[QuadList] Care and feeding of VTRs

[Dave Sieg]

I would agree with Don that the newer machines of any sort are harder to
keep working
due to the lack of replacement parts.  You can't blame the IC
manufacturers, they have
been through decades of "no demand" and there are so many much better
parts, why
should they keep making them.  The exception of course is the military,
which would
rather keep sourcing an obsolete part (with a second source available too,
of course!)
But that inverted logic rarely applies to quad machines.

It is true, the discrete parts are often still available. You do have to
hunt for them.
I have been in the "boardswap from the spare" mode, but then what happens
after you
have fixed the problem with a boardswap?  You now have a known bad board
and no
spare.  Then when that board quits on you, you have no spares and two bad
boards.
You're forced to either find a working board or troubleshoot the bad boards.
Schematics and manuals were detailed, informative, and helpful back in the
1200/2000
era, but it seems the more modern machines got so much more complicated that
the documentation was often minimal, since troubleshooting was relegated to
boardswapping.
One thing's for sure, if you have a working quad today, you can't just
assume it will
keep working perfectly!  They need care and feeding periodically, not to
mention heads!

-- 
Dave Sieg
www.linkedin.com/in/davesieg
www.davesieg.com
www.scanimate. <http://www.scanimate.net>com
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