Re: Can you help a IIGS user in Spain?

[wyanttr@spoc.dnet.dupont.com (Tom Wyant)]

> Hello, my name is Juan Carlos and is responsible for
> maintenance in a manufacture call Schneider Eletric Spain
> S. A. of electric material. At the moment I have 16
> machines that are governed for an Apple IIgs.
> My question is:
> Where could I find spare parts?. In Spain it is impossible.

One possibility is to use non-Apple IIgs parts. For instance, 
many Macintosh keyboards and mice will work on the IIgs. The 
FAQ for this group, posted by Nathan Mates monthly, contains 
a lot of information on how to use non-GS parts. If you have 
WWW access, you can see the FAQ at 
http://www.visi.com/~nathan/a2/index.html
and not have to wait for the first of the month (and hope 
that your news feed is more reliable than mine) to find out.

Another possibility is to contact Macintosh users, and see if 
any of them can help. You may have to tolerate a certain 
amount of "mierda" if you do this, but you may also find a 
"Mackero" who is an old Apple II hacker. If you have no other 
place to look for Mac users, try "Pagina no Oficial de los 
Mackeros" at http://www.ctv.es/USERS/ulloa/ (at least that's 
where it is now).

Or, you can do it yourself, if you are careful, and have a 
minimum of equipment. I have had three failures on my GS 
since I bought it in 1978:
* Mouse died (problem with ADB connector): replaced with Mac 
mouse.
* 3.5 inch floppy broke: a piece of metal (I do not know what 
it is for or what it is called) popped off the back of the 
head, dropped in the floppy door and wedged it open, 
preventing the floppy from ejecting. Fixed with a screwdriver 
and glue.
* Keyboard flaked out: the desktop bus connectors on the 
keyboard are mounted only by the solder joints; apparantly I 
got cold solder joints (or the cord got pulled once too 
often). Fixed with a screwdriver and a soldering gun.

And I am >>>>NOT<<<< mechanically inclined.

If you have a current problem, post it. Although recent 
history might make you think otherwise, this newsgroup is 
>>NOT<< exclusively devoted to flames. We DO have some strong 
personalities, simply because all the wimps went to Macs or 
PCs long ago. My experience is that a serious request for 
help will get a serious response. Not too long ago, 
comp.sys.apple2 was full of notes about using Mac keyboards 
on a GS, while at the same time in comp.sys.macintosh there 
was a discussion about using GS keyboards on a Mac (because 
of the small footprint).

Of course, there are the mail-order places previously 
mentioned. You MAY find, however, that you can NOT count on 
getting overnight shipments in emergencies, and that you need 
to decide what spares you need and buy them before you need 
them. The aforementioned GS survived 11 months of the worst 
that Hidroelectrica Cantabrica could do to it. But it ALSO 
spent about a month getting to Spain and another month 
getting back to the U.S.

PS - If you can spell English, you can maintain a IIgs ;-).

Tom Wyant                     The opinions expressed in this
wyanttr@spoc.dnet.dupont.com  document are those of the 
twyant@freenet.vcu.edu        author, except for the                               
                              following, which is
                              William Shakespeare's:
                        "The first thing we do is, we'll kill
                        all the lawyers."
                        Henry VI, Part II, Act 4, Scene 2