Performa
Member
When I kicked off the RoboCup show, I knew full well that not every machine powered up was going t make it all the way through the event without breaking down. These old things overheat, crash, and generally don't work as reliably as they did 30+ years ago, and that's to be expected. To combat this, I had a whole slew of "alts" to slot in when and if more interesting equipment went down, but I'm pleased to say less things went down than expected.
All the same, here's the short list of Wisconsin Computer Club machines that are down for the count following their visit to RoboCup 2021. Bear in mind this does not include machines that broke down before the show and never made it there in the first place.
-Apple IIGS
I knew I was rolling the dice with this one. The Apple IIGS power supply has a pair of RIFA caps, and while I had heard the caps had been replaced once already, I had n idea when. figured I could probably get between 2-4 hours out of it before it would blow up. Unfortunately, it only made it 40 minutes before the main filter cap literally exploded, and that's that for the IIGS for the time being. This should be an easy fix, though I'm now considering a more permanent solution in the form of a PSU replacement. We'll see which path is a better fit.
-Compaq SLT386
The "big laptop" cut out sometime around noon, though I wasn't paying super close attention to it. It might have simply overheated, but it's hard to say.
-Zenith EaZy PC.
This one was misbehaving from the start of the event, demanding a hard drive (which it doesn't have), so it was just left running at the prompt screen until had a moment to mess with it again. When I finally did have a moment to try and get Planet X3 running on it for the show, I noticed it was "off" and that the switch didn't do anything. From the faint smell about it, I do wonder if this one doesn't have RIFA caps in the monitor too. More on this one soon, it's too cool to be out of commission.
All the same, here's the short list of Wisconsin Computer Club machines that are down for the count following their visit to RoboCup 2021. Bear in mind this does not include machines that broke down before the show and never made it there in the first place.
-Apple IIGS
I knew I was rolling the dice with this one. The Apple IIGS power supply has a pair of RIFA caps, and while I had heard the caps had been replaced once already, I had n idea when. figured I could probably get between 2-4 hours out of it before it would blow up. Unfortunately, it only made it 40 minutes before the main filter cap literally exploded, and that's that for the IIGS for the time being. This should be an easy fix, though I'm now considering a more permanent solution in the form of a PSU replacement. We'll see which path is a better fit.
-Compaq SLT386
The "big laptop" cut out sometime around noon, though I wasn't paying super close attention to it. It might have simply overheated, but it's hard to say.
-Zenith EaZy PC.
This one was misbehaving from the start of the event, demanding a hard drive (which it doesn't have), so it was just left running at the prompt screen until had a moment to mess with it again. When I finally did have a moment to try and get Planet X3 running on it for the show, I noticed it was "off" and that the switch didn't do anything. From the faint smell about it, I do wonder if this one doesn't have RIFA caps in the monitor too. More on this one soon, it's too cool to be out of commission.