8-Bit Guy Rare IBM 7496 Attempted Repair Fail

[james_s]

OK, I didn't know that.

Is there a danger of failure during a brownout in that case? Surely there are cases where the line voltage is less than normal. Or is it just extra low voltages that would be a problem?

I don't know. I already blew one up once trying to be careful and bring up the voltage slowly, I'm not going to risk blowing it up again by dropping down the voltage to see what happens. I had read about the risk years ago but this was the first time I actually damaged one. I would be most concerned with vintage PSUs, the sort that are often self oscillating designs without any sort of control IC.

[Berni]

I'm not sure it's any less intuitive than our standards. The only reason I know black is live and white is neutral is that I was taught that and it has always been that way. Black is also only live with AC, in DC systems it usually means ground.

Valid point there for sure.  Black = hot, wtf.

You do realize that the USA, Canada and Japan are the only big places in the whole world where White=Netural, its mostly a 110V thing.

The Live=Black,Brown,Gray    Netural=Blue color scheme is used everywhere in Europe and has spread all over the wold replacing most of the weird color standards of individual countries. This even includes UK, Russia...etc. The problem however is that some of these obsolete UK-like standards use black as neutral, yet according to EU black is one of the 3 phases...so yeaaah. But these standards typical also have red or yellow in them, so when you see one of those wire colors you know it was wired according to the old standard, while seeing a brown wire is a sign it was wired acording to the new standard.

Yes i know a lot of these mains color codes are not that sensible, but the EU color codes are chosen in a way that they can't be mistaken with the other existing AC power standards and can't be confused with DC power. This is also part of the reason why Earth is Green+Yellow instead of just one color, to not be confused by any existing standards that use Green or Yellow wires for something else.

[Refrigerator]

This was as much of a repair as me trying to follow a recipe written in Chinese just by looking at the pictures.
He didn't understand it and took the default approach of do whatever. Throw enough shit on a wall and eventually some of it is going to stick. 

[Ed.Kloonk]

Another youtuber who does have a bit of experience with vintage commodores, and prolly a go-to information source, rolled out a classic TRS-80 collection video.

Here, we see an otherwise experienced vintage (commodore) computer handler wandering into other pastures.

My question is, while it seems a good idea to power up old things with the lid off, a rouge cap will take an eye out! Is their biggest mistake filming this?

https://youtu.be/_ez7x-untdA?t=178

[Rasz]

My question is, while it seems a good idea to power up old things with the lid off, a rouge cap will take an eye out! Is their biggest mistake filming this?

meh, its just a rifa cap, class X, whole point of it is shorting and blowing up. I say a good show.
Stuff blowing up is just a part of the process, no biggie _if_ you are competent, like RetroSpector78 for example
or

"My main goal at this point is to make educational content about retro technology that is interesting and engaging."

I could not find any responses by the author at all? So, what does he do now? Just ignore all the "outrage"? Come out with some defense? Admit that he screwed up and ask for forgiveness? Delete the video and act like it never happened? I wonder how you come back from this or do you just not care and go make the next video?

[...]

The response is usually, "Oh what a shame", don't you know that you ruined its value. Don't ever do that again. The hope then, is that the person has learned and does not do that anymore.

What is the hope here?

It's best to put yourself in the shoes of the other person too, that helps understand their perspective & what could happen from here.

The author probably thinks he tried to repair a device, made some mistakes, but thought it was interesting and posted it on the web.  From an intentionalist perspective: he thought he was OK.

Now the author is seeing a lot of angry reactions.  He may engage with some, but he might also think it's quite unsafe to engage with a lot of them (and probably not worth it, as is the case on the internet when packs are angry).  Some commentors will assume that not replying or not acknowledging them is both an infraction against them and an infraction against vintage gear itself.

There are a lot of ways this can still get messier.  If the author posts a meta-video about the responses, explaining his position, then there is a good chance a lot of commenters will still not care (because it shows his position without addressing theirs) and may even get angrier. 

IMO the safest thing for the author to do would be to release a follow-up video showing 'actions' before any video showing words/emotions/positions.  Ie show a video where the actual wiring is discovered and the blown parts are identified.  Internet discussions tend to be more fruitful when they're handling technical stuff, rather than words/emotions/positions.

Ah yes, the good old Cancel culture (1). Some people in YT comments already started amassing prosecutorial files, digging up video of 8bit guy strolling trough supermarket with AR on his back while laughing at the prospect of scaring some moms.

(1) Reference for the people unaware what a crazy time it is to be a public person right now. Style of presentation might not be everyones cup of tea, but the message is solid.

[TinkeringSteve]

Ah, yes, wonderfully-intuitive AC line wiring color standards, brought to you by the same people who thought it was a good idea to use a comma as a decimal point. 

You are confused.
They don't use a comma as a "decimal point", they use it as a "decimal separator". Any symbol that manages to visually separate two strings of numbers is as good as any.

As for intuitive, you yanks need to be talking, righto!
https://pics.me.me/united-states-the-rest-of-the-world-arbitrary-retarded-rollercoaster-23184989.png

[KE5FX]

You are confused.  They don't use a comma as a "decimal point", they use it as a "decimal separator".

Ah, my mistake, then.   

Any symbol that manages to visually separate two strings of numbers is as good as any.

If your goal is to get people killed, sure.  Now, was that dose supposed to be 1,750 mg or 1.750 mg?

[george.b]

Unlisted video, no surprises there.

[Ian.M]

It gets worse.  Even if as an American he doesn't recognize non-USA common mains wiring colour codes in current use, surely applying even the slightest amount of logic would have led him to the conclusion that with three wires going to a monitor, which in that era would *ALWAYS* be grounded, there weren't enough wires for Line, Neutral and switched Line return.  As for the screw butchery - more or less forgivable if he'd done it to his own property - but he admitted it was a borrowed machine.  I don't know about you, but if I have to work on something borrowed I try to avoid doing any extra damage to it!

[george.b]

I don't know about you, but if I have to work on something borrowed I try to avoid doing any extra damage to it!

That, plus, anyone wanna place any bets on whether he had the decency to even try to repair the PSU he blew up? "Oh, shucks, replacing the fuse didn't work, on to the next machine, then".

[Berni]

You are confused.  They don't use a comma as a "decimal point", they use it as a "decimal separator".

Ah, my mistake, then.   

Any symbol that manages to visually separate two strings of numbers is as good as any.

If your goal is to get people killed, sure.  Now, was that dose supposed to be 1,750 mg or 1.750 mg?

Oh yes the deeded comma , decimal separator.

This hellish atrocity is used where i live. So as soon as you set windows regional settings correctly it starts getting used everywhere...well.. almost everywhere... actually its just sort of everywhere...it kinda depends.

Some software correctly uses regional settings and recognizes the comma, other software ignores all commas and takes the usual dot. You always have to try both to find out what it is. Sometimes the piece of software will want a dot in some places while a comma in other places. Sometimes the software will even stop working because something internal expects a dot but gets a comma internally. In excel switching between comma and dot breaks macros and VBA scripts most of the time. I hate this damn thing as it causes me so many problems.

But who even uses a 1000s separator anyway? I only really seen banks make consistent use of it. Its not as big of an issue because they typically write it as "10,000,000.00 USD", so when you see those two trailing zeroes you know you are in the cents. But if you ask me a more sensible way of writing it is "10 000 000.00 USD". Some programing languages do let you put arbitrary separators in numbers so you can do something like "10_000_000.00" in your code. Good thing engineering prefers SI prefixes.

[Ed.Kloonk]

The Japanese use 10000 as a historical separator. Can make you bonkers trying to convert on the fly.

[Alex Eisenhut]

Try this for fun
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakh

[Cyberdragon]

I don't know about you, but if I have to work on something borrowed I try to avoid doing any extra damage to it!

That, plus, anyone wanna place any bets on whether he had the decency to even try to repair the PSU he blew up? "Oh, shucks, replacing the fuse didn't work, on to the next machine, then".

Worse than that, he claims he "learned from his mistakes", and that it's still educational. No, we already knew it was dumb to assume and learning would imply he actually figured out what's going on, which he never did. And he uses the fact that these were loaned computers as an excuse, which makes screwing around with them and butchering them all the more inexcusable, don't screw around with something other people may find valuable just for the views. We don't care what dumb stuff him and his tech buddies did in the past, or that they don't care about those machines 'cause we do.

Don't call us armchair warriors when you made no effort yourself and admit it mr 8-bit. Even Shango066 is better than that, he doesn't give up and actually tries to figure things out when it seems hopeless. He also follows the "do as I say, not as I do"  motto, which 8-bit guy makes no effort to claim.

[Ed.Kloonk]

One thing's for certain. He's right about the angry mob.

[Berni]

Well the thing is  the The8BitGuy is not an actual electronics engineer.

His level of troubleshooting comes down to just swap parts until it works. Okay sure he can actually use a soldering iron to replace a bulging electrolytic capacitor, but that's about it. He does not have the skills to actually troubleshoot a fault down to the component level.

This sort of component level repair becomes that much more of a skill when there is no service manual available, so you have to slightly reverse engineer the thing in order to figure out how it works, in order to probe stuff, in order to figure out if it has the correct waveform, in order to locate the faulty component, in order to replace it.

I have done stupid stuff with my own boatanchor repairs too, sometimes making it even more broken than before, then fixing it properly. He was just taking too big of a bite with trying to repair these things without the required skills.

Dremeling the security hex flat to get it out was just plain stupid on the other hand. Just bust out that security pin with a flathead screwdriver or dremel a straight slot across the middle for a screwdriver to fit if you really must.

[Haenk]

Well the thing is  the The8BitGuy is not an actual electronics engineer.

His level of troubleshooting comes down to just swap parts until it works. Okay sure he can actually use a soldering iron to replace a bulging electrolytic capacitor, but that's about it. He does not have the skills to actually troubleshoot a fault down to the component level.

But he knows enough people with enough knowledge to tell him not to just short out a PSU connector. Sending out a picture to someone is not rocket science any more.
I'm not an EE, but I certainly would not do that, but then I'm probably more on the careful side anyway.

[cruff]

The Japanese use 10000 as a historical separator. Can make you bonkers trying to convert on the fly.

Where I used to work I gave talks a few times for tours of the computer center for visitors from Japan. The translator kept a small note pad in hand and when I mentioned numbers, he or she would write the number down quickly, to be able to convert to the 10000 units while speaking the translation.

[Cyberdragon]

Well the thing is  the The8BitGuy is not an actual electronics engineer.

His level of troubleshooting comes down to just swap parts until it works. Okay sure he can actually use a soldering iron to replace a bulging electrolytic capacitor, but that's about it. He does not have the skills to actually troubleshoot a fault down to the component level.

But he knows enough people with enough knowledge to tell him not to just short out a PSU connector. Sending out a picture to someone is not rocket science any more.
I'm not an EE, but I certainly would not do that, but then I'm probably more on the careful side anyway.

Exactly, and dremeling the sides of a screw instead of googling better ways to remove them without the bit then making exuses like "I didn't know you could break the pin off" and "if I cut the middle it won't be perfectly straight and the screwdriver will slip" are absolute cop-outs we can see right through.

Even MyMateVince is better than that and he's a proper noob.

[ebastler]

Seems that the 8-Bit Guy has found a "solution" for dealing with the critical feedback: Comments on his original Youtube video are now disabled, and all the posted comments are gone. Class act... 

[JackJones]

But he knows enough people with enough knowledge to tell him not to just short out a PSU connector. Sending out a picture to someone is not rocket science any more.
I'm not an EE, but I certainly would not do that, but then I'm probably more on the careful side anyway.

He did say in the follow up video (linked above) that he discussed it afterwards with several people with repair experience, and they all said they would have done the same. I find it absurd that anyone would bridge contacts that they don't know the function of. Especially when it obviously look like a power connector, and a mains one at that!

The whole (unlisted btw) response video was pretty unimpressive, calling people armchair warriors and whatnot. I do recall him doing the paperclip trick once before, and it did blow something up. Can't find the video unfortunately. I'm not sure he has learned a lesson from this yet.

And disabling comments to videos where people are criticizing you is never a good look.

[Ed.Kloonk]

And disabling comments to videos where people are criticizing you is never a good look.

Yeah, nar.

He addressed this in the follow up vid. There were a group of unsavory posters who decided to descend en masse to vent about a controversial video he posted years ago on another channel.

[ebastler]

He addressed this in the follow up vid. There were a group of unsavory posters who decided to descend en masse to vent about a controversial video he posted years ago on another channel.

Still not a great way of dealing with it. Why not lock the comment area for new comments, delete the off-topic comments, but leave the criticism related to the actual botched-up repair in place? I trust Youtube lets you do that?

Also, that "response" video (lame as it is) is not even shown to regular viewers of his channel. So shouldn't he at least edit his text commentary for the original video, acknowledge that he rushed into this project and should have approached it differently, or make some similar statement? Now the video just sits there as a testament to his stubbornness.

[Ed.Kloonk]

He addressed this in the follow up vid. There were a group of unsavory posters who decided to descend en masse to vent about a controversial video he posted years ago on another channel.

Still not a great way of dealing with it. Why not lock the comment area for new comments, delete the off-topic comments, but leave the criticism related to the actual botched-up repair in place? I trust Youtube lets you do that?

Also, that "response" video (lame as it is) is not even shown to regular viewers of his channel. So shouldn't he at least edit his text commentary for the original video, acknowledge that he rushed into this project and should have approached it differently, or make some similar statement? Now the video just sits there as a testament to his stubbornness.

His attitude, rightly imo, is that after a day or two commenters dry up on a video but in this one case, people coming in days later with nothing to offer but shit talk.

For those who are a bit put off by the comments being turned off: What were they going to say in the comments anyway? Nothing profane, surely. He said that kids view the channel and the only rare case of deleting comments is when that are too saucy for young audience.

When he had hundreds of morons showing up with only one type of message to deliver, the right thing to do is shut down the comments.

[ebastler]

Ed, you don't seem to have addressed either of the two points I made in my prior post:

• There's a better way to deal with only the abusive comments, and
• there's a better way to deal with the botched repair, by owning up to the fact that it was botched.

The way 8-Bit Guy just goes "oops, that didn't work; so let's mess things up even further" in the video, and then does not offer any comment or perspective in hindsight, comes across as just plain arrogant.

But obviously it is 8-Bit Guy's decision how he wants to deal with this, and it is his reputation and online personality on the line. None of us can make any "demands" here, only offer observations or suggestions.