Chips as jewelry

[Tony Duell]

> Making art from computer parts isn't always bad... back before I got into 

True, if those parts are beyond repair, it makes snese to use them for 
something else...

> collecting, I once found a broken 286 'laptop' on the curb. I didn't have 
> a machine of my own yet (I think this was when I was in the 10th grade), 
> so I tried to fix it as best I could; eventually I found the problem - a 
> corner of the CLCC CPU was chipped off and missing. I'd spent so much time

IIRC the corners of LCC pacakges are notched so you can only fit the chip
the right way round into teh socket. But I assume this was more borken than
that. Off failure, I wonder how it happened...

In any case, I think I'd have tried a new CPU chip (and IIRC, the PGA, 
PLCC and LCC versios of the CPU all have the same through-hole pinout 
when used in their standard sockets). 

> on it that I didn't want to just throw it away, so I kept some of the 
> nicer looking components. A few years later I turned the 286 into a 
> necklace; I still have it.
> 
> Later yet some a**hole sold me a used laptop at a hamfest that worked 
> great whan I tested it in front of him, but never powered up again after I 
> took it home (and it turns out everything about his business was fake, 

This sounds very hard to fake (I asusme he didn't amange to switch the 
machine you saw for another one...) My guess is that the problem was 
PSU-related, and that there was some way of kick-starting the machine. In 
otehr words most, if not all, of the 'computer' stuff was working, and 
the problem may well have been a simple and cheap component. Finding 
whcih one is another matter...

I have a policy of never buying anything on E-bay or at a hamfest unless 
what I can see is worth the selling price to me. I'll buy an old machine 
expexting to have to repalce some of the ICs. I don't expect it to work. 
For that reason I rarely buy old ICs (unless _very_ cheap), becuase I 
can't repair those if they're fault..

To be fair, though, almost every seller I've dealt with, on E-bay and at 
radio rallies (hamfests) has been very honest. I don't think I've ever 
been really diasapointed. And the very good deals (like the time I bought 
an old Toyo/Sanyo thermal trnnsfer printer at a radio rally for a very 
small sum, and when I collected it later, I found that I got mot just the 
machine, but also 6 new rolls of paper, 6 new rolls of the thrmal 
transfer film, a complte set of spare boards, the user manaul and hte 
serviec manual (including schematics) for the print engine)) have more 
tahn made up for any less good ones.

I do remember that in most cases I am buying 25 year old or more 
electronic equipment and I don't expect it to be just as it left the 
factory. I expect sigs of use (scratches, rubbing, etc). I expect there 
to be faults.

-tony