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Did you ever make use of "official" factory service?


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[note: some ridiculousness follows]

 

Did you ever make use of official factory repair service back in the day? I had an Apple II+ that got all screwy and took it to the local Compu-Shop (guy with the 'fro), and they did diagnostics and repaired it for $150. 1 bad ram chip out of an array of 24 in a 48K machine. It was a bitch to find because it was very intermittent and only some games would crash.

 

Another time I got smart and pulled a card out an Apple //e with the power on. I forget the exact repair price, it was something like around $199.

 

I also had to exchange a Sider 10MB drive. That was after I had taken apart the HDA, cleaned the heads, and re-seated the platters! To my disappointment they found out and charged me the cost of another drive minus $100 I think.

 

Another time I had the Mountain Music System cards, and for some strange long-forgotten reason I re-soldered every socket on the board set, then went back and removed the sockets and soldered the chips directly in place. This time I used a powerful 150 watt Weller soldering gun to be sure. Damned thing never worked again. Mountain Computer was of no help.

 

One time I had an intermittent card, so I put solder beads on the gold finger contacts. Now that area was thick and would make good contact. 5mm thick! And it was such a tight fit (what I wanted) that I had to tap it in place with a hammer, causing the female slot connector to bulge outward. A local hobbyist put in a new slot connector for $25

 

On some of my peripheral cards I liked putting a thin coating of Testors plastic model cement over the chip's pins where they went into the socket (while they were in the socket). It looked cool, and I thought I was doing good by sealing the contact against dust and dirt. And the added effect glue-sniffing was fun. The aroma came out the computer every time I turned it on (had a SystemSaver from Kensington).

 

Soon I got the idea that if I used a stronger glue I could glue all the chips in permanently and still not have to desolder the sockets. So I got this strong Urethane Bond stuff. It was like white frothy spit, replete with bubbles. I glued down the firmware/rom chip on a Grappler+ parallel interface card and in the process it oozed out, like "The Blob" sneaking in under the door. Not a problem. But damn that stuff is pretty strong, till this day I can't pull that chip out. Ohh I'm sure I could, but traces or socket itself might break. Maybe a couple of hot/cold cycles would work. But, hey, I'm not worried about it. The card works perfectly and resides in a II+ currently.

 

My early enhanced soundcard was a small RadioShack personal 9v amplifier that I connected to a pin. I'd wedge this pin in between IC pins and the slot contact. The idea being the amplifier would pick up the noise from the logic circuits. I was right. I got this buzzing and droning sound that would sometimes change with activity on the screen, other times not. I explored plenty of points on the board, the ram, the rom, the cpu, and got knows what else. Eventually this computer became intermittent and I had to bend the IC pins and keep re-seating them.

 

Another time I got totally bored, and decided to refurb this computer. I took all the chips out. I re-soldered most of the board and to help with the bigger ground planes I used a propane torch. Never worked again. I salvaged individual parts, and keys and power supply and other fitments and fittings. Still have them today. Including the little speaker.

 

I did more funky stuff, but that's enough for now. So.. What were your early service department and repair tales and experiences like back in the day?

 

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My Coco originally had 16K memory. For my birthday (in 1984), my Parents bought me the 64K RAM upgrade.

 

We took the computer to the nearest Radio Shack Computer Centre. The cost was, say, $250, and it would take about a week to do the install.

 

We next went to a local retailer to get some games. It turned out that that shop did memory upgrades as well. We returned to RS, and picked-up the still untouched computer. The cost at the independent place was like $150, and he did the memory upgrade on the counter while we watched!

 

I never did any upgrades or repairs myself until I got a PC.

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Yes that was my experience at Compu-Shop. Though it took all night long to get the system to fail, fail it did. Once the bad chip had been verified with freeze-spray, hot soldering iron, and a diagnostic loop, the guy showed me exactly how it failed. Heat sensitive, a typical fail, he then replaced the single chip on the workbench right were I could see what was going on. Then we ran the test again. All was well. That was pretty cool unlike the swap outs and cop outs we do today.

 

I learned early on how to swap & install boards and add-ons. Once I got over the terror of plugging in the 16K RamCard upgrade I was on my way. I gained confidence. By that summer I had broken apart all kinds of power supplies and started modding everything in sight. I bent my electronic organ, beefed up my Globe Patrol, powered up my Cox/Sanwa R/C car. Everything.

 

Putting in a lowercase chip and doing the shift key mod was done while I was eating McDonald's or Jack-in-the-Box. The grease stains are still in the manual today. Thankfully they didn't spread out and bleed the schematic.

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I had an Atari 1050 disc drive fail while still under warranty, so it was repaired by sending it to an "Authorized Atari Service Center" or whatever they called them back in '85.

 

I lovingly packed that drive back in the original packaging, with the sytrofoam clam-shell pieces, the silica gel pack, the outer sleeve, and then placed into a mailing carton and sen it on its way...

 

I was 14.

 

Sure they repaired it. And they sent it back in a simple cardboard mailer, no styrofoam clam-shell, no outer sleeve with the gorgeous glossy color printing designed for a retail shelf.

 

Boy I was so pissed.

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My Atari 600XL developed keyboard problems right around the time Tramiel bought the company. Took it to the authorized service center, but Atari was in chaos at the time and the repair guy couldn't get Atari to answer the phone much of the time. He blamed it on a power surge (correctly or not) and told us to try making an insurance claim because the surge could have been caused by lightning.

 

My parents did that, and amazingly, the insurance company paid the claim! We replaced it with an 800XL which had fallen in price by then.

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