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Retr0Bright + DEC VT-100

Moonferret

Moonferret

Experienced Member
Joined
Jun 20, 2003
Messages
489
Location
Northwest (UK)
Hi Folks!

I have a full week of work this week and in between decorating and tidying the garden, I plan on restoring my VT-105 terminal. I've managed to restore a number of old Macintoshes to their original colour using Retr0bright but I'm a little unsure about using it on the VT due to the dark plastics. Unfortunately, I can't separate the parts as they seem to be pretty well stuck together.

Anybody tried retr0bright on dark plastics or am I best to mask these areas off?

Cheers,
Dave
 
Garden....Done!
Decorating....Done!
VT-100....Done! :)

Ended up masking off the dark plastics just to be on the safe side. Taken two days outside in the sun but I think the result was well worth it. Its not quite back to its original colour but its close enough for me. Photos...

DSC02425.jpgDSC02426.jpg

Now all I have to do is dig out my homebuilt Z80 system and get that working again :)
 
Looks good.
I've done a few TeleVideo terminals, and they always come back to their original white as well.
Strange you couldn't get the black pieces apart though. Those parts look almost identical to the TeleVideo parts, and they separate easily enough on those.
 
Thanks! I've seen the photos of your Televideo on the Retr0Bright wiki pages, Looks really nice. I've always wanted one of those models (Big fan of Wargames) but I've never seen one for sale in the UK.

The dark plastic sections could be removed but I thought it would be easier to mask them off rather than break the plastic welds.
 
That looks really good! I got a VT102 recently that I'm now thinking about giving the retr0bright treatment (might not have time for a month or two though). Any VT1XX-specific tips for doing it?

I saw your post in the marketplace section that you're looking for some keys. I'm in the same boat, missing the M, left angle bracket/comma, and up arrow keys. Let me know if you find a source...
 
If you get chance, its well worth doing. I'm really pleased with the way its turned out. No specific tips for using the retr0bright other than masking off the dark plastics.

I'll let you know if I come across any keytops :)
 
I made up the gel version of the retr0bright solution with about 6% H2O2 and masked off the plastics with normal paper masking tape. Nothing special. Seemed to do the trick and there was no apparent reaction between the tape & gel.
 
Just RB'd by VT100 over the weekend. Used 17.5% H2O2 (get it from a hydroponics store). I was very careful this time since my other venture into a full-case rejuvination was a bit of a disaster; I now have quite a blotchy Mac Classic. But the VT100 was a success:

VT100.jpg

By the way, I didn't mask off the dark (brown) plastic sections and they weren't affected at all.

Also had to adjust the screen linearity (characters got progressively smaller as they got to the bottom) and vertical height. Also re-bent a contact in the keyboard connector (5 1/4") as it was too far back and made intermittent connection. Compared to other items I've worked on... this went amazingly well; the product is well put together and thought out. Technical manual was a great assistance.

Shown hooked up to a MicroVax 3300 (which I need a hard drive for if anybody can offer any solutions... eventually to install VMS on)
 
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Wow, that is *very* pretty! Congrats on owning a piece of hardware I have always dreamed about. :)

EDIT: In my experience, unless they're painted, dark plastics are OK to be treated too in nearly all cases, though of course you'll never notice the brown/yellow bromine compound being removed by the Retr0brite because you couldn't probably see it in the first place.
 
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