Tantalum Popcorn - What to do (Was S-100 Bus Voltages)

Well, I plugged in the boards and powered up the computer, and promptly powered it down after a few loud pops - D'Oh! Nothing was displayed on my teminal connected to the console serial line. The affected boards are the CPU board and a serial board - some tantalum capacitors blew. I'm assuming they're tantalum caps- they're not electrolytic can-style, or ceramic disc-style, but look like a gob of shiny blue acrylic paint on two leads. The board marks which lead is +. Are these tantalum caps common enough to buy at the local electronics shop? We've got Radio Shack, but I heard they are overpriced. The caps to be replaced were in the uF range. BTW this is a complete system and the cards are arranged (from low slot # to high slot #): CPU, RAM, FD controller, Serial/Parallel, Terminator. Will check with documentation that RAM and ROM banks, and I/O is configured right once I get the boards fixed. Thanks, Edwin At 11:08 PM 6/2/2001 -0400, you wrote: