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by nickdothutton 44 days ago
Every now and then I look for a vt320 from my university days. Still miss the smell of hot dust on CRT electron guns.
1 comments

I used old terminals like this to directly interface to the COM ports of older electronic instruments, well into the 2000's.

By that point the most common failure due to age was from cobwebs that had formed internally between the high-voltage CRT circuitry and the PCB containing the low-voltage logic.

For anybody reusing or restoring vintage CRT units, I would blow them out with compressed air to get rid of stuff like this.

Otherwise in a flash with a final scream and a slightly different smell than normal, it's an instant cadaver :(