And for
landline phoens, I've got plenty of 700 series (1060's, 1970's)
that work fine and a 332 (1940's) in need of a bit of restoration. But
that I can do.
Those will pretty much last forever.
Indeed. Well, there is one part in one such telephone that has a limited
life -- the batelight in a TRIMphone. But it stil lworks when that has
decayed, it jsut doesn't glow i nthe dark.
Some later 700 series -- particualrly 70s and 746s, had what is known as
a Dial 54. This was, IIRC< the last type of rtary dial, and it's almost
all plastic. The mainspting fits into a slot in the plastic bearing, and
after about 30 years, it cracks and the dial no longer runs back. I have
a fix for this, but it takes an afternoon (basically, strip the dial
down, drill out the old bearing housign nad repalce it with a machiend
brass one.
But apart from that there's little to go wrong.
The only thing
I 'own' thet I don't fix myself is my cat :-)
Yeah, manufacturers don't exactly release schematics for those. :)
That's not waht bothers me. I've fixed many thigns without official
scheamtics...
The problem is that the system software of the cat, includign the
microcode, is stored in volatile memeory. So if you cut the power supply
to the processor (brain), the thign can't be rebooted.
So I leave such repairs to people who know what they are doing. You can't
learn as you go.
-tony
