The Macintosh Portable was Apple’s first foray into mobile computing. This early laptop, err, luggable, weighed in at 16 lbs due to the 6V sealed lead-acid battery and desktop floppy and hard drives. But because of this, the Snow White designed case is roomy inside and a prime candidate for a overhaul. My particular Macintosh […]
Category Archives: Retroputing
ImageWriter II Color Ribbon Fix
If you’ve attempted to use an original color ribbon in your ImageWriter II recently, you’ve quickly found out that the pinch rollers inside the cartridge have disintegrated over time. More specifically, the foam that goes around the rollers that pull the ribbon through the cartridge have fallen apart and turned to sticky dust. I recently […]
iPod 3rd Gen: SD Card Upgrade, New Battery, and Flex Cable Repair
My first iPod was the iPod 3G so I was a little late to the game. I’ve own several iPods after that but the iPod 3G I felt was a perfect distillation of the original iPod experience. Four separate buttons in a row and a touch wheel (nothing moves) seemed like peak iPod design to […]
HP 7585B Pen Plotter Repair
This blog post is a repair thread from social media that began on February 24, 2018. February 24, 2018 So, this happened. My latest retro delivery. Any guesses? It is, yet, another plotter. An HP 7585B wide format plotter with a 36” wide paper path. Unfortunately it failed the first power on test and now […]
Hayes Please: Preserving Software History
Hayes is best known for modems and for establishing the ubiquitous AT command set as the standard for all modems that followed. Their external modems, made of aluminum, fronted with jewel-like LED status lights were the top shelf of modems. As a kid, Hayes modems were a status symbol. Hayes also made other hardware products […]
Datavue 25 Lunchbox PC Power Supply Repair
(This was originally a Twitter thread from May 7, 2019.) May 7, 2019 New addition: Datavue 25 portable lunchbox PC. Keyboard stows on front, two 3.5 floppy drives, 13 pounds.
Hayes Chronograph Display Repair
(This was originally a Twitter thread from January 24, 2022.) January 24, 2022 Many of you know that I have an affinity for the Hayes Chronograph. I have several of them, I made a WiFi controller to set the time automatically, and I’ve repaired several of them. Here’s another page in the repair chapter.
Zenith ZL-1 MinisPort Laptop repairs
(This was originally a Twitter thread from June 14, 2020.) June 14, 2020 Say “Hello, World” to my new Zenith ZL-1 MinisPort laptop from 1989 with an 8088 running 8Mhz, 1MB RAM, and a backlit LCD display. Weighs just under 6 pounds.
Modding a Timex Sinclair 2068 to a Switchable ZX Spectrum ROM
(This was originally a Twitter thread from December 2, 2014) Did you know the American Timex Sinclair 2068 is largely a clone of the popular ZX Spectrum from England? Well, the hardware is but the ROM is different enough to keep ZX Spectrum titles from working. Which is a bummer because there are hundreds of […]
Commodore SX-64 Repair and Refurbishment
(This was originally posted to Twitter on February 3, 2015.) February 3, 2015 Today, I’m going to tackle this new-to-me Commodore SX-64 computer. I bought it cheaply from a seller that said it wasn’t working. It has a few faults that we’ll take a look, including the keyboard which has a few unresponsive keys.