Well it seems appropriate that I should comment on our collective ages as my first comeback. It’s been 25 years since our first beloved Atari 16⁄32 computers have been released in the form of the 520 ST, one of which sits on my desk and works fine after the occasional 6 inch drop. It’s hard to believe that this computer came out when I was just 4 years old but that’s reality. With sad deaths in our community, it’s pretty hard to deny that we’re all aging and unfortunately so are our machines. After painting our house I moved my office from one room to another. The result of this is that many of my machines sat in a box or on a pile unused for over a year as more pressing home renovations took place. As things settle down I find myself reassembling and powering machines up much to my ultimate dismay. The casualties I am having are starting to become huge. My falcon, who was never really boxed up, just recently died. It boots up to a white screen but will not display the fuji. Some piece of hardware is failing to initialize. This is unrelated to my infamous CTPCI cock-up. Next my TT. My original TT has something blown in the keyboard area and causes the keyboard LED to flicker. Also the video is dim, something is wrong with the shifter. I am starting to develop the electronics skills I need to diagnose and fix those issues. My newer TT unfortunately is also having problems now too. It will no longer boot until it warms up, opting instead to display black bars. Now my Super Nova with a Mach 64 will no longer initialize. Now move on to one of my Mega STe’s. My most recent Mega STe acquisition works perfectly but my older one decided to stop working. I think the machine still works fine but the ICD Link/2 is dead. Moving on to coldfire, neither of my coldfire machines work due to various reasons. The m5485evb is completely software related so no big deal there but the M5484lite suffered a PCI failure due to my ignorance putting in a PCI card backwards through an extender.
I suppose the question from this long story is how many of my readers have collections… If you do, what still works? Do you have piles of no longer working hardware as I am starting to amass. Are you attempting to repair it to keep it going or are you looking to the future with the impending Firebee release? Also, anyone else other than me have a knack for inadvertent hardware destruction? It’s somewhat ironic considering how many machines I have repaired. Please leave your comments below!