Memorex Telex 8090-33 i486 PC

[Performa]

When we were at Evercon, @PS2it mentioned that the Compudyne I had brought had the same case as a 486 machine he had lying around. Not long after, he brought the machine to my shop, and I figured I could take a break and work on it.

For starters, it is definitely the same case that Compudyne used in the late 1990's, so it's got a longer lineage than I thought.

Then there's the matter of corrosion...

 

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Build plate:

 

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I wanted to see if it would boot before I went any further. Spoiler alert, it works.

 

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I wrestled the board out to clean it. here's the before and after!

The pins on the one ISA slot are still corroded, but as I have six more that appear in decent shape, I won't stress about one bad slot.

 

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Tiny little RAM SIMM modules!

 

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So here it is put (mostly) back together. The bluish coloring on the ISA slots really came back, even after a shot of deoxit- but I'm hoping I just won't need those slots going forward.

 

[Performa]

Finally, the machine was missing a drive. As @PS2it had left it's original "combo" floppy drive in there I didn't need another floppy drive, so I searched around until I found something that was both 5.25" and roughly the same color. This old tape drive isn't actually hooked up to anything, shh- don't tell anyone!

 

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So the next step for this one will (eventually) to get it an SD-based hard drive replacement, and get that loaded with games. In the interim, I've got it sitting on top of the Compudyne as they fit.

 

[PS2it]

Looking very good! That tape drive looks like it belongs in there! Did you need rails to install it?

Let me know if you need some slot covers, I've got a bunch of extra ones.

 

[DeanG]

Fun to see the 90's RAM boards!

 

[DeanG]

Those tape drives were sooooo slow. I installed one on a small farm business computer and hoped++ I never had to get called for a recovery job.

 

[Performa]

Looking very good! That tape drive looks like it belongs in there! Did you need rails to install it?

Let me know if you need some slot covers, I've got a bunch of extra ones.

I've got it "stuck" in there with a couple pieces of foam and a zip tie- if you've got rails for it, I'd be interested!

 

[Performa]

Those tape drives were sooooo slow. I installed one on a small farm business computer and hoped++ I never had to get called for a recovery job.

Cleaning them is a real chore too. The dust and debris can flow right through from both sides to collect in the middle- not much fun cleaning all of that out!