Opening up a TeleVideo TPC-1

[Ian S. King]

Hi folks,

I was in an antique store today, mostly to humor my wife, and much to her
dismay spotted a fairly early luggable: it said TeleVideo on the face and,
looking closer, it was a TPC-1 with the keyboard, the carrying bag, the
documentation AND a metric butt-ton of floppies.  Once I get everything
sorted I'll let the list know what software I have, so if you need
something maybe I can help....

...and maybe you can help me.  I want to open up the TPC and check power
supplies, etc. - OK, I'll come clean.  I plugged it in, watched carefully
for magic smoke and, seeing none, put a 'working disk' in the drive.  I got
an endless string of '.' but no boot.  I tried a couple of other disks
labeled <boot> and, after a couple, I no longer had a display.  So no
surprise, I really need to open it up and probably replace a bunch of PS
capacitors.

I have no idea how to get this box open!  There's nothing in the
documentation, and I found one online reference that suggested TeleVideo
kept this information close to the chest because they didn't want any Tom,
Dick or Ian opening up their machines.  Now if I poke and prod long enough
I'll probably get there, but with the collective knowledge on this list I
figure there has to be SOME one who worked on these back In The Day, who
just knows this off the top of his/her head.

So... anyone?  Thanks -- Ian

-- 
Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS, Ph.D. Candidate
The Information School <http://ischool.uw.edu>

Archivist, Voices From the Rwanda Tribunal <http://tribunalvoices.org>
Value Sensitive Design Research Lab <http://vsdesign.org>

University of Washington

There is an old Vulcan saying: "Only Nixon could go to China."