8bitty Classic fix-a-thon

Hackerspace
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http://www.hypepotamus.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Vintage-Apple-at-Auction.jpg

A Classic Fix-A-Thon is a pc maintenance clinic where enthusiasts can bring their retro and vintage PCs to get a quick repair and maintenance check, learn to preform repairs, and upgrades depending on the supplies available.

For STEM students wish to attend this event can occur during the school day as an elective activity, or outside of school hours as a separate event.

Attendees will bring their own classic pc to the event and we assist them with doing maintenance, work with them to make needed adjustments and basic repairs. The attendee is expected to “assist” the mentor in a hands on fashion instead of drop off their machine and return later when it is done.

Although the attendee would not be expected doing most of the technical work, they will learn about what parts of the vintage computer are not working, how that impacts the usability and, how to repair it, so one can avoid having the issue occur in the future.

More technical knowledge attendees are encouraged to peer off with the less skilled attendees as a mentor.

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When and where? Do you have spare parts for this?

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It should be up on the calendar shortly for Friday, December 9 6:30pm 8bitty Classic fix-a-thon

As for parts I have a few things around in storage but not much.

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I hope we have more of these! Can’t be at this one, but I love tinkering with vintage equipment.

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Count on it, as long as vintage computer committee is at dallas makerspace we’ll have a fix-a-thon, bbs dial in and a interactive computer museum.

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Looking forward to meeting someone who knows about floppy drive maintenance, since I have some Tandon drives in my IBM 5150 & 5162 that need to be fixed. :smiley:

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Cleaning heads… cleaning edge connectors… Common stuff.

The hard part is if you have to tear into the stepper motors to clean and lube the bearings. That’s more and more common on those drives because of age. The lube hardens and the motors refuse to turn. It’s easy enough to take them apart and clean the bearings and re-lube them, but in doing so you end up having to realign the drive and that takes special disks and an oscilloscope.

The scope is easy to find. Alignment disks? Not so much.

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Couldn’t you just use a known-data disk and adjust until you get good data recovery?

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Anyone want to build a Apple I from schematics? :slight_smile:

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woohoo ~ it’s on the calendar now! :smiley:

https://calendar.dallasmakerspace.org/events/view/1132

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Yes!! I’d love to. Hell if we wanted we could even 3d print the case. OK maybe not, but the possibilities is endless and I’m game.

So… When do you want to start?

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Reminder: this is tonight. Who all is helping fix stuff tonight? I know I’ve got stuff that needs repair, i.e. the aforementioned floppy disk drives :wink:

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I signed up for it. I’ll have to dig and bring some tools and chips.

Raymond

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I won’t be able to attend, but I’d love to buy/acquire an intact C=64 machine, even if it has some video or power supply issues.

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I have all kinds of Commodore stuff here in the storage barn and garage.

You should come by Highland Village sometime. I need to clean out space.

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Sounds interesting. Let’s see how next week works out.

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I am planning on bringing a C=64 and C=128 myself!

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I have a 7p class, so probably won’t have enough time to do what you’ll recommend. But I have an SX-64 with keyboard issues. Cable is good, I think, but the contacts in the keyboard are degraded. :confused:

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Take it all apart and clean the key contacts on the PCB with a pink pencil eraser. It takes a LOT of work to get it all apart and cleaned, but once you get the eraser dust off and reassemble it the keyboard will work beautifully.

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I might have to take you up on that offer.