Classic computing hardware reliability

[Keatah]

Of the major 8-bit computers, Atari 400/800, Commodore-64, Apple 2 series.. Of these three establishments, which do you think is the most reliable and why? Do you think that any of them have an Achilles heel? What about ease of repair and parts availability?

 

All factors in keeping existing hardware functional through the remainder of the 21st century.

[desiv]

Well, I don't have any Atari 8-bits..

Love the C64s, and there are so many out there that getting them or parts isn't usually a problem, but....

 

I have to go with the Apple's.

Those things are built like brick houses...

Never had a problem with my Apple II's.

 

My C64 was fine, till it's power supply died and apparently took part of the SID chip (2 channels gone) with it..

Found a few "free" C64 boards, none work. 1 dead SID, 1 SID in the same shape as mine. 1 more to be unsoldered and tested.

Of course, these boards were known bad (why I got them for free), but still...

The Power Supply is known to be a problem and known to possibly take the SID with it when it goes.

Also, I've read (is it true?) that certain joypads can damage the CIA chips?

 

desiv

[Osgeld]

it depends, when your churning out cheap as possible in taiwan, you can expect some level of crap factor, that being said some of those poorly made machines still go strong

 

power supplies puke out from age from any machine, but apple's seem to have very robust components, the most susceptible being caps, and its hard to argue with welded seam / lead caps that still work 30 years after the fact if they have no been exposed to abuse.

 

any other machine I usually dive in with a iron and a digikey order weather they function or not due to the fact that that everything is nice n puffy, whereas I pulled a 86 mac SE face down in a mud puddle and other than a broken floppy disk works fine

[akator]

The only thing certain with all of these classic systems is gradual decrepitude. My experience is that, sooner or later, every system suffers from failed caps, chips, traces, cracking, or even simple oxidation. I've experienced this with Apple (II and Mac 68K, PPC, and Intel), TRS-80, PC, Atari, Commodore, Timex Sinclair, Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Palm, Panasonic, Onkyo, JVC, Samsung, LG, Proton, Frigidaire, GE, whatever.

 

If it has a capacitor in it, it will not live forever.

 

Then again, neither do the rest of us.

[Seob]

Guess this also depens on where you live. Here in the Netherlands, you hardly see atari and apple so availability of parts is scares on these machines. The c64 on the other hand is withly spread so there are enough spare parts for that machine.

[Keatah]

I always thought it great that the Apple II and II+ were extraordinarily easy to fix. You could pop the top without any tools, and change any one of the chips with an off-the-shelf generic part. Except maybe the roms. Even then, you could do up an EPROM. The hard part was finding out which of the 100 chips went bad!

 

Reliability was increased with advent of the //e and later models. Less connections, less sockets, more integration. But the computer was essentially the same and ran all the same software from 1978. If you wanted to go back that far. Even so, with the //e everything was still modular and very tech friendly.

 

The most common fault in the 2 series, it seems to me, was DRAM. These chips would fail most often, when compared with any other parts. But they were socketed and there were diagnostics software. Eventually midway through the //e production run, apple got confidence to solder them in and they were right, reliability was up big time.

 

I feel the most reliable of the 2 series was the Platinum //e. Sometimes you'd get an intermittent key, but that was about it. A little solder on the keyboard and you were back in business.

 

I think the reliability of the 2 series overall was due to the generous spec. Even as parts aged and got "worse" spec-wise, they still functioned like new. Great stuff!

 

With the amount of abuse and tinkering and swapping cards and transporting I did on my WaREz //e system, I've only had to replace 1 DRAM chip. Totally amazing! They don't make 'em like they used to.

[Osgeld]

for an apple expert you should know your chip count is off by a 1/3, course you didnt even notice diodes on the main board after 30+ years so your opinion is questionable

[Keatah]

I pulled 100 out of my ass and came close enough.

[Keatah]

I probably didn't notice if there were any 1K resistors on the board either. But there are resistors.

[JamesD]

Machines using 4116 RAM chips (require 12v as well as 5v power) will probably have issues sooner than machines with SRAM or 5v only DRAMs.

I've read they are very power sensitive and I'm sure they generate more heat than a 5v only chip.

The good news about the machines that do use the 4116 is that they should be upgradable to the more reliable 4164's, but it involves some minor surgery to the board.

 

I have two Adams that need video RAM replaced, I've just been too distracted to do it.