8870/M25 running after being serviced and repaired.
Well, it’s been an exciting couple of days.
I arrived home from work yesterday to find a huge pallet sat on the driveway; I guessed it was the M25 from Johannes in Germany.
It was starting to get dark, raining, and the package was heavy. I had to quickly break apart the packaging and removed the printer and VDU to a safer place. Next we carefully moved the M25 off its pallet and because the casters had been removed, we “walked” the M25 it into the garage and out of the rain.
Now safe and dry in the garage, the first task was to get the front and back covers off the machine. I thought I was going to have to drill off the locks as there were no keys, but as it happens only one of the four locks had been secured and a quick “yank” pulled the front cover lose.
It was immediately obvious that the machine had been used in an exposed workshop type environment as it was very dirty inside. This was actually a selling point of these machines as they didn't really mind the dust or room temperatures. Removing the plate retaining screws, I managed to remove all the plates, disk drive, SMC and FD drives and Power Supply which made the chassis a lot lighter and easier to relocate to my workshop.
There’s a fuller description on how I serviced the machine elsewhere on this site, but after cleaning and some basic testing, the machine was reassembled.
I arrived home from work yesterday to find a huge pallet sat on the driveway; I guessed it was the M25 from Johannes in Germany.
It was starting to get dark, raining, and the package was heavy. I had to quickly break apart the packaging and removed the printer and VDU to a safer place. Next we carefully moved the M25 off its pallet and because the casters had been removed, we “walked” the M25 it into the garage and out of the rain.
Now safe and dry in the garage, the first task was to get the front and back covers off the machine. I thought I was going to have to drill off the locks as there were no keys, but as it happens only one of the four locks had been secured and a quick “yank” pulled the front cover lose.
It was immediately obvious that the machine had been used in an exposed workshop type environment as it was very dirty inside. This was actually a selling point of these machines as they didn't really mind the dust or room temperatures. Removing the plate retaining screws, I managed to remove all the plates, disk drive, SMC and FD drives and Power Supply which made the chassis a lot lighter and easier to relocate to my workshop.
There’s a fuller description on how I serviced the machine elsewhere on this site, but after cleaning and some basic testing, the machine was reassembled.
CPU status showing 26 - VDU does not reply.
After some fiddling around I managed to get the system to boot and joy of joys; status 26 was output on the CPU display which means “VDU does not reply”. Since there was no terminal connected this is exactly what I’d been hoping for, then, I hit a small problem.
I opened up the package that contained the VDU and discovered there was no keyboard. This is a problem. Without a keyboard, I can’t start the VDU and so can’t boot the computer. So, for now, I’m stuffed. For those that are wondering, it has to be a Nixdorf SAS keyboard for a DAP4. I’ve left the VDU in the garage for now until I can sort something out.
In the mean time I moved the ND11 printer in the workshop and promptly dismantled it, vacuumed it out, cleaned it, and put it back together. Loading some continuous stationary and pressing the test button produced the expected test page but it’s obvious the ribbon has dried out and I’ve not been able to fine suitable replacements yet. So, I squirted some WD40 onto the ribbon; just a quick spray every 3 inches or so on the ribbon tape. Once I’d been right round the ribbon I re-installed it in the printer and re-ran the test print; it was much better. The ribbon needs time now for the WD40 to migrate evenly over the ribbon material which will happen on it’s own over the next few days.
It's been an exciting 24 hours but it looks like I'll have to wait a bit longer before I can attempt to boot the machine properly.
I opened up the package that contained the VDU and discovered there was no keyboard. This is a problem. Without a keyboard, I can’t start the VDU and so can’t boot the computer. So, for now, I’m stuffed. For those that are wondering, it has to be a Nixdorf SAS keyboard for a DAP4. I’ve left the VDU in the garage for now until I can sort something out.
In the mean time I moved the ND11 printer in the workshop and promptly dismantled it, vacuumed it out, cleaned it, and put it back together. Loading some continuous stationary and pressing the test button produced the expected test page but it’s obvious the ribbon has dried out and I’ve not been able to fine suitable replacements yet. So, I squirted some WD40 onto the ribbon; just a quick spray every 3 inches or so on the ribbon tape. Once I’d been right round the ribbon I re-installed it in the printer and re-ran the test print; it was much better. The ribbon needs time now for the WD40 to migrate evenly over the ribbon material which will happen on it’s own over the next few days.
It's been an exciting 24 hours but it looks like I'll have to wait a bit longer before I can attempt to boot the machine properly.
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