How to open 5155?

[Jim Leonard]

Tony Duell wrote:
> Ah... Actually, I think the keyboard was supposed to be user-removable. 
> You could unclip it when using the machine so you could put it in a 
> convenient location.

And looking at the machine from an angle LESS than 45 degrees also helps 
(smacks forehead yet again).

>> Looks like my last remaining Plus Hardcard 20 is going to find a home 
>> (hope it still works).  Or, I could try to find an IDE adapter and then 
>> a CF-to-IDE adapter on top of that...
> 
> I feel iike the proverbial donkey who starves between 2 bales of straw. I 
> can't decide what to put in slot 2 of my 5155. Candidates are the 
> expansion unit interface (which would give me a lot more slots, but ruin 
> the portability), a data acquistion card, a GPIB card, or a Transputer 
> host interface... All would be rather nice in a portable machine.

For me, a portable machine means I don't have to port around diskettes 
with me, so the hardcard pretty much seals the deal.  The only way I 
could get a hard drive in there without compromising slot 2 or the 
original 2 drives is go with the CF->CF<>IDE->8-bit IDE adapter, 
something I haven't tried yet on *any* of my machines.

> What I forgot to mention last night tis that while the modification is 
> easy, geting the motherboard out is not. Obviously you have to remvoe all 
> the expansion cards, unplug the power cables and the keyboard DIN plug at 
> the back. And then you have to remove the floppy drives (they come out 
> backwards IIRC). since you get to one of the fixing screws _though_ the 
> floppy drive aperture. The board then slides out towards the right hand 
> side of the machine.
> 
> I can look up the exact procedure if you have problems.

I'll keep that in mind, thanks.  This particular model, even without 
opening it up, counts to 640 on power-up so I'll have a surprise when I 
open it up.
-- 
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)            http://www.oldskool.org/
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