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IBM thinkpad model 240X with accessory floppy drive

#thinkpad #thinkpad 240x #90s #90s tech #90s computer #laptops #floppy drive #retro computing #techcore

In case you were wondering how my night is going...

Your ol' pal Z fucked up.

I got all excited to test out my fancy new Commodore 2031 Single Disk, my first authentic IEEE-488 storage device. It arrived by mail earlier today, and I fired it up this evening. It ran fine for 10 minutes while I looked up the archaic old CBM commands to talk to it.

Then suddenly... snap. snap snap. snap.

Shit.

Pulled the power, but the damage was already done. I saw smoke rising from my fancy new toy, and I know that smell: Rifa madness. It's when a Rifa line filter capacitor goes to air, and catches fire, unleashing a stench of biblical proportions.

If it weren't snowing out right now and below freezing, I would have immediately opened the door to ventilate, and brought the offending piece of equipment outdoors to off-gas. But it is snowing out, and I don't want to let the cold in. I needed to extract the Rifa from the chassis, so

It's not obvious where the Rifa was hiding. Turns out it's hidden in the C14 power entry module in that white plastic section. Which is pop-riveted in place. Soldering iron removes the wires, drill removes the rivets, and it's free to me thrown outside in the snow in a plastic baggy to be smelly some place else until trash day.

I had hoped that the various portable air filters we have would collectively dissipate the smell. NOPE. Bathroom exhaust fans didn't help either.

It persisted for like an hour before I finally made the call and opened the front and back doors to let the fresh air cycle the funk outta here. Five minutes of ventilation vastly improved the situation.

In my hubris, I assumed that my fancy new toy would work fine right out of the box, but man was I wrong and my nose and lungs hate me now.

#commodore #cbm 2031 #floppy drive #rifa madness