Diamond D5 Wordprocessor

From: Julian Richardson <JRichardson_at_softwright.co.uk>
Date: Thu Apr 9 05:07:11 1998

Hi,

>>> One was donated to me a while ago after standing unused in a garage for
>>> a few years - apparently it was working when it went into store.
>>> However, nowadays if I put the system disk into the drive it seeks the
>>> heads, spins a couple of times, then all goes silent.
>>
>>Start out by opening the case and reseating all the boards in the
>>cardcage. I seem to recall that there's quite a few boards in there,
>>using 43 way edge connectors. Then check the PSU outputs - a good place
>>to do that is at the 8" drive DC connectors, as at least that pinout is
>>standard.

I seem to remember that the PSU outputs were good - at least everything
was as it should be at the drive connectors. The machine's in storage
about 200 miles away from me at the moment, so unfortunately I can't
check (one day I will get a place with a bit of space!!!)

I never stripped the machine down and rebuilt it though.

>>BTW, if you don't have the key needed to open the back of the machine,
>>either pick the lock (it's a trivial wafer tumbler one) or flip the
>>machine sideways and unscrew the plates on the bottom. That will release
>>the back cover. The rest of the case then comes off.

Heh heh, yup - I remember doing exactly that...

>>> There's no cursor or anything on the monitor, but having never seen the
>>> machine working myself I don't know if it should display anything at all
>>> before a successful boot completes.
>>
>>Have you got the monitor cabled up correctly? There's a 10 way (?) ribbon
>>cable _and_ a mains lead to connect.

The monitor is getting HT power to the tube OK, and from what I remember
the ribbon cable would only plug in the back of the system unit one way
round, so that should be ok. It bothers me that there's no cursor or
anything on the screen, but I don't know if there should be - chances
are good that what little ROM this machine has would contain just enough
to boot from disk and nothing else.

It's a shame that the disks I have aren't known to be good - I have 2 or
3 system disks but all of them give the same results - disk seeks and
spins on power up and then all goes quiet.

let me know when you get your Diamond running! :)

cheers

Jules
Received on Thu Apr 09 1998 - 05:07:11 BST