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What is 'proper' restoration

I released a new video today where I did a cursory examination of my ADM-1, gave some history, etc. It's doing well, but one of the commenters took issue with my poking around the unit. Basically his synopsis was, I was doing it all wrong, and damaging precious historical equipment.
I collect a lot of different types of old things. My biggest regrets are pieces where I did too much, or that I accidentally maimed in the interest of "cleaning" - I do as little as possible to get it things back to working condition. That is just my personal approach, its not a universal law, and certainly nothing I am going to impose on others. There is a spectrum from preservation, conservation, restoration, and renewing. All of these have their place. If you can keep something from becoming e-waste that is a win in my book.

-- Bob
 
With that same mindset. If I have a very old coin! I polish it! Patina be damned! The military taught me metal should shine! And I honestly think that whole thing is stupid. The coin was shiny when new right?

Why do you think nicer/cleaner/brighter machines sell for more on Ebay. Id love to hear the whole "with original Patina" try and sell.
 
Say what you want about "bullying", it kept a certain amount of people in check from saying whatever came to mind with no filter. The world needs more of that, not less (filtering).

Here we part ways. You might scatter the dilettantes and know-it-alls by being short with them, but you're also probably going to chase off a lot of well-meaning new people who just don't want the hassle of learning and making mistakes around bullies who will punish them for it. Once that happens, you will see lots more threads with titles like "Across the board is the vintage computer enthusiasm and Forum interest waning?" and the answer that time won't be about forum software choices or people's preferences for Discord.
 
Bullies was an example of something inhibiting someone from just doing something unchecked. Hense why I specified an inner "Filtering" of what someone says before saying it. Again the key part of my comment not being bullies but accountability of what you say.

The fact of the matter is MANY people have now become bullies on the internet. Unfiltered with no accountability as well.
 
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It was a maybe 4 or 5 years ago, there was a user here I dont remember the name. He was so upset and raving how we were all idiots and didnt know how to dischage CRT's. Those of us who use a lead and the tip of something to discharge were doing serious damage...

Just a few months ago someone freaked out and carpet-bombed a thread after I suggested to someone they should try an IDE to SD card adapter instead of CompactFlash based on my experience of having fewer compatibility issues with them. (In one very specific area. And to be clear, the carpet-bomber was not the OP, he just butted in and started screaming.) He was completely stuck on this idea that because CompactFlash is NATIVE IDE!!! any CF card is fundamentally better than any other possible flash option, threw out all sorts of completely BS accusations, refused to support his position by presenting actual data to back it up, it was pretty amazing. And yeah, that kind of thing happens all the time.

Clearly just letting these guys get up on their soap boxes and bully people with their opinions/slash/misinformation isn't okay, and it needs to be responded to. But I also think you need to be careful to not jump down the throat of "innocents" that might repeat the same misinformation (probably because they heard one of these guys hollering it on a street corner) but are open to being educated. IE, when correction is necessary, at least start off gently and patiently. You can always resort to harsher measures once you're absolutely sure you're dealing with a moron. :/
 
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refused to support his position by presenting actual data to back it up
If one claims something you think is wrong, you can always do research yourself to prove or disprove it. That's how I handle it. I never understood people disagreeing but not backing up their point of view either.
 
Just a few months ago someone freaked out and carpet-bombed a thread after I suggested to someone they should try an IDE to SD card adapter instead of CompactFlash based on my experience of having fewer compatibility issues with them. (In one very specific area. And to be clear, the carpet-bomber was not the OP, he just butted in and started screaming.) He was completely stuck on this idea that because CompactFlash is NATIVE IDE!!! any CF card is fundamentally better than any other possible flash option, threw out all sorts of completely BS accusations, refused to support his position by presenting actual data to back it up, it was pretty amazing. And yeah, that kind of thing happens all the time.

Clearly just letting these guys get up on their soap boxes and bully people with their opinions/slash/misinformation isn't okay, and it needs to be responded to. But I also think you need to be careful to not jump down the throat of "innocents" that might repeat the same misinformation (probably because they heard one of these guys hollering it on a street corner) but are open to being educated. IE, when correction is necessary, at least start off gently and patiently. You can always resort to harsher measures once you're absolutely sure you're dealing with a moron. :/
Pfft, flash. Hard drive or no drive! 😛
 
If one claims something you think is wrong, you can always do research yourself to prove or disprove it. That's how I handle it.

That's the particular annoyance of how these guys roll, though; you can do all the research you want and it doesn't matter how ironclad of a case you meticulously build to prove they're full of s***, they'll just keep doubling down with the bullshit and/or ghost. (For now, they'll be back with the same spiel tomorrow. So the whole mess is an utter waste of time.)
 
If one claims something you think is wrong, you can always do research yourself to prove or disprove it. That's how I handle it. I never understood people disagreeing but not backing up their point of view either.
This is how I handle this kind of crap as well, and is a major reason I got into the hobby in 2001 in the first place. I had all these "Network Admins" and "System Admins" in my social circle (looking back, they were probably just Tier 1 Helpdesk pretending to be something more), telling me that the 486 I had just cobbled together out of spare parts for free "can't get on the internet, you need at least a Pentium" and "what are you going to do with that, play Pong?". I got so friggin angry I was determined to prove them wrong, and prove them wrong I did...all I wanted was ANY kind of computing power and probably would have tried with a 286 if I had know it was capable enough. Shoot, even today I'm only a MPEG card, YouTube App, and TLS encrypted e-mail shy of STILL using a 486 as a daily driver in pure DOS, and it's friggin 20 years later and 486's are now practically antiques.
 
You have to remember that a lot of vintage computer enthusiasts, or tech geeks in general, fall somewhere on the Aspergers/Autism spectrum and thus may be very intelligent but also lacking in social skills. And most people are less inhibited when conversing with strangers online than in person because there is no immediate threat to their personal safety.

If you run a YouTube channel, you can add list of key words that will result in a comment getting held for your approval. It's a great way to catch a lot of the riffraff (and spam, too).
 
I gotta ask. Why have comments at all? You can just as easily link on the video to your website or forum which you can moderate or control if you want feedback. The "EXTRA WORK" [emphasized unpurpose] that would need to be expended to get someone to comment would probably filter out a good majority of the nonsense comments immediately. I understand some of you like the feedback by why leave it to the wasteland that is youtube? 99.9% of the comments are "hey look clouds..."
 
You have to remember that a lot of vintage computer enthusiasts, or tech geeks in general, fall somewhere on the Aspergers/Autism spectrum and thus may be very intelligent but also lacking in social skills. And most people are less inhibited when conversing with strangers online than in person because there is no immediate threat to their personal safety.

If you run a YouTube channel, you can add list of key words that will result in a comment getting held for your approval. It's a great way to catch a lot of the riffraff (and spam, too).

The spectrum can be identified easily sometimes if you are yourself or know what to look for. Then you become more like friends, lol. Honestly, I never had much trouble with people online except in the realm of guitars and that's because there's a lot of psudeo scientific, tribal, self-righteous people out there in the guitar community that we thankfully don't have to deal with here, or at least not in as large numbers. However, YouTube's "guidelines" for awhile have toned a lot of that down, either that or my refusal to appease the almighty-algorithm keeps my place more peaceful than most, lol.

I gotta ask. Why have comments at all? You can just as easily link on the video to your website or forum which you can moderate or control if you want feedback. The "EXTRA WORK" [emphasized unpurpose] that would need to be expended to get someone to comment would probably filter out a good majority of the nonsense comments immediately. I understand some of you like the feedback by why leave it to the wasteland that is youtube? 99.9% of the comments are "hey look clouds..."
This is something I'm actually planning to do somewhat with my neocities site. Granted, I'm not as strong a YouTuber as I am a writer, but I do love it when people embed video into their websites, especially if it's something that might provide visuals that will really contribute to the writing around it. It's not even that hard, you just copy the HTML code from the video you want to embed and paste it into your HTML code - assuming the site creator knows HTML of course. Then you could honestly, create technically a new-era "Guestbook" of sorts around your custom curated videos and have your own self-moderated response section if you really wanted....actually, this is giving me ideas since I'm not as fond of google as I used to be..hmmmm...
 
You have to remember that a lot of vintage computer enthusiasts, or tech geeks in general, fall somewhere on the Aspergers/Autism spectrum and thus may be very intelligent but also lacking in social skills. And most people are less inhibited when conversing with strangers online than in person because there is no immediate threat to their personal safety.

If you run a YouTube channel, you can add list of key words that will result in a comment getting held for your approval. It's a great way to catch a lot of the riffraff (and spam, too).
Youtube's comment system stinks. I've lost count of the number of times it has auto deleted comments, with no possibility to retrieve them. At first I thought it was due to links (some definitely were) but a bunch were just long or what have you.. nope.. gone. I'm afraid to filter in case it makes it worse.

I'm fine with comments - I like having the back and forth and feedback from viewers. I've learned a lot and gotten valuable feedback about things like CRT whine etc. I just don't want to be running a channel where I'm "doing the wrong thing". I'd hate to be that guy.

In the event, the commenter reached out and apologized and explained his reasoning. I explained the steps I took and I think there is peace in the valley now.
 
Agree that YT comment system sucks. And now they don't even show the number of dislikes. I too have had replies deleted and don't know why. A civil discussion is fine. Someone might actually learn something and change their mind. But so many replies are just stupid and seem to be intended to offend someone (anyone). You are not that guy. Believe me.
 
Having "restored" two ADM-3a's, They work and except for the CRT's and "doors" (which I replaced with aluminum, a magnet, and handle), as far as I am concerned they are "restored". Keep in mind that it's fairly common for antique radio restorers to pull the guts out of 70-year old capacitors, replace a modern and smaller cap inside, and then seal and replace it, making the modern upgrade invisible. I know of no such person who would do this sort of thing on a computer related product except POSSIBLY when restoring an APPLE-1 PCB or something going into 5-6 figures.

There are people who will duplicate the original shades of chalk used in factory chalk marks on restored automobiles, or work for hours painstakingly duplicating the now EPA-banned "cad plating" rainbow hues of newly made 1960's automotive parts with magical paints and powders. So, there's always somebody...
 
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