barry@network.ucsd.edu (Barry Brown) (08/08/90)
I recently purchased the book "Macintosh Repair and Upgrade Secrets" and
have been following its instructions on fixing my Plus's screen jitters
and focus problems. However, the book is shamefully full of the literary
equivalents to software bugs in unimplemented features. Several examples
are at the end of this article (are you listening, author Larry Pina?).
But the one which this article concerns is:
The first chapters of the book have me going through various diagnostics and
writing down what I observe to be out of the ordinary. In particular,
I am to note down whether I notice that the circular test patterns are
egg-shaped. In my case, circles on the left side of the screen look normal;
circles on the right are skinny.
Try as I might, I cannot find any chapter anywhere that deals specifically
with this problem. In fact, linearity is never mentioned again in the book!
So the obvious question is: how do I adjust the linearity of the Mac Plus
screen?
Now for the "bugs":
1. The photos are dark and of low contrast. This, combined with (2), makes
it hard to see what the captions are referring to.
2. There are rarely any arrows to point out interesting features. Figure
5-4 supposedly shows a cracked solder joint. If I knew what a cracked
solder joint looked like, I'd probably spot it immediately in the
photo. But I've stared at it for several minutes and _still_ can't
locate the problem joint.
3. Chapter One discusses various safety techniques, including discharging
CRT. Unfortunately, the instructions for putting together a safe
discharging tool are vague, as is the photo depicting the final product.
To make matters worse, we are never told how to use the tool! It is
fortunate that I already know how to discharge a CRT. Otherwise, I'd
probably be in the hospital now.
4. Figure 4-15 shows the "correct" way to remove the connector for the bundle
of wires from the analog board to the logic board. "The easiest way to
remove the old wiring harness is to grab it by the wires and pull it
off," the caption reads. Tsk, tsk. The author tries to defend this
technique, but it's still a bad idea. It's like trying to defend not
wearing a seatbelt by pointing out that you've never been in a crash.
There are probably other errors, but I haven't read through the entire
book.
Other symtoms my Mac exhibits which aren't covered in the book:
Streaking. The streaking is worse upon startup and after a screen saver has
been on (ie, the screen has been dark for a period of time).
Brightness won't turn up as high as it should. My screen is somewhat darker
than the screen on my roommate's Mac Plus.
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