Hello, and welcome!
In this episode, I’m going to be doing another restoration.
And this time, it’s going to be on this old Osborne 1.
I actually picked this thing up a couple of months ago and it does work although one of
the disk drives is seized up and it just needs a lot of cleaning and retrobrite.
So, I’m going to get started on that, and hopefully, if everything works out, I’ll
give you a good demonstration of it when I’m done.
So, before we get started, let’s take a look at the condition of this thing.
Lazy Game Reviews did a really nice episode of tech tales describing some of the history
of this machine, that’s definitely worth watching if you’re interested in the Osborne.
To summarize, the company behind this helped coin the industry phrase known as the “Osborne
Effect”, whereby a company can put itself out of business by advertising an upcoming
product too early, thus killing sales of the current product.
So, one problem, I wanted to point out is this cable has been yanked out of place.
This section here should not be here.
The problem is, the cable plugs in here.
But, when you go to close it up, you can’t because this cable is in the way.
This is supposed to be, right there, like that.
So, we need to fix that.
I will plug it in, however.
And, as you can see, it does boot and drive A is working.
However, I had this machine apart a few days ago just looking around and testing some things
out and suddenly there was a huge POW and then smoke started to pour out of the machine.
I managed to catch the aftermath on video, and I’ll show you later on what caused that.
I decided to start with the keyboard.
It looked easy enough to disassemble.
However, the inside was dirtier than I was expecting.
And I also noticed a lot of corrosion on some of the metal, especially on these screws.
I began to suspect part of this may have been underwater for a time.
I went ahead and popped the little wire out here.
I actually think some previous owner may have done that on purpose.
Removing the main connector was tough, because it was corroded.
I did get it of, but you can see what this looks like up close.
I was also a little worried about these screws being stuck or just breaking off.
But they seemed to come out pretty easily.
Yeah.
That’s pretty yucky.
So, I wasn’t sure if these keys were the original color or if they have yellowed over
the years.
But, when I look at the side, I can see some contrast where less UV light was hiding the
keys.
I decided the best way to deal with the corrosion was to just soak the screws in vinegar and
just let them soak overnight.
I also decided, somewhat reluctantly to put the connector in there.
I hope I don’t regret this, as I’ve never tried anything like this before!
I figured the worse case scenario is I could just replace the whole connecter as there
appeared to be enough slack in the cable.
Onto the keys.
I got my keycap puller out that one of my fans sent me and started pulling these keys.
This device definitely makes this job easier and now I wonder why I didn’t have one of
these gizmos years ago.
This little mat appears to be removable.
It’s held on by a sticky surface on the back.
But, it did come off without too much hassle.
That will make it easier to clean!
There’s really nothing else to do here without some major disassembly, so I’m going to
leave this part alone.
By the way, I noticed that vinegar was going to town on that corrosion.
I took the plastic parts outside to rinse with the garden hose.
That will save a lot of time.
However, there was still a lot of residue that didn’t rinse off, but you can see most
of it just wiped off with a paper towel.
Next I went to town with windex and tried to clean as much of the visible gunk off of
the surfaces.
As usual, I used alcohol to get anything else that was being stubborn.
The keys actually looked pretty clean, but when I tried scrubbing them, I could see dirt
coming off on the paper towel, so I ended up cleaning all of the keys one by one.
So the surfaces were all prepared for retrobriting, but I had to wait until the next day so there
would be some sunlight.
So, the next morning I went ahead with the usual procedure.
Now, I’ve been experimenting with some new and possibly better ways of retrobriting.
However, those experiments are still ongoing, so for the meantime I’m going to use the
method that is tried and true and tends to work for me.
In the past I have also had good luck with just submerging keys in regular 3% liquid
hydrogen peroxide and putting them out in the sun.
But it takes quite a lot longer, usually requiring several days, and I’ve just found that using
this stuff works well in just a few hours.
I put them out in the sun early in the morning.
Next I got to work on the larger plastic piece.
I would need two pieces of plastic wrap for this.
I always make sure to put a generous coat on the plastic wrap itself, then I paint on
another generous coat on the computer parts.
Then I put it out in the Sun.
I’ve been warned that Osborne plastic may be more prone to melting so I wanted to avoid
having this out in the hottest part of the day since it is in the middle of Summer in
Texas.
I’ve had some viewers send me some photos of their projects that ended up with a streaked
or uneven appearance, like these.
I’ve experienced this a few times myself, but I’ve found that it can usually be avoided
by setting a timer to remind me every 20 minutes to come rotate the pieces and massage the
cream around to ensure even exposure.
While waiting on the retrobrite, I had a look at my screws here.
After rinsing them off, they look much better, even if the original shiny coating was eaten
away.
I also took this opportunity to work on this little black mat that goes under the keys.
It was actually super easy to clean with some windex.
I also wanted to work on this pin header because it had a lot of corrosion on it.
I decided to use baking soda.
I just sprayed a little water on it to make it like a cream, then used a tooth brush for
about 5 minutes.
I put it under the sink but I was careful to only get water just where I needed it to
rinse off the baking soda.
So, the connector isn’t perfect, but it looks a lot better.
And so, I’ll put that little mat back on.
I also noticed there is a little metal brace that helps with the space bar but it was kind
of stiff.
So I applied some lithium grease to it in 3 different places and that did seem to loosen
it up quite a bit.
After the keys had been out for about an hour, I decided to have a peak at one and see how
it was coming along.
I could immediately see how the color had changed to a more gray type appearance, but
I could tell a hint of tan on one side, so I decided to put it back and give them another
hour or two.
This may have been a mistake, as you’ll see later.
I also brought in the main plastic piece and I wanted to check the temperature, and fortunately
it was only 112, so I don’t think it’s in danger of melting yet.
However, I can still tell part of it is yellow here on the side, and that was the worst spot,
so I put it back out for another hour or so.
I brought the keys in again and decided they were done.
I started drying them off and they looked absolutely fantastic.
I couldn’t have been happier with the way they looked.
But something really odd happened, that’s never happened to be me before.
About 10 minutes after I dried the keys off, I noticed they all started changing colors.
They started getting these weird streak patters on them.
After about 20 minutes, every single key was afflicted with this and there didn’t seem
to be any way to cure it.
It looked like the case plastic might have been done so I decided to rinse it off and
have a look.
After drying it off, I could see that it looked really good but it still had just a hint of
yellowing on that one corner, which was the worst affected part.
That’s probably the corner that sat in the sun the most during it’s life.
But I also realized I forgot to get this edge here on the other side, since it is visible
when put together.
So I re-applied the cream and set it back out for another couple of hours.
In the meantime, I decided to start putting my funny colored keys back on, fortunately,
I had taken a photo of the keyboard and printed it out for reference.
I started with the spacebar, which is one of only two keys that had a spring underneath,
the other being the return key.
Putting the keys back on is usually the most enjoyable part of a keyboard restoration.
Some of these keys can be confusing, though, such as these arrow keys, or like the 6 and
the 9 key, as well as a handful of others.
However, if you look closely there is a slant to the bottom of the keys that shows which
way they go.
And, well, that’s it.
I now have what I could best describe as a marble colored keyboard.
Time to re-assemble the rest of the keyboard.
Time to rinse off the plastic one more time, and hope it is done.
The top ledge looks good now.
There’s still just a hint of discoloration there, but I think I managed to get most of
it.
However, by keeping it in the sun longer, there’s now some streaking here, and also
some on the bottom.
It’s not anything I’m terribly worried about as it isn’t nearly as noticeable as
the keys.
I re-attached this cable and I hope it still works.
I did rinse all of the vinegar out and dry out out with compressed air.
And I’m going to put the cable through the hole here, where I think it is supposed to
go.
So yeah, I think that’s better.
And here goes the bottom piece.
Before I begin in the rest of the Osborne, I want to test the keyboard to make sure I
didn’t damage anything.
I also want to do a test-fit here.
The color difference is remarkable.
It’s hard to believe that is the same keyboard we saw earlier.
Here’s a comparison shot from earlier.
And back to what we have now.
I fired up the Osborne and it does appear that all of the keys are working properly.
I tried every key on the keyboard.
All right, so the keyboard took a little longer than I was originally anticipating.
And, it didn’t come out exactly like I was expecting.
I mean, I think I’m pretty happy with the appearance of the case plastics, but the keys.
I’m not really sure what to say about those.
They look.
In my opinion, they look better than they did before.
Definitely different than they did before.
But they still don’t look like I really anticipated them looking, so I don’t know.
Anyway, as I mentioned earlier in the video, I do have some new retrobrite techniques I’m
trying to refine on some test equipment right now.
Some stuff that I don’t really care about.
And, I’m having some positive results with some methods, so I’m going to get to that
eventually, but for the meantime, I’m going to go ahead and say this is going to be the
end of part 1 of this video, and I’m about to start working on part 2, retrobriting the
case plastics and fixing some the internal problems that the Osborne has, as well as
I am going to show you some neat things about the Osborne computers in general and how they
work and what you can do with them, and et cetera, so stick around for that and I’ll
see you next time!