I know it's not quite on topic, but I went to the grandopening of the new Apple store out at Tyson's Corner, VA today and it was just too cool. There was a guy there who had gotten in at 4am and was waiting for the opening but the mall guards kicked him out when they did their rounds! The supervisor of it's construction had seen him sitting there though so when the guy came back in later, after the line had gotten fairly well along, he went ahead and put the guy back in his original spot at the front. #2 guy drove all the way down from New Jersey. Even if you're not a Mac person, if you get the chance drop into one of the Apple retail stores. It's quite a difference from CompUSA. A bit more on-topic, it would seem that the stories about Steve Jobs perfectionism haven't been exagerated. The same supervisor, who I talked to prior to the opening as I was waiting, said that Jobs had visited the site a few times during construction and if something wasn't to his liking it was redone. It was said that he even made them tear out a wall and redo it. He also said that after they had trouble getting the 10 foot video screen working with a push of a single button the way he wanted that Jobs told them to put a picture of John Lennon and Yoko Ono over it. This picture is seen in the various pre-opening photographs. It was still there this morning but just before they opened they took it down and had the presentations working ok. Jeff -- Collector of Classic Microcomputers and Video Game Systems: Home of the TRS-80 Model 2000 FAQ File http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757

They opened the 2nd one today in Glendale at the Glendale Galleria. They do sell peripherals and printers and a good selection of software, but it's geared more towards the more recent machines. The also sell digital video cameras and such. Jeff -- Collector of Classic Microcomputers and Video Game Systems: Home of the TRS-80 Model 2000 FAQ File http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757

I'm sure there's some kind of service area on site. There are people in-store who's whole job is tech support and it certainly can't be any worse than asking the clueless clerks a question, even PC related, in such stores as CompUSA. As for paying full list, if you check out the specs of say the new iBook, you'll see that the list of $1300 is actually pretty reasonable. At that price they were selling quite well while I was there. Jeff -- Collector of Classic Microcomputers and Video Game Systems: Home of the TRS-80 Model 2000 FAQ File http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757

X-ray will work too and far better. I haven't. If anybody did, post those scans online pretty please? Especially DS12887 series. Your method on total desruction on both crystal and battery is far easier than nibbling away carefully bit by bit without eating important lead or two. :-) The stuff to fill with is nasty and eats up cutting bits and blunt saws fast. I discovered that when I punched a hole on corner of a delegged 486SX SMD (black package style w/ bumpers on all 4 corners) with a titanium drill bit making into keychain tag. I think it's made of special epoxy and glass powder. Grab $1 quartz watch, these uses this 32.768KHz crystals. Far accurate than those on junky peecee motherboards. Cheers, Wizard

Those that appeared on the motherboard after '96 or so, common now. Chances of finding a crystal: early Pentium 30% late 80%. 486 90%. Slot 1/socket 370 95%. Sure, Open any 1 to 50 dollar quartz clocks and watches let it be digital or analog. No trimmer. started around late '90's. What happened most machines has weak batteries, accuracy go astray. Keep your eye on that voltage. Double that watchfulness for that machines that uses NiCd or 4 x AA, when voltage drops too much, replace or remove them either in use or not in use, they leak and corrodes the PCB traces. Doesn't take long to happen, few months is enough. Not all people wear it all the time, yet it keeps accurate time especially on quartz ones. Cheers, Wizard - automatic watch user. Saved $35 worth of batteries, watches I had battery has to be replaecd yearly. :-)