10 february 2021
hello blorg. long time no see.
well
you know that Mac LC I was having trouble with?
I finally managed to fix the power supply and now it works like a charm.
but that also inspired me
I got a Maxell-bombed IIfx, the motherboard was actually not too damaged, and I managed to repair it
I still need more RAM to be able to use this, as well as some solution for the video output -- the video card I have outputs interlaced video, which my LCD doesn't like.
I'm also getting other things, for other evil projects. right now I have a few possible projects, and that feels good.
I need to do things that stimulate me, that I enjoy one way or another. I can only sit around doing nothing for so long before I start breaking down.
we need to realize how important these 'hobbies' actually are
esp in a world where we define ourselves by our position within the capitalist machine
how violent it can feel, as a kid, to have these hobbies be considered meaningless, miserable little timewasters
to have them taken away from you because you didn't do well enough at school, or whatever
to have these activities be considered a mere treat
when they're actually essential to our mental equilibrium, and often let you develop useful skills
who doesn't like it when I'm able to fix their thing
speaking of
currently trying to fix the floppy drive that came with the IIfx. am I ridiculously stubborn with this? probably. like for the LC's power supply -- I could have just hodgepodged a modern 2x4 power supply into the original case.
it's a bit harder to find old Mac floppy drives tho, and they tend to be expensive.
but, I like trying to fix things, figuring out how they work, etc
as long as it's not some stupid black box where any fix amounts to 'throw it away and buy a new one'
a broken device is inviting you to try fixing it. it's a form of challenge.
like a few days back, when I visited a friend and we tried to get her laptop to work enough that she could recover data from it (there was no HDD or SSD to take out and read from another device)
basically it wouldn't boot after it got liquid spilled on its keyboard. so I went in with zero expectations...
before soon, the thing found itself disassembled, and I was trying to get it to boot, but it was stuck trying to reboot over and over again... I thought it was dead. but that didn't seem right, the motherboard looked perfect, no corrosion there.
eventually it occured to me that the keyboard might be causing these issues, seeing as the power button was part of it, and the keyboard membrane looked crusty... so I disconnected it, and disassembled it to find the pins that go to the power button. shorted these pins on the motherboard, and, lo and behold, it came to life.
and it seems to be working well, so I ordered a replacement keyboard, and we will put it back together to its original form.