As a computer collector I consider myself fairly careful when it comes to batteries in my systems. Today however I find myself shamefully admitting that I missed something and paid the cost for doing so.
I've been building a system with which to write multiple disk formats for my current and future systems and have nearly completed it. Unfortunately, the controller on the motherboard I chose is unable to write certain disks and fails some tests under ImageDisk and other software. After making numerous attempts to write some very old CP/M images I was about to give up. I then thought that I do have one system which can likely write the disks using MS-DOS, my Compaq Portable II. I set it up and proceeded to transfer the images via floppy to its hard drive. The writing took a long time but was successful and the disks booted and I was able to copy them with a native machine.
The Compaq Portable II is a machine I've owned for decades, dating back to my first collecting bout in the early 90's. I've had it so long that I never applied the same care to it as I have with newly acquired systems. The hours of running to write the disks last night gave it a good workout. This morning I thought to myself that since I needed to use a system setup disk to access the hard drive the Compaq must have a battery and I'd take a look.
Well, I'm lucky in the sense that the battery exploded last night and I opened it up in the morning which limited damage somewhat. The way I had stored it on its side also was lucky. The photos show how the contents of the battery ate through some of the metal cage of the machine. Luckily, as I said the machine was on its side and the bulk of the material dropped away from the mainboard. I cleaned it for three hours and have yet to test it but am certain there is no damage to the board.
I've been building a system with which to write multiple disk formats for my current and future systems and have nearly completed it. Unfortunately, the controller on the motherboard I chose is unable to write certain disks and fails some tests under ImageDisk and other software. After making numerous attempts to write some very old CP/M images I was about to give up. I then thought that I do have one system which can likely write the disks using MS-DOS, my Compaq Portable II. I set it up and proceeded to transfer the images via floppy to its hard drive. The writing took a long time but was successful and the disks booted and I was able to copy them with a native machine.
The Compaq Portable II is a machine I've owned for decades, dating back to my first collecting bout in the early 90's. I've had it so long that I never applied the same care to it as I have with newly acquired systems. The hours of running to write the disks last night gave it a good workout. This morning I thought to myself that since I needed to use a system setup disk to access the hard drive the Compaq must have a battery and I'd take a look.
Well, I'm lucky in the sense that the battery exploded last night and I opened it up in the morning which limited damage somewhat. The way I had stored it on its side also was lucky. The photos show how the contents of the battery ate through some of the metal cage of the machine. Luckily, as I said the machine was on its side and the bulk of the material dropped away from the mainboard. I cleaned it for three hours and have yet to test it but am certain there is no damage to the board.
oh:
