Jon Elson wrote:

Ignoramus26960 wrote:

So, Karl, what would you (with your skills and all) do with this
bridgeport, would you just try to restore its Interact 2 controls?
I gather you've already bought the thing. So,
part of the decision
is already done.

Sure, see if you can get the old control to fire
up at all, you should be able to tell from lights
on the control panel, etc. Maybe scope some of
the EGA signals to determine if H and V sync is
coming out of the 9-pin plug. If so, go ahead and
get the EGA-VGA converter and see what the control
can do, whether it suits your one-off machining needs.
I don't know the TNC-151 control, it apparently
came in two flavors, one with G-code and not much
else, and one with Heidenhain's proprietary
language and their conversational machining
package. The conversational thing may be what you
would find useful. Practically no need for
CAD/CAM in that case.

If the control doesn't fire up after the move,
then you have to see how much time you want to put
into finding out what is wrong. It could be a
board wiggled loose during the move, or much more
serious. Connectors and tantalum capacitors are
the two big problem areas in these older systems.

Jon

After the move and before even applying power, go through and unplug and
reseat every single connector and plugable card in the machine. When
cards are unplugged look for any socketed chips and press them to ensure
they are seated. Tighten every terminal strip or similar connection.
This whole thing should take perhaps an hour, but can save a lot of
headaches.

I had a computer system (big old VAX) that was moved and stored
unpowered for about six months. When I powered it up and got it booted
it had all kinds of strange issues for a couple weeks. I then powered it
down and did the plug and reseat thing on every component (took me about
45 min). After that it booted and didn't have a single problem for
several years of 24x365 operation after that until it was retired.

Pete C. wrote:


I had a computer system (big old VAX) that was moved and stored
unpowered for about six months. When I powered it up and got it booted
it had all kinds of strange issues for a couple weeks. I then powered it
down and did the plug and reseat thing on every component (took me about
45 min). After that it booted and didn't have a single problem for
several years of 24x365 operation after that until it was retired.

I finally retired my cobbled-together VAX Station
II that had run for about 20 years!
The disk drive seems to have croaked, and I don't
need it anymore. It needed the
reset boards routine every 6 months or so after it
got to about 15 years old.

Jon