Replace blown components
Three months ago I tried to revive an old Apple Lisa by bypassing the blown power supply with one from a slightly less old Power Mac G4. That didn’t work because I didn’t have any way of generating the very high voltages needed to drive the cathode ray tube in the display. This was a shame because the main CPU and I/O boards in this Lisa are really in very good condition. Despite being stored in a damp caravan for a couple of decades, they show almost no corrosion.
And this got me thinking. Maybe the circuit board inside the power supply is also in great condition – apart from one, easy-to-replace component? Maybe I’ll be able to just crack open the protective metal case and find the bit with the charred marks on it? Maybe it will be something generic, like a diode or capacitor and I’ll already have a replacement in my rummage box? Maybe when I solder in the new one everything will magically work again? That’s ‘maybe’ to the power of four, but it’s not like I’ve got any better ideas.