Ariel Millennium Thornton @arielmt@computerfairi.es

The replacement ZX81 keyboard arrived, and the ribbons look and feel much more substantial. The only cosmetic differences are a slightly different font, shift-0 is rubout instead of delete, and enter is "new line" instead. Time to clean off the gunk from the top of the case so I can put the new keyboard in.

I just received a package of mouse balls that shipped from New York & took a 5-day detour through Las Vegas. Everything I get comes through Albuquerque.

This package took the vacation I want to take.

I tried to click on a toot, but the instant the switch closed inside the mouse, the timeline scrolled, and the arrow ended up on top of a favorite star. I didn't even get the chance to read it before the gremlin in the machine decided I should fave it.

I need a working FDD in this thing to do anything else anyway.

I have a HDD that booted normally a few days ago, but whoever installed Windows 95 on it installed it using a CD drive the lappy doesn't even have a port for. When I go to change anything, it tells me to put the CD into a nonexistent drive.

I have installation floppies I can blow away the janked install with, but that's why I need a working FDD.

The most reliable computer I have today:

Well, crap. I can't even test if my HDD is good or not (I have a known-working I can reformat if it isn't), because both the FDD inside my laptop & the spare I recently picked up have spindle drive belts that either slipped off the motor or just lost too much elasticity to grip the motor's spindle. Worse, the FDD is a slim model with ribbon cables, & IDEK if off-brand replacements ever existed. (Using a USB FDD is out because USB didn't exist yet.)

Fun fact: When laptops were thick-as-textbooks monsters, some manufacturers broke up the motherboard into a mainboard with modules sandwiched above. Toshiba did that to my laptop: 3 layers of 4 or 5 modules stacked behind all the peripherals & keyboard.

I had to spend the evening digging through everything again to convince myself that a hard drive problem isn't why I stopped the repair 16 years ago. (It went through an earthquake, & even though it was barely felt where I was, about 100 miles away, the utility power was messed up enough to kill the DC power-in module.)

I guess I shouldn't be too shy about the taped printout. How many things taped to the outside of a frequently-carried, frequently-shuffled plastic box survive almost a quarter century without a single edge peeling loose or corner turning up?

Put a giant black panel or posterboard in your lap while sitting in front of it, or rig one to hang from your neck or shoulders while standing in front of it, to minimize reflections.

Perk: If you can cover your face as well (& still see through it), it's a half decent privacy screen as well.

Almost.
?

And repaired! (I made it mine in 1998; don't judge.)

I love the "horny people are X" toots @beth bot is doing.

It wouldn't have taken so long or been so worth it today if it wasn't my first laptop or one that runs Windows *without* Internet Explorer. (Yes, IE was actually optional back when I first got it.)

I'm excited to finish a PC repair that I started 16 1/2 years ago. I thought it would never happen.