coming from the back of the CRT, despite the lack of any display coming from the screen.
 
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If you turn the brightness and contrast all the way up, does the screen light up, because you should be able to get it to glow, even with data or sync. Also be aware the pots can break ( Potentiometers are a COMMON item to fail, especially when externally adjusted) so some of your troubleshooting will be making sure they are working and their signal is getting all the way to the monitor.
 
cj7hawk said:
If you turn the brightness and contrast all the way up, does the screen light up, because you should be able to get it to glow, even with data or sync. Also be aware the pots can break ( Potentiometers are a COMMON item to fail, especially when externally adjusted) so some of your troubleshooting will be making sure they are working and their signal is getting all the way to the monitor.
Click to expand...
It does not, and also I'm not sure if they're supposed to work like this but I can twist the knobs in a full 360, are they not supposed to stop at some point?

Also will the display being messed up stop the functionality of the rest of the computer? Because the reset button doesn't work, key presses don't seem to register and aside from a blink of the lights there seems to be no activity on the floppy drives.
 
Bunghole102 said:
It does not, and also I'm not sure if they're supposed to work like this but I can twist the knobs in a full 360, are they not supposed to stop at some point?

Also will the display being messed up stop the functionality of the rest of the computer? Because the reset button doesn't work, key presses don't seem to register and aside from a blink of the lights there seems to be no activity on the floppy drives.
Click to expand...

If it beeps, if the drive lights come on at all, that's a pretty good indication the video should be working.

You can make up a video adapter or @VERAULT might still have some for sale - and the video should mostly work anyway. If it doesn't you have a much more complex problem to solve and you'll need deeper repair skills to diagnose which chips are faulty.

But once you have some video you can tell what's going on.

And no, the potentiometers aren't supposed to keep turning, so that's likely a source of your video failure. I'm not sure what a good replacement is for them - they seemed kind of custom,
 
cj7hawk said:
If it beeps, if the drive lights come on at all, that's a pretty good indication the video should be working.

You can make up a video adapter or @VERAULT might still have some for sale - and the video should mostly work anyway. If it doesn't you have a much more complex problem to solve and you'll need deeper repair skills to diagnose which chips are faulty.

But once you have some video you can tell what's going on.

And no, the potentiometers aren't supposed to keep turning, so that's likely a source of your video failure. I'm not sure what a good replacement is for them - they seemed kind of custom,
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My Osborne has a composite video out already on it, do you think I should be able to test with that?
 
So I plugged in my Osborne to this commodore monitor I have and sure enough there is a display! However, putting a system disk (word star specifically) into the drive and pressing return does absolutely nothing

So at this point the issue seems multifaceted:

-The internal monitor has something wrong with it (probably broken potentiometers)

-The keyboard may not be working
1000028895.jpg
- The disk drives may not be working

So it seems like I definitely have a lot to think about when progressing with this... Any thoughts at this point?

Also it's worth nothing that the screen is flickering a lot, sometimes it's stable but most times it's flickering.
 
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It's a system disk that should be bootable, and it's also the only system disk I have at the moment..

But no return doesn't work, pressing return does nothing at all it doesn't even attempt to load the disk.
 
Here is a ZIP file for Osborne 1 DD Boot Floppy's. *.IMD, *.RAW (Sector Dump) and *.TXT file
with each filename on the Floppy. Imagedisk, Winimage, or RawWrite should be able to write
the Floppy's.


Larry
 

Attachments

ldkraemer said:
Here is a ZIP file for Osborne 1 DD Boot Floppy's. *.IMD, *.RAW (Sector Dump) and *.TXT file
with each filename on the Floppy. Imagedisk, Winimage, or RawWrite should be able to write
the Floppy's.


Larry
Click to expand...
Can I write the image onto a floppy on windows 95? I have a system with a 360k disk drive.
 
en.wikipedia.org

List of floppy disk formats - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Under 'Logical Formats' there is a table entry for 'Osborne 1' and also a section for 'IBM PC compatibles.

For a PC, a 5 1/4" floppy holding 360K sounds like a Double Density Double Sided (DS DD) diskette. The table justs indicates MFM for all of those.

If you have appropriate disk media (DD SS or DD DS), you can probably write an Osborne disk in your drive. Although you obviously will need some help from 3rd party software, because Windows' format utility definitely won't format it the right way...
 
Istarian said:
en.wikipedia.org

List of floppy disk formats - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Under 'Logical Formats' there is a table entry for 'Osborne 1' and also a section for 'IBM PC compatibles.

For a PC, a 5 1/4" floppy holding 360K sounds like a Double Density Double Sided (DS DD) diskette. The table justs indicates MFM for all of those.

If you have appropriate disk media (DD SS or DD DS), you can probably write an Osborne disk in your drive. Although you obviously will need some help from 3rd party software, because Windows' format utility definitely won't format it the right way...
Click to expand...
Is there a 3rd party software that could write the Osborne disks under windows 95? I do have blank DD disks and my Osborne has the upgraded daughter board for DD drives so it should work with a 360k disk
 
Bunghole102 said:
Is there a 3rd party software that could write the Osborne disks under windows 95? I do have blank DD disks and my Osborne has the upgraded daughter board for DD drives so it should work with a 360k disk
Click to expand...

You were provided the names of three in post #32.

- Imagedisk
- WinImage
- RawWrite

I think the first one should work under Windows 95, the others may also but it's less clear.
 
@Bunghole102 It's important to realize where you're at, at the moment, so you can focus on getting your Osborne 1 running.

That it starts to the point that it does is GREAT news. It means your main board is mostly working. You clearly have monitor issues, but you have a monitor output so that's good. You might even have a ScreenPAC in there and have 80 column mode which is fantastic.

Depending on whether you have the Double Density adapter, you need a single density boot disk.

Old disks (Osborne 1 era ) are LIKELY to shred, so you should clean the disk heads and lubricate the screw that moves the head with some WD40 and manually move it to ensure it moves. Check the disk for ANY concentric marks - such as scratches. If you see one, the disk is no good.

Safest bet if you need to make sure it boots is to use a Gotek, which requires an adapter ( you can buy them online ) for the Osborne 1, but is a great way to get software onto and off of the Osborne.

Sometimes people have machines with disk issues, but mostly if it boots as your does, the odds are the disk controller is fine.

I'd say to try that first - Get a Gotek and see what happens, then get it booting, then work your way backwards - ie, Make some new fresh disks with the physical disk drive, from a Gotek boot disk, then clean up and repair the drives if necessary. Then go back to why the internal screen isn't working as a next step :)

Slow methodical progress will achieve your objective.
 
Damn, looks like I'm gonna need to buy some more things for this to work then 😅 also I do in fact have the 80 column daughter board installed on mine.

Welp I'll sniff around for a Gotek that works with the osborne and then I'll be back with an update after that. The one thing I really wanna make sure I get working eventually is the monitor.

Also, despite the fact that the potentiometers may be broken, the contrast knob still works as intended but the brightness does not, or at least that's what I was able to gather when I had it plugged into my commodore monitor.

Another thing that I figure I should mention is that on one occasion, the computer booted with a non-stop beep and the screen displayed a bunch of garbage; so far it has only happened twice in my powering on of the computer.
1000028902.jpg
 
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