Re: How long is too long to leave a II on?

[shoppa@almach.caltech.edu (Timothy D. Shoppa)]

In article <ZxHiRwR.rogtha@delphi.com>, rogtha@delphi.com writes...
>I have two cooling fans hooked to both vents of my original II . . .
>After how many hours should I shut it off?

It depends.  If you're only using it for less than an hour or two
each day, you should turn it off when you're done with it.  If you
use it many times every day, it may be best to leave it on
24 hours a day.

On what do I base the above advice?  Two things:

1.  In my experience, the most common components to go on a ][ or
][+ are the power switch and/or the power supply.  Both of
these undergo major stress during turn on or turn off.  (This is
also true of the logic board, but I'd estimate that the power
supply fails at least ten times more often than something on
the logic board.)  So the best thing to do is to minimize
the number of times you turn the computer on and off.

2.  On the other hand, it's clearly wasteful of power to keep
the machine on 24 hours a day if it's unlikely to be potentially
used during most of that period.

> I know II's don't hold up as
>well to days/hours of use as PC's do . . . (no offense)

Huh?  If you've got an early ][, it may be going on 18 years old.
(I believe the first ones were sold in '77.)  I'd certainly call
that holding up well.

And unlike PC's, most of the components for a ][ are still availble
nearly 20 years later.  And repairing them is as easy as popping the old
IC out and putting a new one in.  (Yes, there are exceptions that aren't
so easy to find, like the character generator ROM and the keyboard
decoder, but other than these any well-stocked electronics
distributor will be able to find you the parts.  I believe Alltech
stocks the few rare Apple ][ IC's.)  Compare this
to PC's, where the IC's are often part of a propietary chipset
that isn't readily available in less than ten-thousand quantity.
Because the chipset is propietary, it's quite unlikely that you'll
find the chip available at all in just a couple of years.
And even after you got the part, you'd very likely need some
surface-mount soldering equipment to do the repair.  I'd be willing
to bet that your ][ is still running in another 18 years!

Tim. (shoppa@altair.krl.caltech.edu)