Alex

Alex

@devopslimeyninja.bsky.social

Technology nerd, DevOps and Platform Engineering ninja, maker of things, aerospace and science fiction fan. Los Alamos National Laboratory. Opinions my own. 🇬🇧🇺🇸

913 followers845 following321 posts

You know when you buy a DECwriter online, and the seller neglects to tell you that it was a mouse house for years? New twist -- I noticed the logic board had a 6502A backwards in the socket. Before turning it the right way, I looked at the schematic and found that there should be an 8085A-2 there.

Good lord. It’s like Zenith took a bunch of separate products and wired them together to meet Sun’s spec. The RCA jack on the neck board is where the video signal comes in from the 13W3.

For fun, I’m going to argue with ChatGPT through the process. There will be more arguing if it tells me to lick the anode. 500 screws removed so far and still can’t get to the main PCB.

Ok. Now I’m stuck and a little scared. I need to work on the voyager’s LCD panel and have connectors to remove. Do I need to release the snaps at the end, or rotate the far side of the connector out? Get it wrong, and it’s broken 😬 Help!

This week's side quest is checking to see if this Sun-branded Sony monitor that I just bought on eBay still works. So I need a Sun workstation. I haven't turned on the SPARCstation Voyager for about five years, and anyway need to replace the NVRAM chip.

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This week's side quest is checking to see if this Sun-branded Sony monitor that I just bought on eBay still works. So I need a Sun workstation. I haven't turned on the SPARCstation Voyager for about five years, and anyway need to replace the NVRAM chip.

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I noticed this. These (red) potted components are likely pulse transformers made by VAC (a German company that Sun used for high-tolerance magnetic components).

ChatGPT tells me that those weird crystals on the outside are not uncommon, and likely the way that rosin flux migrated over the past 35 years. I'm going to take it for its word and step away, closing the case as I go. Will pretend I saw nothing.

This week's side quest is checking to see if this Sun-branded Sony monitor that I just bought on eBay still works. So I need a Sun workstation. I haven't turned on the SPARCstation Voyager for about five years, and anyway need to replace the NVRAM chip.

View full thread

This week's side quest is checking to see if this Sun-branded Sony monitor that I just bought on eBay still works. So I need a Sun workstation. I haven't turned on the SPARCstation Voyager for about five years, and anyway need to replace the NVRAM chip.

View full thread

This week's side quest is checking to see if this Sun-branded Sony monitor that I just bought on eBay still works. So I need a Sun workstation. I haven't turned on the SPARCstation Voyager for about five years, and anyway need to replace the NVRAM chip.

So side-side quest is to remove the case of the voyager to replace the NVRAM, which is an adventure. While I'm there, I might as well take pictures of the innards, right?

Alex reposted

With Claude Code, I created a text-based mouse GUI that simulates a 1984 Macintosh Drag-drop icons, scrollbars, resizable windows, menus Five working apps: MacWrite, MacPaint, Terminal, Calculator, and Puzzle! Telnet to port 1984 or use the web terminal link below: www.vintagecomputing.com/1984/

The anode lead on the fly back transformer is not in good shape 😭 The cracks and the chip in the wire are going to cause problems, assuming they didn’t already when the seller turned it on. I have some special conformal coating on the way. It comes in pints.

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I'm at my local. One of the guys asked if I'm trick or treating later. I said that I'm a grown up. What would I trick or treat for? Whisky? He has a radio show. I think I may have just started something.