[Usagi] Whips A Chain Printer Into Shape

What does it take to get a 47-year-old printer working? [Usagi Electric] shows us it’s not too hard, even if you don’t exactly know what you’re doing.  When we last left this proj…

Learning About Ferroresonant Transformers While Fixing A 1970s Power Supply

While troubleshooting the power supply of a 1970s Centurion system, [Usagi Electrics] came across a fascinating feature of these units: the ferroresonant, or constant voltage transformer (CVT). The…

Trying (and Failing) To Restore A 1970s CDC 10MB Hard Drive

One fun aspect of 1970s-era hard disk drives is that they are big, clunky and are fairly easy to repair without the need for a clean room. A less fun aspect is that they are 1970s-era HDDs and thus…

Minicomputer Restoration Hanging In The Balance

[David Lovett] aka Usagi Electric has spent the last several months dissecting a Centurion minicomputer from 1980. His latest update reveals that the restoration has hit several snags, and bootstra…