14 Nov
2004
14 Nov
'04
5:45 a.m.
It is an
INCREDIBLY BAD idea to just go into a room full of
old computers and just randomly start applying power to equipment
in unknown condition. At an absolute minimum, you should check
the condition of the power supplies.
The Nord-10 had at least been powered up in
1993 (I found a system disk
backup with that date), and most likely later. The backup battery that lets the CPU keep the contents of the memory and
registers for a short
while actually contained a charge. I flipped that switch without
worrying the least bit.
I would not be so reckless!. It only takes one failure in the PSU
regulator to take out most, if not all, of the chips in the machine (I
don't want to trust that crowbar protection will work!). I, alas, have
had it happen once, fortunately I could get all the chips and had adump
of the EPROM, but it was not a cheap experience. Running the PSUs on
dummy load and making sure the output voltages are correct is something
that I always do now.
-tony