On Sun, Oct 2, 2016 at 8:20 PM, jim stephens <jwsm...@jwsss.com> wrote:
> > > On 10/2/2016 6:23 PM, Ian S. King wrote: > >> Hi all, >> >> I've posted looking for help with a TeleVideo TPC-1, and I've heard a lot >> of crickets <snip> >> > I saw your FB posting, good job, and chirp chirp. > >> I've ordered an exact, tested/guaranteed >> working replacement from ePay, >> > Those were common drives, but be sure to do a careful inspection, as some > of the drives had variants that were subtle. > > good job, great you got it working. > thanks > JIm > >> and I'm going to have everything working to >> spec before I snap this thing back together. >> >> Yes, I'm having fun. :-) >> >> OK, my 'new' Teac drive arrived and passed inspection. I carefully jumpered it to match the original, reassembled just enough that I could plug it in, and... success! So to recap (pun intended), the machine had bad caps in the power supply (leaking goo) and a bad drive 0. What I want to record here for posterity is how to open one of these things. It was a real pain, which I've heard was intentional. Reassembly was challenging, too, but at least I could see what was happening. So here goes: To disassemble, you need to remove four screws. Facing the unit as it sits on the bench (i.e. operating position), there are two screws on the top of the machine at the front corners and two others on the rear, vertically centered and near each vertical edge (one of them is in the recess where you can store the power and keyboard cables). Now it gets fun. The unit disassembles into a top cover that wraps over side-to-side, and a rear piece that holds the majority of the electronics. The bottom piece of the main case holds the power supply, floppy cage and some of the video electronics. There are plastic 'teeth' that fit into indents at various point along those pieces. For the top cover, the 'teeth' are part of the cover, one per corner. For the back panel, the teeth snap into the top and bottom of the main part of the case. The teeth are also accompanied by a very thin indent in the case piece. It's sort of a muscle job to get these things separated. I got the back piece free before removing the top piece, with a little help from a putty knife in those indents. There are screws in the bottom of the case that hold in the power supply and the floppy cage One of the floppy case screws is located underneath the tilt 'foot'. Putting it back together: be sure you have the logic board *inside* the screw points for the back panel, but don't put in the screws yet. Seat the top cover with its teeth in place, and insert the two front screws (don't screw down tightly yet). Then, lever the back panel's teeth into their slots, watching the top cover to be sure it doesn't try to pop off. Insert the two rear screws and tighten. Now tighten the front two screws, and it's back together. It may take a little jostling to get everything to reseat completely. Now to go through the metric butt-ton of software I got with this thing - over a hundred floppies. Looking at the labels, some are duplicates, some are 'working' disks, and some are original TeleVideo floppies with system software. Fortunately, one of them is Kermit, which will make the archiving job a lot easier! OK, that was fun. Next! Probably the Kenwood TH-77A I bought that won't transmit. Cheers -- Ian -- Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS, Ph.D. Candidate The Information School <http://ischool.uw.edu> Dissertation: "Why the Conversation Mattered: Constructing a Sociotechnical Narrative Through a Design Lens Archivist, Voices From the Rwanda Tribunal <http://tribunalvoices.org> Value Sensitive Design Research Lab <http://vsdesign.org> University of Washington There is an old Vulcan saying: "Only Nixon could go to China."
