Microvax II 'primer'?

[Jules Richardson]

On 01/22/2018 02:05 PM, allison via cctech wrote:
>
>
> On 1/22/18 2:18 PM, Douglas Taylor via cctech wrote:
>> I can't believe you 'just carry it into the house' all by yourself,
>> unless you are professional athlete.
>> I also have a MicroVax II in the BA123 world box and it has wheels for a
>> reason!  The damn thing weighs 130 lbs!
>> I took it to the VCF East last year, never do that again.  Too heavy.
>>
> Huge difference between BA23 and ba123 as the BA123 is about twice the size
> and internal board space.

Mine's the BA123, the bigger one. It's heavy! I lifted it out of the van 
myself and put it onto one of the kids' old sleds so that I could drag it 
through the snow to the door it needed to go through, then picked it up 
again and took it up the few steps that were necessary. Did I mention that 
it was heavy?

I did take the side panels off, which helped a lot - I could lift it (just) 
then with one hand around the top edge and the other on the metal bar at 
the bottom by the power inlet. I certainly wouldn't want to carry one far.

>> Yes, remove the NiCad battery.
>>
> Its easily replaced.

Does leaving it out entirely cause any issues (at least during a testing 
phase)?

If it's actually holding a charge at present (I seriously doubt it, but it 
doesn't appear to have leaked) is there any benefit to leaving it in 
initially - i.e. is it responsible for retaining any settings (e.g. disk 
parameters) that it would be useful for me to write down - assuming the 
system proves to be operational - before replacing it?

> RD53s had a problem with the head sticking against the stops.  I repair
> them, yes I open them
> unstick it then remove the offending the rubber parts.

That's useful to know - I'm certainly not against doing that myself if it 
proves necessary (assuming that's the drive I have)

cheers

Jules