Last weekend, I fired up the 3B2 and was a bit disappointed to find that I have both hard drive and maybe other problems to consider.

I'm hoping that replacing the NVRAM battery might help some of my problems. I purchased a new battery online and it's on the way (I think I payed $15-$20 with shipping), but yesterday on a hunch I went over to our local Battery Outlet store, and low and behold, they sold me the exact battery I needed. It's a 3.6v lithium in a fancy plastic case with a pair of leads attached. These guys sold it to me for $10.  I've become too used to getting things online, and need to remember that my neighbors run local businesses that may provide better service at better prices. These guys told me all about the battery shown, how to build one myself cheaper, and offered to replace this one if it had been sitting around too long. They have about a 5 year shelf life, and they don't sell too many of them.

So I'll install the battery this weekend.

I am also a big fan of Lulu. If you don't know about Lulu, you should!

Lulu is a book publisher for the masses, and they are just great for folks wanting hard copy of old documents, like 3B2 Maintenance Manuals. Just upload a pdf file, configure your new book, pay a reasonable printing and shipping fee, and a week later, you have a hard copy document.

While this capability is really meant for writers as a means to publish, market and sell their own works, it also works great for retro geeks like me who really want a hard copy of the tons of old manuals out there.

So I uploaded the 450 page 3B2 Maintenance Manual, a pdf of the scanned book, and the hard copy is on the way. It cost me about $20 printed and delivered. Very cool!

This weekend I should be much better equipped to continue the 3B2 rebuild.