Museums, etc

I've changed the Subject: line because this has little to do with the original subject, which in any case is best forgotten. I am not sure who does what. I've mostly had dealings with the computer collection at Bletchley Park, whether my problems were due to the actions of the muesum or of the CCS I don't know. Suffice it to say I didn't find the experience pleasant. That;s my view too. They suffer -- bigtime -- from the problem I've already mentioned. They do not seem to realise that there are self-taught hobbyists out there some of whom actually know what they are doing. Informing them of this fact is a waste of time. My experience in a number of cases is that somebody gets to work on a particular machine becuase he worked for the company (what he actually did at said company doesn't seem to matter). For some reason somebody has then mentioned me, and I am asked to advise _far too late_, after damage has been done. Oh well.... Incidentally, there are some good ways of ensuring you do not get help One obvious one ios to ask for a replacement board, or other assembly. Unless the part is actually misisng (and was misisng when you got the machine!), or you need it for an upgrade, you are not going to get it will, encourage board-swappers. A couple of years ago I was asked (not by the CCS or anyone related to them) if I had a spare disk drive unit for an HP9114A. Now, as it happens I do have a few 'in stock', but as I said, I never supply complete assemblies like that. I assumed he needed a head assembly (the well-known dried up greas problem. which causes the upper head to get caught in the disk when you eject the latter, and thus the former gets ripped of the gimbal spring). I offered to fit and align that, but upon inspection the heads were fine. In faxt the problem was 2 or 3 dead transsitors on the logic board which didn't take too long to find. And suitable replacements wrre easily available. By refusing to supply a complete spare drive, I (a) kept the unit more original (fewer parts were replaced) and (b) have kept the spare drive for the time it's really neaded (e.g. to donate a head or stepper to another unit, those parts not being easy to get new). And that basically sums up mu reasons for not supplying modules. I prefer to replace as little as possilbe, in order to keep the machine as original as possible. And I prefer to use as little of my stock as possible, as the other parts can go to repair other machines. If a PCB contains half-a-dozen custom chips, then a spare board can be used for just one repair if you wap the whole board, but possibly up to 6 repairs if you change just the defective chip, and if all chips have equal chance of failing. The second wat to not get help from me is to ignore my advice, particularly concerning what to do the first time you power up an uknown machine. If you don't like my methods of testign the PSU on dummy load, fine. Yoy don't have to follow them. But if you just apply power and see what happens, don't expect me to help with parts and advice if something goes wrong. [On that matter, I was appalled by comments at Bletchley on some of the exhibits that they were brought to the museum, plugged together, and worked first time. Any group claiming to be preserving computer history should, IMHO, take rather more care than that!] In which case I suspect you'd probably be listed as having experience of no machines. That was exactly my view in the end. I was battling against people to get thtings done, I was donating my time and expertise free-of-charge, and getting no recognition for it, and I wasn't enjoying it. And I had enough machines of my own to repair, docuemnt, etc. The outcome was, alas, obvious. For the record, I am more than happy to share my repair tricks, as I have done to several people round the world on just this machine.... Indeed. There aren't that many ways to do a particular thing (although HP, in particular, seem to have used all of them at least once :-)). More than that, though, somebody who has general experience is likely to be able to understand a mew circuit/program/whatever after a little time, and is not likely to do the totally wrong thing before he's worked out what the right thing to do is. -tony