Road meet rubber

(Time to see the blueberry of my labor)

Let’s see how bad this is going to be

Now its time to get my main piece going. I’ve got a table, I’ve got video (I think), and a power supply. Just need to clean up, reseat, and check out my main piece running. I put what I had on the desk –

I initially thought it was the lower right, the only one without a keypad. Figured that’s where my distain for keyboards without number pads came from. Knew it couldn’t be the top right, as I wouldn’t have liked the white keys like that. I knew it wasn’t the left one, since it seemed to have a soldered on extender in the back. BUT WAIT, I notice my machine. That rubbed off paint on the middle one. Thats definitely mine. 🙂

Needs a BIT of care

It needed a bit of a wiping down, and I wanted to make sure there weren’t any issues. Time to tear it down.

The cable between the keyboard and the CPU isn’t in terrible shape. I do want to replace it for multiple reasons (To be mentioned in another chapter). The plan is to follow “Replacing the Worn Ribbon Cable” from here. But that’s another time. There was only one little niggly. When taking out one of the screws, I sorta broke it off the keyboard –

I used a dab of JB Weld (Hey Birt suggested) to put the post back, and everything was good again!

Crossing eyes, toes, fingers, legs, etc.

Since there wasn’t anything I felt I could do reasonably other than make sure it wasn’t a mess, I felt the next best course of action was to turn it on and hope no blue smoke was released.

I put it on the table, I turned on the monitor, and worked up the courage to finally press the button.

NICE! I cautiously pressed enter. .

Next check the memory, looking good, almost 16K. So, my first basic program in <mumble mumble> years on a Model I. Lets see what happens.

SUCCESS! I got what I wanted!!

Could it be?

Could I have overcome another hurdle with just a little elbow grease and a screwdriver? Seems so! BUT WILL THE STREAK CONTINUE?