[comp.sys.mac.hardware] Serial Port - Info Requested

lester@infonode.ingr.com (Lester Bartel) (01/31/91)

> From: rte@cbnewsi.att.com (ralph.t.edwards)
> 
> Last year lightning zapped my house, probably through the power line,
> several pieces of electronics croaked, but not (I thought) the
> computers, which were on surge arresters.  The modem was not on the
> same surge arrester as the computer (not enough plugs) and was zapped.
> It was still under warranty, so I got it fixed.
> The fix was a transister like object near the AC input.
> But, although the modem works fine on other computers,
> it does not work with my plus, to which it was attached at the great zapping.
> So, here are the questions:
> 
> 1. Both serial ports work with the printer, neither see the modem.
> What lines are used by the modem that aren't used with the printer?
> 
> 2. What symptoms should I look for with my RS-232 tester?
> 
> 3. If I conlude that the ports are zapped, can one or two ICs
> be replaced, and where are they?
> 
> 4. I haven't opened up the plus yet, although I plan to soon.
> It's 13 months old.  Do they use surface mounts or what?
> 
> I'm a reasonably competent tinkerer, and have opened my older mac
> several times to fix problems, add upgrades etc.
> Please reply by mail

I had a similar experience on my Mac 512KE, though I can't blame lightning
for sure.  I simply replaced the RS422 driver chip (a 16 pin dip).  One
of the Inside Macintosh manuals has a block diagram of the serial port
circuitry (amoung other ports), and I used that as a guide to determine
which chip was likely fried.  BTW this only affected my modem port.

I also had a problem (don't know if it is related or not), where the
receive + pin appeared to be capacitively tied to the receive - pin.
This would cause the RS422 receiver to not recognize a difference
between the two inputs.  I simply tied the receive + pin (unused for
RS232) to ground and the printer port now works like a champ.

 - Lester

-- 
Lester Bartel			b23b!naomi!lester@ingr.com
Dasix, An Intergraph Company	uunet!ingr!b23b!naomi!lester