Reg will fix it
When it came to troubleshooting computers Reg was in the elite group. There was little he couldn’t understand and repair. For about 3 years in the late ’70s he worked in the board repair department of Datronics, based in 84 Alexander St, Crows Nest.
Reg was responsible for repairing Diablo printers and Qantel business systems. He made a pilgrimage to Qantel’s headquarters in the San Francisco bay area to learn the product in greater detail. While there he made a solo trip to the Oakland Coliseum to attend a Sammy Hagar concert. The Qantel staff were horrified as he had used public transit and changed busses in the streets of Oakland. Something that was considered quite dangerous in those days. Reg just raved about the concert.
The Qantel staff were very impressed with Reg’s skills and towards the end of his visit they had him work in their board repair centre alongside their technicians. As they worked Reg found his feet were cramped by a large cardboard box under the bench. Asking what was in it he dragged it out from under the bench. Turned out it was a box of circuit boards considered unfixable. That was a direct challenge to Reg.
He grabbed a board at random, mounted it for testing and within 20 minutes had found the fault, repaired it and the card was running diagnostics successfully. He grabbed a second and it was quickly fixed and running. A third followed, then another. Suddenly the repair centre manager appeared and suggested the pair of them head out for lunch.
On Reg’s return the box was gone.
The Diablo printers came with switch mode power supplies from Boschert. These power supplies tended to be fragile and complex to repair. Reg generally made it look simple. One day one specific supply challenged him. He changed some components, powered it up and it seemed to run. About 30 seconds later there was a quick flash, a bang and the supply failed.
Reg delved into it more closely. He changed more parts and it seemed to work ok. We used to put a load on the supplies by using nichrome wire, coiled up and connected to the power supply’s output. Effectively the load was a jug element (google it). The supply ran for a minute or two then there was another flash and smoke from the supply. Reg reached over it to switch off the power point.
He yelled, leapt backwards and grabbed his chest. He’d leant on the nichrome wire which was glowing white hot by then. He had a series of slots burnt thru his t-shirt and a matching set of burns on his chest. Nevertheless, he tackled the repair again determined to beat the gremlins.
After working on the supply for an hour he proudly announced that it was fixed this time and powered it on. Within seconds not only was there a flash but flames erupted from the supply reaching halfway to the ceiling. Reg started cursing, grabbed the supply, walked to the balcony door and hurled the now blackened supply into the dumpster below.
The rest of us kept our heads down, busy in our own work, choked back our laughter and made no comments, that day at least.
