22 Dec
1997
22 Dec
'97
6:45 p.m.
I guess that's the loss of plasticizer ...the same thing you see in
stiffening and embrittlement of vinyl.
I've never see thermosets go bad, unless attacked by solvents (altho' I've
seen epoxies go gummy.)
----------
From: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
To: Manney
Subject: Re: Plastic rot
Date: Monday, December 22, 1997 11:19 AM
At 09:22 12/22/97, you wrote:
discoloration,
I have several old HP computers that have done the
same thing. Is there
any way to repair or restore the color?
No, there (currently) isn't. And the real bother isn't the but the accompanying embrittlement -- I picked up a
mustard-colored HP
terminal once and had a piece of the case break off in my hand.
A bloke who was researching this at the Science Mus. in London wrote an
article for the ANALYTICAL ENGINE in which he basically said that there
was
no reversing the effect, and the only way you could
limit the
deterioration
was to keep the artifact in near-total darkness. I
also asked the
Smithsonian and they concurred with this.
__________________________________________
Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
http://www.chac.org/index.html
Computer History Association of California