Collector's Corner..The Collector's Lament

[Steve B]

All Collector's know the familiar pain of a newly discovered defective chess computer
the angst can be gut wrenching depending on the computer involved

those very few members who have been following my ongoing testing of the computers in my collection will perhaps notice that heretofore all of the computers tested have been working fine:

http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13220

Sadly however ,today i am faced with the dreaded inevitability of finding a newly defective computer

this is really killing me as it is the beautiful Saitek Renaissance board
the board comes with an attached LCD display which shows a depiction of the chess board as well as crucial game information such as clocks times,Anticipated lines of play,position valuations,etc.etc.

after about 2-3 hours of play the lcd display has become corrupted making it almost illegible
adjusting the contrast does no good whatsoever
no manner of pressing..pulling...pushing ..squeezing or pinching the display will do any good
depressingly this leaves me with a beautiful board but no LCD display
i can of course use my 3 Analyst modules which have a built in LCD screen of their own but no chess board depiction
and of course this does not solve the problem of my Brute Force and Sparc modules which have no such self contained display

my only ray of hope..albeit a slim one..is my dear kind ,generous ,wonderful sympathetic and kind(..did i already mention kind and charitable?}friend and fellow collector Alain Zanchetta
i am told he JUST this week acquired a Renaissance board for his own collection and i am very certain and hopeful he will swap boards with me out of the goodness of his heart..because after all..just last week he did not even have the board to begin with

Confident and assured without question Regards
Steve

[Steve B]

in what can only be considered a rare occurrence
rarer even then my rarest chess computers..

i was actually able to fix the problem with the lcd display for the Renaissance board!

Smokin Regards!
Steve

[DD-OK]

Steve, very cool. I was about to opine that it probably just needed a replacement LCD, since it sounded a lot like my Tasc R-30 saga. Of course, finding a compatible replacement is not necessarily easy, depending on the display.

Glad to hear you have been able to harvest the needed spare part.

Dr. Frankenstein sends his regards,

DD-OK

[Jaimes Conda]

Steve,
Re:your Renaissence board.

Most machines have a reset button somewhere.Most often on the underside.
Static electricity can do some strange things.Have you tried this button?

Jaimes

[Steve B]

Thanks Mark
i now know first hand the feeling you must have had repairing your R30

basically it feels something like this....
YEESSSSS!!! Regards
Steve

[Steve B]

hi Jaimes

thanks for the suggestion
as you can see from this thread i was able to stumble and bumble my way to a repair!

the lcd unit is attached by a ribbon cable to the mother board
when i opened up the Renaissance i noticed that the cable was a bit loose from the board in one spot

a very quick soldering job and... Walla

i am
GOOD TO GO Regards
Steve

[Jaimes Conda]

hi Jaimes

thanks for the suggestion
as you can see from this thread i was able to stumble and bumble my way to a repair!

the lcd unit is attached by a ribbon cable to the mother board
when i opened up the Renaissance i noticed that the cable was a bit loose from the board in one spot

a very quick soldering job and... Walla

i am
GOOD TO GO Regards
Steve

Et voila. Talk about back from the dead!..........Jaimes

[Alainza]

Congratulations Steve !

I suppose there is no need anymore to get my costume of speleologist to get my second Renaissance ?

give me your address and I'll send you a few defective units to fix...

soldering iron regards,

Alain

[Steve B]

Congratulations Steve !

I suppose there is no need anymore to get my costume of speleologist to get my second Renaissance ?

give me your address and I'll send you a few defective units to fix...

soldering iron regards,

Alain

thanks Alain
and so there is no longer a need for your board
i even sent you an email informing you that it is now safe for you to play with the board in the daytime and you do not have to hide it any longer or play with it only under the cover of darkness


Bob Vila Sends His Regards
Steve

PS..I think you have the worlds TOP collection of DOUBLES
Renaissance board and Le Citrine

[Alainza]

Hi Steve,

you do not have to hide it any longer

I was not hiding but "hiarcsing" these days... I have received my Sparc on Saturday morning and haven't found the time to play more than a 5' game against it !!!
I spent countless hours hunting a few typos with a program which "almost" worked ! (the interesting side here is that after having converted Hiarcs 0.5 I did not know how it worked and that now I do understand it pretty well).

The trip to the attic was scheduled a bit later this week (I did not hurry because I am pretty sure that my old Renaissance does not accept the Sparc module).

Attic more waterproof than cellar regards,
Alain