Comment that little notch on the chips (Score 1) 1144
When I was 15 or 16, I fried my Apple //e by taking a memory card I'd gotten from an uncle. The memory card was made for an Apple ][+ and required that you pop an IC from the motherboard and place a ribbon cable between it and the card (which sat in one of the expansion slots).
Looking at the board, I didn't find the chip they were talking about (the //e and ][+ had different motherboard layouts). So I just popped out the nearest one with the same number of pins, and plugged into that. God knows that that chip was but it sure as hell wasn't one of the RAM chips I was supposed to be plugging into.
I tried to power on the system and of course nothing worked. So I unplugged the card, unplugged the ribbon cable, and picked up the little chip I'd popped out.
It was right about then that I noticed that there was a notch on the chip to indicate which direction it was supposed to go. And I hadn't noticed which way it had been pointing. So I took a guess and plugged it in more or less the same way the chips nearby looked.
Powered on the system, got the beautiful acrid smell. Guess it should have been the other way. It took two months to get the system fixed. I'm not sure if the computer repair place was backed up or if my parents were trying to teach me a lesson.
They never told me how much it cost to fix. I don't know if my uncle paid for it.
Looking at the board, I didn't find the chip they were talking about (the
I tried to power on the system and of course nothing worked. So I unplugged the card, unplugged the ribbon cable, and picked up the little chip I'd popped out.
It was right about then that I noticed that there was a notch on the chip to indicate which direction it was supposed to go. And I hadn't noticed which way it had been pointing. So I took a guess and plugged it in more or less the same way the chips nearby looked.
Powered on the system, got the beautiful acrid smell. Guess it should have been the other way. It took two months to get the system fixed. I'm not sure if the computer repair place was backed up or if my parents were trying to teach me a lesson.
They never told me how much it cost to fix. I don't know if my uncle paid for it.
