Not quite a computer, but...

I have an Embryon Pinball machine made by Bally in the early 80s - one of their early solid-state machines.

See either the Internet Pinball Database or Pinside for pictures and more info.

When I bought this machine, I got a great deal on it because the sound was not working and it was missing almost all of the playfield plastics (still looking for an original set if you have a lead...) AND the playfield is trashed.

I've repaired the power supply, replaced a bunch of caps on the soundboard, and done a bunch of little repairs and cleaning on switches, pop-bumpers etc. I dont want to put to much into the machine because I think the quality of the playfiled is so low that it's not worth the effort.

Now, on to why I wont fix your computer - I mean, pinball machine. One of the things that WAS in good condition when I bought the machine was the apron. It has some little flecks of paint or something on it and in my stupidity, I thought that I should try a little water and magic-eraser.

The result

The excellent results speak for themselves. Oh wait, I mean, what an idiot I am. At least the kids still have fun playing it.

This is why I wont fix your pinball machine.

PS - I have a bunch of pictues, a few of my machine and many others I've collected. Including 3 sets of plastics scans I've bummed off people (thanks all) and even one relatively low res playfield scan. (maybe a photo?). See my embryon archive. My current playfield is shown in painful detail in the playfield-crappy directory, and most of the good scans are in source-materials/donors. Hopefully this helps someone out there.


Why I wont fix your computer, part 2

Wed 11 June 2014 by Fred Clift

On being stupid with my own hardware

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Why I wont fix your computer, part 1

Tue 10 June 2014 by Fred Clift

How not to upgrade a server

I was working at a unix admin at a private university. A research lab wanted an OS upgrade on their lab NFS and web server, which was indirectly my responsibility. User data, webserver, web content, all on an external (scsi) drive. I showed up ...

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