IBM 5155 analogue display fault

Of course not. I cna't. I can be darn sure I'll never separate them, and I've told the guy who gets my collection if I snuff it that he must check all service manuals and other docs for my notes. YEs, it's quite possible the documentation will get lost. I alas consider this to be a necessary evil of keeping these machines useful and operational. If it was a mod that made it more usable, then I'd agree.... If that monitor was assembled with screws that were impossible to remove non-destructively, then I would have no problem with drilling them out and replacing them with something else since the monitor needs repair. If the delivery time on a Bristol Spline key was 1 year or something, then considering Jules has already removed the screws with pliers, I guess he should order the tool, put the monitor back together with normal screws for the time being (given that documentation is not hard to preserve for 1 year), and when the tool arrives, put the original screws back in. But, darn it, the right tool is not hard to obtain, there is no good reason for not keeping the original screws. No, I'd have no problem with that, provided it was documented as such (a paint dot on each of the replaced ICs is the conventional way to indicate such changes I think, along with paper documentation of what was changed and why, and the date). In fact I would recomend doing that modification if it's not already been done, it was a common mod when the machine was current, it lets you run a lot more software on it. My comment is, and has always beem, that an archivist, and for that matter anyone else, should not make a modification unless there's a darn good reason for it. Not wanting to buy the right tool is not a good reason. -tony