According to [ClassicHasClass], the best way to open an Atari Stacy is to not open an Atari Stacy. Apparently, these old computers were not pleasant to work on. The cables were not keyed and were prone to short against things. Screws easily strip out plastic holes. Of course, there wouldn’t be a story if there wasn’t a teardown and an upgrade that you can check out in the post.
The Stacy was one of Atari’s earliest portable systems and the first ST portable (that is, STacy). There’s a backlit LCD, a keyboard and trackball, and the usual ports. You could make do with a single floppy or spring for a second floppy or an internal SCSI hard drive. The 8 MHz 68000-based machine would set you back north of $2,300 back in 1989.
The original plan was to run the thing on C-cell batteries, but that would give you about 15 minutes of operation. They finally decided it was a luggable — you’d have to plug it into the wall. The battery compartment was there, but empty and glued shut.
Apparently, there were about 35,000 of these made, but they seem somewhat rare. But we do like a rare retrocomputer. Or even some that aren’t so rare.
Self tapping screws destroy the threads in the hole unless you know how to put them back in correctly.
Put the screw in the hole. Use a screwdriver to turn the screw backwards – like you are loosening it. Turn the screw backwards until you feel or hear a “click ” The screw threads are now properly aligned. Tighten the screw. Do not over tighten.
That trick works for wood, plastic, and metal.
This is an old trick that I learned from a collection of Popular Mechanics books of tips. The books were (I think) from the 1960s. The tips were older.
I do the same when I remount case fans. Those fan screws are brutal on plastic shroud if you don’t get the screw lined up with the thread the first time.
I learned that on my own (after ruining countless sockets).
RCA TVs in the 1980s had metal screws with 2 threads of a different depth for attaching the rear cover and motherboard to the front cover. It was on these I learned why some would strip or go in easy.
I believe this is also the recommended way for screwing into aluminium, or with brittle materials like spark plugs!
+1
We did an early tablet that ran on 6 rechargeable D cells. I forget how long it was supposed to run for, but it wasn’t long!
Still waiting for someone to gift me an ST Book…
They say it runs for 5-10 hours on one set of batteries.
oh man. you are not kidding. that was the worst computer to date to be working on. the sheet metal rf shield with the bent strips to keep it shut. horrible and sharp as a knife. ive upgraded my Stacy 2 to a stacy 4 and fortunately it has a hard drive, but the screen is horrible.
that machine is not designed, it is cobbled together.
I had one in my early teens… so sad that I dismantled it completely, did not appreciate its rarity back then but now is a different story… we don’t see them online so often, good memories…
I think you missed the perfect opportunity for a great pun:
“Stacey’s ROM has got it going on!”
I was going for that, but wasn’t as clever as you are….
Never had a Stacy (or any ST version for that matter), but I still have Coleen and Candy.
Great tip on how to not strip threads. I have to teach it to the younger guys in the shop along with use the correct philips size driver.
I used to work in a factory, adjusting 2-way radios in a jig made from the housing of a standard radio.
I used the “turn backwards” trick when screwing the RF boards into the jig.
One day my boss walked by, then stopped and walked back and watched me for a while.
He had realized that since I took over that particular workspace, they had not had to make a new jig. It had been a couple of months at that point. Apparently, they were used to replacing the jig every week or two.
He had just realized that we hadn’t had a new jig made in months, and watched to see if I was somehow cheating (using a broken jig or something.) He noticed the “turn it backwards” bit and asked if the jig was holding up alright. It was fine.
For all 13 months I was on that spot in the line, we never replaced a jig.