I have often eyed typewriters at garage sales and thought it would be fun to try one out. Often the thing that held me back was not knowing if it would work and the price. I recently stumbled on a Smith Corona XE 5200 typewriter being sold for $2. After seeing that it worked, I decided to take the plunge.
This was no ordinary manual typewriter. It came out when computers were starting to take hold of the word processing world. It has a 5000 word memory bank and a built in dictionary. I had fun running it through the demo and this is what it typed out.
While I appreciate the versatility of a typewriter (for example I addressed a few envelopes with it), I don’t think that it will be replacing my computer. However, it has been really fun learning how to use it and there are still many more functions listed in the manual that I could still make use of.
There is this game on my DSI that I really like to play, maybe you have heard of it?
The game requires the R and L buttons for drifting. I bought my DSI at a garage sale, and shortly afterwards the buttons started to not work properly. I did however, find that I could hit the buttons really hard and they would work… sometimes. Needless to say, I quickly lost the use of my left and right trigger buttons.
I recently started a project to repair the buttons, and I will talk you through my disassembly process.
I just used some simple screwdrivers to take off the back panel. My biggest fear was to accidentally strip one of the screws, but with some smaller screwdrivers, and a little patience that can be easily avoided. IFIXIT already has a great step by step guide for this, and that is what I followed for disassembly. Here is the striped down back panel where the L and R buttons reside.
I have already removed the buttons in this picture, but that is where they would be. I highly suggest cleaning the buttons with some rubbing alcohol before removing the buttons, as that would save a lot of hassle. One of the most frustrating things with this design, two separable sides, is the center ribbon cable that is so short and hard to re-attach. Anyways, if you can just clean off the buttons, than congratulations, you probably didn’t button mash like I did. Since I did, I had to remove them.
They are really like a millimetre by a millimetre in size. I had some trouble de-soldering them, but with the enlisted help of my brothers hands, it was manageable. Note, don’t attempt to remove buttons alone, unless you are a serious soldering master.
Well, as it now stands, I am awaiting the new buttons in the mail. I will show you where I got them from, and how to reassemble when I get them. Until then, please be careful with your DSI as it is a computer and easily damageable. Seriously, the IFIXIT guide is the way to go with any computer repairs.
