Re: The (Mis-)Adventures of Dave or A Long Update and a Few Questions

[schmidtd <schmidtd@my-deja.com>]

On Mar 11, 8:49 pm, Dave Rawson <DCRaw...@GMail.Com> wrote:
> On 3/11/2010 4:48 PM, Michael J. Mahon wrote:
> > Once a key is working, it will usually continue to work if it is being
> > used with moderate frequency. This is what "wiping contacts" were
> > designed to do. ;-)
>
> In this case, keys that were working stopped.  It seemed like everything
> was failing.  At some distant point, once the spring planting is
> finished and the debris from winter is finally trashed or I have no more
> compelling task at hand, I'll sit and plonk the keys and stare out the
> window at the river.

This will not help your Franklin Ace 1000, unfortunately.  Amazingly,
their Keytronic-based keyboards have little pieces of foam that
provide the "spring" - and they have turned to dust on you.  There is
a page that talks about repairing same:
http://www.sol20.org/keyboard.html

> Is it helpful to pop the caps and spray with contact cleaner?

Oh, my, no.  You will produce a pile of goopy wet foam residue. :-)

> Okay, I'm at a loss.  How do I get the drive to operate without a disk,
> especially move the head rapidly along it's drive?

For slot 6, to turn on:
PRINT PEEK(49385)
to turn off:
PRINT PEEK(49384)

> > And, again, what a great storyteller you are--with all the agony and
> > the ecstasy! ;-)
>
> Well, thanks very much.  Glad you enjoyed my accounts.  A small
> entertainment for a lot of help is a fine trade from my perspective.

Keep up the good work! :-)