8-Bit Guy controversy

StinkerB06 · Post by **StinkerB06** » Sat Oct 03, 2020 1:08 pm

Are any of you aware of the controversy he caused from destroying that one extremely-rare IBM prototype? By bending the paper clip to short out the whole system and cutting open the PSU with the saw?

Although this should probably be on-topic: Is the controversy declining interests in the X16, or would it still do well?

dr.diesel · Post by **dr.diesel** » Sat Oct 03, 2020 1:32 pm

I fail to see why the topic was even mentioned and has nothing to do with the X16 or it's future.

StinkerB06 · Post by **StinkerB06** » Sat Oct 03, 2020 2:55 pm

54 minutes ago, dr.diesel said:

I fail to see why the topic was even mentioned and has nothing to do with the X16 or it's future.

Ok then.

At first, people thought he was a good-enough retro tech-content creator with over a million subscribers. But when his video of his IBM "restoration attempt" came about, people have started to become angry. Even when I don't have any experience with electronics, I pointed out that he was doing many things wrong.

He didn't test the monitor power lines correctly, so he went ahead and bent a paperclip, shoved it into the PSU's male connector, turned it on and SNAP! Blown fuse! Next, he used a Dremel saw and some other tool to pull out the 4 security screws, only to find the fuse. He then bought the wrong type from the hardware store, putting it in the PSU caused the machine to not turn on. After this, he refused to do additional work and sent the rare IBM back.

PS: I don't know if this discussion should stay here or go to off-topic. But this thing he did is really dumb in my opinion, and is a good starting point for hardware technicians to know what not to do.

Perifractic · Post by **Perifractic** » Sat Oct 03, 2020 4:06 pm

David has posted a video defending his actions and why the IBM thing was not "really dumb" as you put it. A vast majority of electronics engineers agree. Please watch your language and remember the group rules you agreed to when joining.

Matej · Post by **Matej** » Sat Oct 03, 2020 4:59 pm

My Mom worked in biotech company. And She asked me before I started collecting old comps 10 years ago If I want 20x IBM PS/2 with Model M keyboard brand new old stock in box never opened for free as they buyed new laptops to company. I told Her that I have HP notebook so not that those computers are low specs and can run only MSDOS. They put them into trash. Now I am crying when I see similar 386 PCs on ebay. Also bought one Year ago 1x Model M keyboard for 250euro :))). But as I am Atari and Amiga fan and from that point of view its OK.

codewar65 · Post by **codewar65** » Sat Oct 03, 2020 5:09 pm

1 hour ago, Perifractic said:

David has posted a video defending his actions and why the IBM thing was not "really dumb" as you put it. A vast majority of electronics engineers agree. Please watch your language and remember the group rules you agreed to when joining.

I'm behind David 1000% on everything said here. Thanks Perifractic for posting this and putting this to bed.

picosecond · Post by **picosecond** » Sat Oct 03, 2020 5:38 pm

46 minutes ago, Perifractic said:

the IBM thing was not "really dumb" as you put it. A vast majority of electronics engineers agree.

I can't speak for the vast majority but this electronics engineer thinks the paper clip thing was pretty foolish. The thing about electronics is, at some point everybody does something foolish. I expect most people here have a long list of goofs.

David had a couple things working against him: a little knowledge that seemed like it should be applicable (but wasn't) and working in a hurry. In this situation those turned out to be an unfortunate combination.

David deserves more credit than he has received for sharing his mistake in the first place. He also deserves way less criticism than he received for not owning that mistake particularly well. That being said, a brief "oops, here's what I should have done..." segment would have gone a long ways toward avoiding the big negative reaction.

Addressing the original poster's question, I think CX16 will succeed or fail on its own merits. This controversy is orthogonal.

Perifractic · Post by **Perifractic** » Sat Oct 03, 2020 5:41 pm

Fair enough. Did you watch his response video? He cites several people stating the paperclip method as the first thing they would've done and a "go to" fix in tech support circles over the years. Either way you are right that it probably will not hurt sales. If I had seen Jay Miner do something with a dremel, it wouldn't have stopped me buying an Amiga [emoji6]

StephenHorn · Post by **StephenHorn** » Sat Oct 03, 2020 6:11 pm

4 hours ago, dr.diesel said:

I fail to see why the topic was even mentioned and has nothing to do with the X16 or it's future.

Well, it looks to me like this was posted to General Retro Chat (not X16), so this seems appropriate enough.

Thank to @Perifractic for signal-boosting Dave's response to the public reaction. It's too bad the IBM guys made their monitor power cable more complicated than first appears. The only reason I wondered about Dave's continuity test before inserting the paperclip was because I'd watched the videos out-of-order and so knew he was about to blow up the power supply. I would be interested in a video from an engineer doing a proper tear-down of one of those machines (possibly the one Dave had, even, since it's already presumed dead) to learn how that cable worked, among other things. Maybe donate that machine to EEVBlog? I'm sure he'd love to explain all the ways someone could turn a bodge into a botch with that thing.

I have, personally, used paperclips like that in the past. I'm not an expert, but I did learn of that technique from experienced troubleshooters, and had fortuitously found a guide that was directly applicable, so there was no guesswork involved. That said, I've also seen folks use small-ohm resistors (100Ω, I think?) in some circumstances just to make sure they aren't actually shorting something.

rje · Post by **rje** » Sat Oct 03, 2020 11:29 pm

I saw the "process" video, and saw that Computer Reset were helping him open those boxes. At that point, I realized "this is not valuable equipment". If it were, David would be using tweezers. I've seen how he tiptoes around Apple, Atari, and Commodore hardware.