[Coco] Help reviving an old CoCo 2

[Arthur Flexser]

You might try removing and resocketing any socketed chips in the disk
controller to get rid of oxidation there.

Art

On Sat, Nov 22, 2014 at 2:40 PM, John Goerzen <jgoerzen at complete.org> wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> Back when I was a kid, my parents got me a 64K CoCo 2.  They got wind of
> my project to load the data off it, and gave the whole thing to me.  So
> now I am wanting to make it work for my children!
>
> I have two main problems.
>
> #1 - the disk controller cartridge isn't working.  When I put the disk
> controller cartridge into the machine, when I turn it on, it just has a
> display with a bunch of artifacts.  The computer works fine when I start
> it without any program cartridge in it.  I also have a baseball and a
> music synthesizer add-on cartridge, and they are working fine.  So the
> problem doesn't seem to be with the CoCo, but with the controller
> cartridge.
>
> The silver contacts on it seemed to be rather dirty/degraded, so I took
> the cartridge apart and tried to scrub them.  No dice.  Any ideas how I
> might fix this?  Or where might I get a replacement cartridge?
>
> #2 - the video quality is low.  I would call it noisy.  I remember it
> being this way when I was a kid, but I always assumed it was due to the
> marginal state of the TV it was hooked up to.  Obviously that's not the
> case now.  I have it set to channel 4, and I have a screw-down to
> coaxial adapter to hook it up to a fairly decent TV.  (It's a 13"
> Trinitron.  Not a modern LCD, but I already had it, and I know it has a
> much cleaner picture than what it's showing.)  Any ideas what I might do
> to fix this?
>
> Occasionally, the TV seems to somehow lose sync, and the display goes to
> a very staticky black-and-white.  Turning the TV off and on fixes it.
> It doesn't do this with other video sources.
>
> Thanks,
>
> John
>
>
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