Hello and welcome back! So, as you probably know, I’ve already been doing this series
of episodes on Commodore history. And I’ve done quite a few already. But, I have at least
3 more episodes of that to finish. And one of the episodes I wanted to create was a series
on the Commodore PC compatible, or MS-DOS compatible computers that they made. A lot
of people don’t even realize Commodore made MS-DOS compatible computers but they did.
Quite a few models, actually. In fact, I already had a couple of them that have been donated
to me, but there were a few of them that I was just not able to find. And so I started
reaching out and one of the places I reached out was to the Rhode Island Computer Museum.
Last year I had an opportunity to visit a convention in Rhode Island called the Neon
Retrofest. In one of the rooms they had a selection of computers setup which were provided
by the Rhode Island Computer Museum. One of the guys from the museum offered to drive
me to their warehouse to see everything they had. It was really an amazing sight to see.
There were just shelves and shelves piled with vintage technology. And not just personal
computers either, but big mainframes and minicomputers too. Obviously the organization was not perfect.
And to be honest, if they had all of these machines exhibited in a proper museum layout,
the amount of square footage they would need would be staggering. This place actually rents
out vintage electronics to movie studios who need props. For example, this Next Cube they
had on display was the exact one used in the intro sequences of the TV show halt and catch
fire. Anyway, one of the things they mentioned was that if I was ever in need of anything
I couldn’t find, to let them know and they would ship me whatever it was.
And so, I reached out to them and they did have a Commodore PC-10, which they have shipped
me. That’s great, but I was still not able to find a PC-1. So, in the last video I kind
of reached out to the public and I nonchalantly asked you know if anybody had a PC-1. And,
I did receive several offers but they were all out of the country The closest offer I
actually had was from Bo Zimmerman and he actually lives down close to Austin, Texas.
Well, I recently traded in my Chevy Volt for a Tesla Model-3 and I’ve been looking for
an excuse to take it on road-trip and try out the supercharger network. It’s about
a 3 and a half hour drive, so not terribly bad. So, I drove down there to pick it up.
Bo also had quite an impressive collection of Commodore equipment.
So, let’s take a closer look at some of these computers. I’m really picky that the
computers look original, especially when it comes to my historical documentaries. The
metal here is the original color, so you can see the front bezel plastic has yellowed some,
and the keyboard has yellowed even worse. So, that’s one thing I’ll need to take
care of. But also, unfortunately, this computer suffered some minor shipping damage, which
you can see here. I’m not even entirely sure how this would have occurred since it
is not crushed in, but rather bowing out, but after taking a picture of it, I was told
this damage was not there before shipping. So, I’m hopeful I can repair this as well.
I haven’t even opened this thing up yet, but looking at the back, it appears some of
the expansion cards were jolted out of their sockets. I hope there is no damage to the
motherboard. But we’ll have to look into that too.
OK, so let’s take a closer look at the PC-1. No shipping damage since I drove this home
myself. It looks like the main issue here is just yellowed plastic. It’s hard to say
for sure, because the color is fairly uniform. But this follows the same design language
as this old 1571 disk drive, so I’m guessing the color should be the same as that. So,
I’m going to make an attempt to retrobrite this. And moving on, I have this 386 which
I also borrowed from Bo. It actually looks pretty good, except for this corner. Hopefully
you can see that the corner here is yellowed for some reason. So, I think this will probably
be the easiest one to do. And yes, I do have permission from both owners to do the restoration
attempt.
So, I’m going to start with the PC-10 here. This computer was in unknown condition even
before they shipped it, so there’s no telling what I’ll find here. It has screws at the
front like this, and then some on the rear. And something doesn’t seem right about these
screws. Heck, this one just pulled right out. This one I had to unscrew, but I just don’t
think these are the screws it came with from the factory.
OK, now I’m going to open this thing up and see what sort of damage we got during
shipping. OK. I think I see what happened here. First of all the video card wasn’t
screwed down. But that’s not a big deal. No real harm done there. But this hard-card
is a different story. This thing has a lot of mass to it and knowing how shipping companies
throw these boxes around, this sucker was almost guaranteed to come out of its socket.
So, it appears this thing rammed into some other parts including this RAM card here,
which I’ll need to deal with in a minute. It also looks like the little plastic brackets
at the other side which hold the really long cards in place have been knocked off. I’ll
move this one back into place. And then this one was completely knocked off, so I’ll
try to put it back on. I think it will be okay.
I noticed something doesn’t look right about this RAM card. I don’t even think it is
in the socket. So, I’m going to unscrew it from the case. Interesting. So this was
made in 1986. Anyway, I can’t get it to go back down on the pins. Taking a closer
look, I realized a few of the pins were bent. So, I took a screwdriver and started to bend
them all back. Then I was able to get the card to go back into place. And, of course,
screw it back down.
Just an interesting observation, the motherboard was made in 1985. So the RAM card might have
been an upgrade later. I also noticed this transistor. I believe that hard card had knocked
it over like this, and I think the leads on it may actually be touching each other. So,
I’m going to attempt to pry it back up some. This is easier said that done because I could
easily damage something if I used too much force. OK, I think that will suffice.
OK, let’s take a look at this video card. This is an ATI CGA card, which actually has
some pretty cool features, but I’ll wait until the documentary to tell you about them.
However, it is missing a nut, which is one of my pet peeves for these sort of computers.
Fortunately, I have a stash of extra ones, so I’ll go ahead and put one on there, and
then tighten it up properly so it won’t come out next time. Now I’ll put this card
back in the computer and actually tighten it down. This card can run at different frequencies
for a monochrome or color monitor, so I’ll need to set it for monochrome. That’s because
I have an official Commodore 1901 monochrome monitor to try it on.
OK, so I’m going to try the first power on, and see if any magic smoke comes out.
Fortunately, it appears to actually work, as I have a picture. So, this is a good first
sign. It also does appear to detect all 640K of RAM, so the RAM card is still working.
OK, so I’ll put a DOS boot disk in there. And I guess I’d better plug in the keyboard
too. It looks like the bottom drive lights up, so I guess that is A drive, which is weird.
So I’ll move the disk over. Unfortunately, we still get a boot disk failure message.
I discovered the top drive wasn’t even plugged in. So, let me fix that. So, I tried the top
drive again and well, it made this horrible sound. —— And of course, still failed
to boot. I pulled the disk out and noticed it had left his ring of damage on the disk
surface. Well that’s irritating.
My first guess was that there was some debris or something stuck to the heads, so I used
some alcohol to clean them. And then rather than risk a good disk, I grabbed a blank disk.
And you can see there is no damage here. So I’ll stick this one in and give it a try.
Since it’s blank the drive only spun for like 1 second. However, looking at the disk
you can already see a faint scratch on it.
So, I decided to take the drive apart. I know that if I unscrew the heads and take them
off, there’s a good chance the drive will be out of alignment and thus still won’t
work, but at this point I just want to see what is causing the scratching because I figure
I can’t make things any worse. With the heads attached, I can only see the bottom
head, and I really want to get a look at the top. Well, here we are. And the sad part is,
I can’t see anything wrong, nor can I feel anything abrasive with my fingers. So I’m
at a total loss on this.
However, I need to move along and get this machine ready to retrobrite. I have a limited
time with all 3 of these borrowed machines and I’m up against another deadline, which
is the weather. According to the forecast, I have exactly 1 day of sunny weather, with
maybe 2 days with a little sun here and there. So I’m going to have to move quickly to
get all 3 of these computers done.
So, the very next morning I went outside with my usual crate. However, my usual spot was
in the shade so I had to put my crate in the driveway. In fact, it was a little bit cold
this morning since it is still Spring here in Texas, and I could tell this water might
be too cold. So, I checked the temperature and sure enough it was 67 degrees, so that’s
way too cold for retrobriting. So, to warm it up a little, I boiled a pot of water on
the stove and then poured that in. Checking the temperature now, it is at 100 degrees,
which is a good start.
So, I’ll let that continue to warm up outside while I disassemble the computer. —— While
it looks pretty clean I figured I should clean it anyway just to be sure. I would also need
to remove the bezels on the floppy drives. These are usually pretty easy to do, with
just a couple of screws and then popping off the lever. Although, this was one of the most
stubborn levers I’ve ever had to remove. But it did finally come off. And then the
bezel came off easily. The second drive was a little more cooperative.
Fortunately, enough time has passed that I can move my crate over to the usual spot.
Now, as you can probably see, the height of walls on the crate I’m using casts a shadow
during this part of the day. So, in the morning, it isn’t getting much sunlight. And then
during the middle of the day, it gets a lot of sunlight, and then by evening it’s back
to having a shadow again. On the bright side, apparently heat plays as much of a role in
this process as UV light does, so by covering the top like this, it does create a greenhouse
effect, to help amplify the heat of the sun. So, even if the sun isn’t directly above,
it is still heating the crate. Ideally, if I could find a shorter crate, that might work
out better. Anyway, I’ll set my stopwatch and we’ll come back in a few hours and check
on it.
While that’s going I need to get this keyboard ready to go as soon as the other parts are
done. Now, surprisingly, the keys look fine, so I won’t need to pull them all off. I
can just remove the bezel, and hopefully that’s all I’ll need.
It’s a pretty standard keyboard design for the time period and there are just some screws
on the back to remove. And there we go. Looks like there is an RF shield on the bottom.
Interestingly, the keyboard was made by Cherry, apparently. On the other side, there’s another
interesting thing, apparently it was not only made by Cherry, but it was made in West Germany.
OK, so it’s been about 2 and a half hours. The cling wrap is fogged up, which just means
there is a temperature variation. Obviously it is hotter on the inside than the outside.
I’ll pull the items out. Since these weren’t terribly yellow to begin with, it’s kind
of hard to see any change out here. Anyway, I’ll go ahead and put the keyboard parts
in instead.
I’ll go ahead and re-assemble everything.
Now, I need to turn my attention to this bent metal. This is definitely an area I am not
an expert in. I came up with this method, hoping it would work without causing further
damage to the metal. And, actually, I think it worked pretty well. So, the real test will
be to put the cover back on and see if it fits right. And I think it does, but I need
to screw it back together. And that brings us back to these screws. I seriously think
these are screws somebody bought at the hardware store. So, I’m going to replace them with
traditional computer case screws like these.
And the only thing left to clean are these vents in the rear. There we go. And here’s
how it looks. The difference is only slight, but I can tell the front is now the correct
color.
Anyway, back outside, several more hours have passed, and you can see the shadow is now
on the other side. So I think this has run its course. The water inside is still nice
and warm at 102 degrees. And even out here I can already tell significant improvement
in the color of the keyboard parts.
Let me dry these pieces off and we’ll see what the color is like. The color now perfectly
matches the front bezel of the computer, but it doesn’t match the paint of the case.
However, I don’t necessarily think they were exactly the same from the factory and
at this point it would be hard to be sure one way or the other. And being that the inside
of the keyboard is the same color, which shouldn’t be faded any, that re-enforces my belief we
are back at the correct color. So, let’s put it back together and see how it all looks.
Overall, I’m happy with the outcome of this one. It’s definitely good enough for the
documentary video that I’m going to be working on next week.
OK, time to move along to the little PC-1. It’s pretty clean, but I’ll go ahead and
give it a wipe down. This case is made entirely from plastic, which is unusual for a PC of
this era. Anyway, there are just two screws on the bottom to take it apart. And here’s
how it comes apart.
The inside lid has some weird dust patterns, which I’ve seen before. I’ll go ahead
and clean this off. I’ve wondered if static electricity is the cause for these patterns.
On the back, there is a left-over warranty sticker, which I’ll go ahead and peel off.
I think it’s safe to say Commodore won’t be doing any warranty repairs on this. Some
alcohol will take off the residual adhesive.
So, I’m a little concerned that this may actually be the original color, because it’s
not a significantly different color on outside than it is on the inside. I think maybe its
like 10% whiter on the inside. So, I don’t know what the retrobrite is going to do. But,
we’ll give it a shot.
So, again I’m starting early in the morning. This is actually the same water that was in
there yesterday, but notice it has cooled down to 59 degrees overnight. If this were
Summer, it’d probably still be pretty warm. Anyway, I guess I’ll give it a little head
start on warming up. And here is the first piece. The biggest problem I have using this
method is that sometimes this stuff forms bubbles and floats to the top. So I do have
to still check on it every hour or two.
Also, regrettably I lost some footage here somehow, but I took this top piece back inside
after a few hours and compared it to the bottom and I could clearly see a contrast, proving
that it was definitely yellowed some. So of course, I have to do the bottom half as well.
So, I’ll start taking things apart here. Believe it or not, there are only like 3 screws
holding the power supply in, and everything else in this computer is held down by plastic
snaps.
So, to remove the floppy drive, you just have to use a flat tipped screw driver and pry
some snaps loose. And there you go. The motherboard is held is much the same way. You just have
to be careful that once you’ve freed it from one snap that it doesn’t re-snap while
trying to free the remaining snaps.
This thing uses the same floppy drive mechanism as the PC-10 we just finished, so I already
know the drill here. And here are some more warranty stickers to remove. Once removed,
I could clearly see a contrast where the original color of the plastic is shown. Same with this
one on the rear. After some alcohol, it comes right off and you can see the original color.
Anyway, fast forwarding a bit, the bottom piece is now finished retrobriting and I’ll
just compare the two pieces. I think it looks good, so I’ll start re-assembling it.
I noticed these rubber feet do not look like the originals, and there is some sticky stuff
on and around them. So, I decided to pull them off and replace them with feet that seem
to fit better in the space provided.
And there we go. I think these will work much better.
And here’s the PC-1 all finished. I think it looks a lot better.
And the last machine we’re going to work on today is this Commodore 386 computer. The
first order of business is to clean these rubber feet marks off of the top case. Alcohol
seems to work well for this.
OK, so there are just two screws on the rear to take this one apart. And there we go. The
front bezel on this computer is held in by snaps instead of screws.
Let’s not forget the power switch, which is just this long plastic rod going straight
to the power supply.
The floppy drive is also slightly yellowed in places. So I’ll be removing its bezel
as well. And so these little pieces here are the only things we need to retrobright today.
OK, fast forward to the next day, and I have attempted to retrobrite this, but you can
still see yellowing there. And even the floppy drive bezel is still slightly yellowed and
so is the end of that button. So, I don’t know why it didn’t work. Maybe this is a
different sort of plastic. But, I’m going to try it again.
I was lucky enough that the weather held up a little longer than originally forecast.
But this was it, because as you can see with the forecast now, there’s like two hours
of sunlight left and the entire next week will be thunderstorms.
So, let’s open this thing up. Arg. Guess what? Can you believe this thing is actually
upside down? The only thing that could have caused that was the formation of bubbles.
So, no telling how long it has been this way because I had some errands to run while this
was going. However, drying it off now, I do think there is some improvement over before.
But it isn’t a huge improvement. I mean, you can still see that it is yellowed in the
corner. But I think it is maybe 50% better now.
Well, I’m out of time. I have to get this re-assembled so I can start shooting the documentary
videos, because I am headed back to Austin in a matter of days and there won’t be any
more sunlight. Hopefully it won’t be too noticeable. Anyway, here is the finished result.
And of course, here are all 3 of these units finished. I have a few other Commodore PCs
I’ll be showing in the documentary but these are the only 3 that needed restoration work.
So, stay tuned for the next episode of Commodore history, and thanks for watching!