Re: [PLUG] Broken Ribbon Cable

[Walt Mankowski via plug <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>]

Is it just a matter of replacing the ribbon cable, or is it more
involved than that? Desktop machines back then used used commodity
ribbon cables that I don't recall being especially fragile or
difficult to insert and remove. Do you think it would work with one of
those, or does this require a special bespoke ribbon cable?

What are the AIs suggesting that the repair would entail?

Walt

On Tue, Oct 21, 2025 at 03:20:46PM -0400, Casey Bralla via plug wrote:
> I bought a 30 year old laptop for my collection.
> https://www.nerdworld.org/Content/Computer%20Museum/Computer%20Museum.html.
> Unfortunately, when taking it apart, I ripped the delicate orange ribbon
> cable on the floppy drive.  The laptop will boot, but the hard drive on this
> old baby is long dead, so I need to have a working floppy.
> 
> All the AI's say a repair is possible, but Oh Geez, what a task.
> 
> Has anybody ever tried to actually do this?  My 68 year old hands aren't
> especially steady.
> 
> The Laptop is a CompuAdd, which was not especially popular, so the chance of
> finding replacement parts is asymptotically zero.
> 
> Any suggestions?
> 
> BTW, this laptop has an IDE disk that is soldered to the motherboard. 
> Yipes!  Might have been good for physically durability, but pretty well
> screws any repair or upgrade possibility.


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