And I got to inspect it up close to see where we’re at.
First I took a ton of close up pictures I can use for referencing wiring etc. Next up was to remove the mainboard. This yielded a surprise on the backside. Some kind of rubbery substance was splashed over the backside. I noticed this stuff before on the wiring to one of the outside connectors and at first I figured it was a spill but upon close inspection, it was used to secure jumper wires. So I set out to carefully remove the gunk in order to see all the jumpers.
I managed to do so without snapping any jumpers, so I can now inventory all the jumpers. I counted at least 40 so far.
Next up was removing the EPROMs and creating dumps. I opened the files in a hex editor and they look fairly empty. Now I know from the source code that the bootstrapper is small, but this is maybe a bit too small. I can assume they are corrupt. Which isn’t that much of an issue, I can recreate them from source, but my plan is that I don’t need the physical EPROMS anymore.
Same goes for the card reader which fell out (it was originally glued to the front-plate).
Inspecting the mainboard further, there seems to be some corrosion, but nothing too crazy.
I’m making a list of all IC’s used, so far nothing has shown up that isn’t readily available.
Also a list of transistors but all general purpose easy to find and cheap, so I ordered a box of 50 already.
A lot of tantalum capacitors were used, these all need to be replaced if this thing has to work again. Another list…
Next up was removing the lower switch board and this looked pretty much cooked. Lots of corrosion. Thankfully it’s not a difficult board, so either fixing it with lots of trace repairs or recreating the board.
Also on order: Replacement knobs, I found some that seem to be identical to the original.
And lastly for now, researching on having the paint color measured professionally somewhere so I can get the correct paint. The front plate I will touch up only, the case needs more work, but I hope I can preserve the markings “Direct” etc on top.
Until next weekend…..