[TUHS] Re: AT&T UNIX PC (7300) Teardown and Restoration

[segaloco via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org>]

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And here are some pictures of the guts.

https://imgur.com/a/E1ioxZl

Various bits inside date this to late 1985. The good news is it at least turns on, but that's about as far as I've gotten with it. The display never turns on, nor do I hear any sounds indicating it tries to start the CRT. The fans kick on and there it stays until I turn it off. I plugged in a USB-TTY to pins 2, 3, and 7 (RX/TX/GND) and listened at 9600 baud 8 bit 1 stop no parity and got nothing. Swapped the RX/TX, still nothing. Of course, that's all predicated on the assumption there's something there to even interact with. I have little faith that whatever UNIX install was on this is extant. Additionally, it didn't come with a keyboard, so if there was some futzing with key combos that would trigger some sort of UART over those lines, I can't do that. I wonder if there are some contacts inside I can just poll for activity with this serial connector, not sure how safe that is...

Anywho, the CPU has a bit of corrosion on the surface, not sure how that bodes for the innards, but this is in kinda rough shape either way. I hope I can salvage it but if not, I'm going to at least do some study on the CRT particulars and see if I can extract and keep the monitor from it, been wanting a smaller CRT to have around for a while.

- Matt G.
------- Original Message -------
On Tuesday, January 3rd, 2023 at 12:20 PM, segaloco via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org> wrote:

> Good day everyone, just starting a thread for yet another project I'll be tinkering on over time. Picked up a (presumably broken/untested) 7300 off eBay to at the very least tear down and get some good pictures of and, with some luck, perhaps get working again.
>
> https://imgur.com/a/CExzebl
>
> Here are some pictures of the exterior for starters. I'll update this thread when I've got pictures of the guts and also with any info I can glean regarding whether this might be salvageable. The rust on the back is pretty nasty but I've seen older/worse start up just fine.
>
> - Matt G.

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