ma1wrbu5tr - Slashdot User

Journal Journal: Sheesh

Journal by ma1wrbu5tr on Thursday June 26, 2008 @07:10PM

Well, I finally got around to reading the DG chassis manual. I had everything hooked up. I had taken all the cards off the main bus board and plugged it in.

I pushed the power button.Dunh Duhn Daaah! The backlight of the power switch came on a glowed a pretty red, the enormous PSU hummed lightly, and then.... Pop! A light blue flash, the smell of ozone.. and I knew one of the big capacitors was just too old, probably out of electrolyte, and had given up the ghost.

This is most disheartening.
I knew that this was probably the case, but one can hope for the improbable.
I hate to seem like a quitter, but I simply don't have time to go through individual components every time I want to try to fire this thing up.
May be time to call a couple museums, collectors, and aficionados to see what it's worth now that I know it will take considerable rebuilding.
Then, maybe a private auction. :(

Journal Journal: Finally, something interesting

Journal by ma1wrbu5tr on Monday May 26, 2008 @01:59AM

Yes, I KNOW DGI is NOT DEC

Wow! Finally something interesting to write in my journal on slashdot. (I hate the punctuation rules involved in ending a sentence in

./):)
I am the proud new owner of a DG (Digital Group Inc) kit computer. A colleague's late husband willed this to me (indirectly), and I am just beginning to get the thing put back together. My first computer was a Timex/Sinclair 1000... which I got in 1983. Even that machine seems very poor in quality to the 70's DG I have now.
Same processor type Z80x, but very different systems.
What I love most, is the processor independent mainBUSboard(DG-1002). It could take a 65k, and from what I understand, a 68k CPU. In addition to the ole 8080; using a CPU board rather than socket. The big advantage to having these back then, was, as it has forever been, in the memory.(more to come on this)

Here are some of the links I've found thus far.

http://www.bytecollector.com/the_digital_group.htm

http://www.selectric.org/thedigitalgroup/index.html

http://thedigitalgroup.org/tdgblog/index.php

Well, I finally got time to work on the DGI kit computer I recently got. Preliminary testing indicates that the power supply, a 30 lb. beast made by North Electric originally intended for someone
at GTEIS, is in good working order. All volt/amps are well within tolerances, so I started to connect wiring to the appropriate
places on the switches, lock, and main Bus board. I was about to insert the processor board, and noticed TWO badly burnt resistors.

Darn! This does not bode well for the rest of things, since we all know how sensitive chips are to power spikes.
Anyway, I'm ordering replacements for those resistors and three components in every direction relational to the
circuit.

In addition, I actually found a Mostek Z80a CPU on eBay. Think I'll buy it just in case.

Further physical inspection of the rest of the boards reveal no obvious toasted components; however,
I'm going to reserve judgement until I can get a logic probe and learn how to use it.

This is a big setback. If anyone reading this has helpful hints, spare parts, or links to documentation
other than what I've found at the sites listed in my previous entry, please feel free to send me a message,
or leave a comment.

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