The Last Psion | Alex

I had a dead #Psion netBook.

I say "had." It is no longer dead.

There's a fuse on the mainboard of these machines that has a habit of blowing. Researching in conjunction with @heliopolitan, we found a potential replacement. They arrived today, and with my incredibly amateurish soldering skills (and nearly losing half the screws and a nut across the carpet), I now have a working netBook!

#RetroComputing #EPOC32

Apr 10 at 8:44pmWeb
Show threadHowToPhil4d ago
@thelastpsion @heliopolitan Also, this is why fuses should be socketed in some way and not soldered
Show threadThe Last Psion | Alex4d ago
@howtophil @heliopolitan Absolutely! Who knows how many Series 7s/netBooks went to landfill because of this.
Show threadHeliopolitan4d ago
@thelastpsion @howtophil They are a very weird machine, but that keyboard is awesome.
Show threadHowToPhil4d ago
@heliopolitan @thelastpsion I still have my Asus N1000 netbook. Keyboard is just big enough to still be comfortable and has decent travel. Runs AntiX linux so I can use wordgrinder, focuswriter, libreoffice... etc etc
Show threadAlice4d ago
@thelastpsion @heliopolitan is there any indication what might be the cause of the fuse blowing/the purpose for the fuse being on the board?
Show threadThe Last Psion | Alex4d ago

@confusionunknown @heliopolitan According to an old PDF on running Linux on the netBook, some externally powered PCMCIA cards can cause it to blow. There may be other reasons, but I don't know them.

Interestingly, the netBook Pro (the XScale/WinCE board) doesn't seem to have the fuse.

Show threadHeliopolitan4d ago
@thelastpsion @confusionunknown I think that might indeed be the problem. I have just shorted across mine (NO I will NEVER put anything in the PCMCIA slot EVER!) but need to get me one of those G fuses to make the fix proper...
Show threadSimon Wolf4d ago
@thelastpsion @heliopolitan I loved my netBook. From a nostalgia angle at the very least, thank you for bringing yours back to life.
Show threadMichael Horne4d ago
@thelastpsion @heliopolitan Next level fixing! Nice one!
Show threadWiredfire4d ago
@thelastpsion @heliopolitan amazing! I so badly wanted one of these when they came out. I was still rocking the venerable Series 5 at the time. Definitely was part of my excitement for the EeePC 701 when that first came out.