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From: GTHEALL@PENNDRLS.UPENN.EDU (George A. Theall)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec.micro
Subject: Rainbow EchoMail Digest
Message-ID: <9010221214.AA04543@remote.dccs.upenn.edu>
Date: 22 Oct 90 13:17:00 GMT
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Rainbow EchoMail Digest                         Oct 22, 1990

In this issue:
  MEMORY CHIPS                   (2 messages)
  RE: CLEANING LA50 PLATEN


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------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date:     10-21-90 (07:33)
To:       ALL
Subject:  MEMORY CHIPS
From:     PATRICK FINK

Where can I obtain memory chips for my 100B?  My memory board only has
128k on it... want to expand my system to 7**.

- --- ConfMail V3.31
 * Origin: The Pot of Gold - (703-359-6549) (1:109/103)
------------------------------
Date:     10-21-90 (10:48)
To:       GARY STEBBINS
Subject:  RE: CLEANING LA50 PLATEN
From:     BILL HLIWA

 > BH: In addition, I found that a good scrubbing of the
 > roller surfaces BH: with an alcohol pad (isopropyl
 > alcohol on a mildly abrasive pad) BH: will increase the
 > friction between rollers and the paper.

 GS> I've heard that, and also that you should not use
 GS> alcohol on the platen because it tends to dry it out.
 GS> Tonight at our Rainbow User's meeting Geoff Reed
 GS> suggested using a rubber/vinyl cleaner such as ARMOR
 GS> ALL(tm). That makes a lot of sense to me.  Just follow
 GS> the directions.  Geoff, comments?

My experience has been that the problem is that the rollers become
"glazed" and are too slippery.  With the paper push-fed, that
tended to cause jam ups.  That was the reason for the isopropyl
alcohol scrubbing: I wanted to dry them out and roughen them
up.  I would think that the Armorall treatment would do just
the opposite.

We have over a dozen LA-50's here that have been in operation since
1983. Until we started this scrubbing regimen, we had frequent
jam ups.  With a yearly treatment (where the rollers and platen
are scrubbed with alcohol pads, moving parts are WD-40'ed and
the print head is removed and cleaned w/ alcohol, then
WD-40'ed), we haven't experienced any problems.

Incidently, during those seven years, we haven't had to replace a
single printhead, or had any other kind of service on these
printers.  In fact, many of the ribbons used are the originals,
since we use a MacInker to reink them.  Actually we have a pool
of about three dozen ribbon cartridges so we can re-ink a
bunch, then put them away for a few weeks to "age".

Overall, these have been incredibly reliable and troublefree printers.

- --- Sirius 1.0x
 * Origin: * Med TechNet * , Buffalo, NY 716/688-1552 (1:260/10.0)
------------------------------
Date:     10-22-90 (08:03)
To:       PATRICK FINK
Subject:  MEMORY CHIPS
From:     GEORGE THEALL

PF>Where can I obtain memory chips for my 100B?  My memory board only has
PF>128k on it... want to expand my system to 7**.

   First find out if the chips you already have are 64k-bit chips - if
so you'll probably be better off pulling those chips and starting with
an empty board. You'll need either 2 or 3 banks of 256k-bit chips: 3
is the maximum. Each bank consists (I believe) of 8 chips, but you'd
be wise to buy in sets of 9. The access time of these chips won't
really be important nowadays. Something like 180ns should be fine.

    Check out any outfit advertising in PC Magazine, Computer Shopper,
etc... I bought some recently from an outfit called DRAM, Inc. and was
happy with their service, though probably any outfit able to afford an
ad in a large rag like PC Mag would be adequate.


George
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