When you power it on, watch the CRT for the animated Compaq Logo. It was "the talk of the town" at the time. Nothing like it existed then.
About Christmas 1984 I got a brand new, dual floppy Compaq portable. A few months later they released the Plus model that included a "giant" 10 MB hard drive. I got the parts to upgrade mine to have the hard drive. Within a short time the power supply cratered. I looked it over and found it to be the strange mess yours is. I bought a replacement from Compaq (they were in Houston then, as I was) and it too died within a week. That caused me to call Compaq and plead until I got through to a Technical Engineer and asked for a schematic so I could repair the very expensive PSU. He sheepishly admitted to me that their original design was not robust enough for the hard drive upgrade that they sold me and said he would send me a replacement (next version?), but couldn't share the schematic. I was totally shocked when the package arrived and contained 3 new PSUs. I guess he didn't trust them either, ha ha. A few years ago I came across the two old New In Box PSUs in my barn. The sad part is they are not the oldest electronics stuff I have in there.
About Sam's Photofacts -- they were an absolute necessity when TV & Radio repair was still a thing. Every repair shop had 5 or more four drawer file cabinets full of them. They were bought by annual subscription and it was priced so only companies could afford them. They started in 1946 and ran up to about 1991. However ITT bought them out in 1967. There was no Google or internet to get the data from, so you HAD to have the hard copy. Remember that even the plain paper copier was not introduced until 1963. I was always suspicious that Sam's Photofact saw that as writing on the wall and that is why they sold out within the next 4 years.
The pictures and annotations were to be used like a map to help you link the schematic to the board you had in front of you. Most of the folders also included alignment and calibration procedures, dial string diagrams for radios, model variants and what was different between them, etc. The original ITT Sams division went through a bunch of sales and splits after 1985 and I suspect that the current "owners of the corpse", Simon & Schuster, might still try to have some copyright claim. But most antique radio and TV enthusiasts are generally comfortable with any of the folders published before the the ITT buy out.
I love the vintage equipment repair, especially test equipment. A buddy of mine once commented that my lab was half cutting edge and half like a time warp to a 1987 research lab.
But really, some of that equipment is still very useful if you understand how it works and how to use it. Nearly all of my test equipment is older items I bought and repaired. Thank again for all your time and effort creating this "watering hole" for us!
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