Repair philosophy (was Re: IBM ROM BASIC or lack thereof)

From: Mark Tapley <mtapley_at_swri.edu>
Date: Tue Oct 9 15:49:11 2001

Among quite a bit of other wisdom, Tony wrote:

>Heck, all I want are things like pinouts....

Ah, the pot 'o gold at the end of the rainbow!
A skilled repairman, who works for pinouts....

:-)

        More seriously, while I aspire to fix things like Tony, I find that
ignorance and lack of time are powerful disincentives. (The little one
needs his diapers (nappies?) changed, and the bigger little one is gonna be
going to college in about 10 years, so I gotta earn tuition, and then
there's paying for the classic computer shed that the wife insists on
filling with "nice furniture" and "decorating" because she thinks of it as
a "house"....)
        I can swap modules. When I click the switch and nothing at all
happens, and I have a new power supply on hand .... it's within my limited
time and knowledge horizons to swap 'em. Getting an o-scope, learning how
to use it, taking apart the power supply (and trusting that the little one
won't ingest some of the nuts and washers while the medium-size one is
getting a talking-to about sliding down the bannister with the power cord
in tow).... well, that may be without my horizons.
        All this ranting leads to my question, to the group as a whole and
Tony in particular:

Is there a way I tell that it'll be safe to board-swap? In other words, are
there symptoms I can in general use to tell me that the fault that caused
damage was on the damaged (e.g.) board, and that therefore, if I have
another example of that board, I won't fry it too by putting it into the
place of the damaged one?

                                                                - Mark
Received on Tue Oct 09 2001 - 15:49:11 BST