18 Dec
2005
18 Dec
'05
6:23 a.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
The really bad one in my experience is the CTR-80.
This was supplied
with some Model 1's and had a really nasty design bug. When turned off by
the remote socket _in play mode_, the erase head would put a glitch on
the tape.
How do design glitches like that get past QA? (Or was there no QA?)
One thing I love about my old IBM PC 5150 with ST-225 is that *it is still
running 22 years later*. I fire it up at least once a week to do some hobby
programing or game playing and the damn thing just runs. I can't say that for
my modern machines -- I had an ATX power supply die on my twice in 5 years
(had a 5 year warranty), and I've had modern drives fail quite spectacularly,
etc., etc. but I've been spoiled by most of my old machines. They just work.
I mention all the above because it was a surprise to hear that a piece of old
consumer-level hardware had such a nasty flaw.
The work-around was to pull the remote-control plug
and use it in manual
control mode only. The fix, IIRC, was to solder a 10uF capacitor in
parallel with the erase head.
Confused -- why would that fix it?
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)
World's largest electronic gaming project: http://www.MobyGames.com/
A delicious slice of the demoscene: http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/
Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/