I’ve finally taken the jump into retrocomputing with something I’ve always wanted to own, a proper Commodore PET, or CBM 3016 to be exact!
The seller said 5 years ago when it was last turned on, that it worked perfectly fine. However I do wanna take some precautions before reawakening it. Not that something blows after all this time.
I however am still pretty new to retrocomputing and wanted to ask the experts on here, If/what I should first inspect under or over the hood before turning it on? Thanks in advance!
No advice, sorry… but DAMN!!
That was my first, at school 7th grade learning BASIC.
god it was amazing. You are lucky
Why lucky?
I don’t know if five years is long enough for this to be a problem, or how long it would have needed to stay powered on five years ago in order to avoid the problem, but beware: Electrolytic capacitors that have been sitting for too long can behave badly when first powered up again.
I suggest you read up on the topic, and consider whether it makes sense to replace or reform the relevant capacitors, before you flip that switch.
A couple links that came up in a quick search, to get you started:
https://hackaday.com/2023/06/05/protect-vintage-gear-with-easy-capacitor-reforming/
Wow, I didn’t even know that that was something to be concerned about. I will be much more cautious when I finally dig my Atari on the storage. It’s been probably 20 years since it’s been turned on. I don’t even know if it would turn on at this point. Thank you for the heads up!
@Mr_Mofu Fire extinguisher?
Will definetly be there when I do
