OhkaBaka

As of our tinkering with it last night (basically looking for problems and finding none, and reseating the GIME)... It seems to have degraded a bit (I'm getting no video at all), but I'm not confident in my analog to digital video connection. As for the caps, none of them appear popped, and there is no visible leakage. there are several elements (capacitors and otherwise) that appear to have blobs of glue under them, though in some cases the (especially the big caps) the glue has mostly baked/vulcanized into a dark brown gunk that flakes off. cloud9 is doa at the moment anyhow... where else could I find a repair

I haven't touched it in a year. Sigh. Recently took the spawn to the Living Computer Museum here in Seattle and he got to play on one of the last handful of Apple I computers in the world. He also got a chance to code on a CoCo as well... then... weirdly, last month at a thrift store I found an original Tandy tape drive in beautiful condition, no stains, no corrosion.... sans cable, but lo and behold I went looking and FOUND mine... apparently after my cassette player crapped out, I was wise enough to know the most valuable part of the whole deal was that little cord. So now my son is back at me... he thinks we should pull all the chips and clean the contacts... again... and given the rarity of the GIME, I guess that makes sense. I'll try to get to this without waiting a whole nother year.

That is what I'm looking for... I'll give cleaning the GIME a go... and then decide if I send her off for repairs, or put her to rest.

I found my 10 year old retro tech aficionado and burgeoning programmer using a CoCo3 emulator online to run BASIC programs and I said to him, "You know I still HAVE my CoCo." With tremendous pride on my part and stammering and delight and delight from him, he asked if we could set it up. I couldn't be happier, the CoCo literally changed my life. It is mentioned in the cover letter that got me my last few development jobs. I have kept it faithfully since I was only a couple years older than him. I used it, daily at first, and then less so, until about 1992, when I "replaced" it with a 286sx and respectfully boxed it up and tucked it away. 25 years and nearly a dozen moves later, my boy and I opened it up like we were unboxing a new VR headset rig or something. It was exciting and fun. It was also completely covered in mouse poop. Sigh. We cleaned it up... which included dismantling the keyboard and dumping the key springs all over the kitchen floor. BUT... it looks like Mickey had lived most of his life on the F1 and F2 keys (which were miserable to clean), and miraculously, no urine or poop managed to make it onto the motherboard itself. Finally we plugged it in and my nostalgic heart soared at seeing that familiar green square appear on screen... and then sank again as I realized no text appeared on screen with it. TLDR; Upon plugging in a CoCo3 that has been in storage for 25 years, it boots to a green screen with no text or prompt. Obviously, it is still doing SOMETHING... it just isn't getting all the way up. Carts don't work either... I get the same green screen booting to BASIC or trying to load a cart. It could be tragic... it could be minor... I just thought I'd ask whatever is left of the Tandy community if anyone knows what it could be or has fixed such a thing before. Many thanks, my brethren of the blinky rainbow cursor... OhkaBaka