bugman2112
Experienced Member
I have been building and collecting vintage computers for a number of years now. I have always been surprised at how few equipment failures that I encounter. The majority of my collection is Apple ii, which I consider to be generally realiable (of course, a few bad ram chips here and there). I had a surprise failure tonight that made me chuckle a bit and I thought I would share. I was re-working some older text games this late night (wumpus II) on one of my old apple ii+ computers and heard a stout POP noise, followed by a fizzle. I quickly suspected a capacitor failure in the power supply and pulled the power cord. Nice rancid plumes of smoke filled my office. Its not that big of a deal, since I have a couple of stacks of these computers, as well as, extra power supplies. But it did make me wonder what would have happended if I was wandering downstairs to get another beer when this happened. I might tear into it just to see the damage and attempt a repair. The computer was still functioning as I shut it down, so I'm hopefull of limited damage. The only comparable experience I have had was with a tantulum capacitor that exploded in a Northstar upon first power up. That was replaced and worked fine.