rescued a beehive!

From: Joe <rigdonj_at_intellistar.net>
Date: Sat May 20 07:59:33 2000

At 07:29 AM 5/19/00 -0600, Richard wrote:
>I'm not sure the Beehive terminal is the best-supported one available, but
>if you've any hope of getting your Altair running with "period" hardware,
>i.e. with hardware available in the era in which the box was designed, I'd
>say you're going to need one.

   I already have a ADM-3A that works fine, so I don't need this one. I
find Lear-Siegler terminals all the time.

 Video boards for the S-100 were not common
>until much later, with the possible exception of the SSM VB1, which does not
>provide a standard 80x24 display.
>
>If this terminal is really unused, it might be worth going through and
>swapping the electrolytic caps with some relatively new ones, but it
>probably would work well otherwise. 20-year old electrolytics need to be
>"re-formed" if they're to work reliably. That involves removing them from
>the circuit and gradually cycling them up to peak voltage and current. If
>you have to remove them, it makes more sense to replace them rather than to
>go through the re-forming process. Some of them may die anyway, due to
>tired dielectric.

   I have a large Variac that I plug old stuff like this into and I use it
to gradually bring up to full voltage. I start at 10% for a few minnutes,
then go to 20% for 1/2 or so and then step it up another 20% every 1/2
hour. I've had no trouble with shorted caps since I started doing this.

>
>A TVI 910 or a Lear-Siegler ADM-3A might be a more widely supported choice.
>I used either a TVI or a Hazeltine Esprit emulating a Hazeltine 1500 most of
>the time. I didn't start using this S-100 stuff until 1977, however.

   I'd like to find a Hazeltine 1500 for one of the Altairs but the only
ones that I've found so far were in pretty bad shape.

     Joe
Received on Sat May 20 2000 - 07:59:33 BST