BKDEDMAC.RVW 931029 Peachpit Press 2414 6th St. Berkeley, CA 94710 510-548-4393 fax: 510-548-5991 800-283-9444 "The Dead Mac Scrolls", Pina, 1992, U$32.00 As the introduction states, this is *not* a service manual. This book is *much* more useful than a service manual. A service manual assumes that (a) you are a service person, and therefore technically inclined; and, (b) you know what is wrong (or are willing to charge the customer for the time it takes you to figure it out). Instead, this book presents you with the symptoms for common hardware problems for early Macs, SEs, Mac IIs, floppy and hard drives, monitors, ImageWriters and LaserWriters. Symptoms are followed up with possible problem histories, diagnoses and solutions. For each problem an approximate cost is given to repair it yourself, have a typical repair shop do it, or have a dealer fix it. The layout of a troubleshooting book is generally problematic. The number of possible types of failures are enormous. When all the various aspects of computer systems are considered, the task of diagnosis may be almost impossible. Given a call from a user running an MS-DOS program under emulation on a Mac with printing redirected through the network to a printer queued off the mainframe, the report that, "My printer doesn't work," may receive a less than enthusiastic response. Pina's task is strictly limited to hardware diagnosis, and therefore stands a greater chance of success. The problems, and solutions, are mostly limited to a single page each. Symptoms are grouped with like symptoms, and, indeed, several pages may be devoted to an identical symptom which may have differing causes. Distinction can sometimes be made between problems with additionally listed symptoms or history. Users would be advised to check listings of similar symptoms to see which is most appropriate to the situation. Since it may be time-consuming to read through the entire book (or at least the section referring to your computer) to find a given problem, the index is a cross reference to the symptoms. Helpful, but it could be more so. If you are trying to diagnose a "sizzling sound" you have to look under "N", for "noise". (You also have to be able to interpret sounds, like "flup-flup-flup" and "do- do-dah", although I assume these are easier to recognize once you've heard them.) Since the longest index listing for any one type of machine is five pages, finding symptoms shouldn't be all that hard. Repairs might be another matter. The introduction states that the book assumes you have the tools and test equipment necessary, and that you know how to use them. No concessions are made on this point: no tools or test equipment are mentioned for any of the repairs. There is no indication of the degree of difficulty for any of the repairs, nor even the most general discussion of the basics of electronic repairs. Adjusting the CRT yoke seems like a deceptively simple business - until the first time the built-up charge zaps you. The introduction *does* list a number of books on the repairs which do-it- yourselfers may find helpful. If you have some background in electronics, this book can save hours of testing, and many times its own price in repair costs. If you have no such background, it may be difficult to distinguish between what you can fix, and what you can't. You can, however, likely diagnose the problem, and then be in a better position to negotiate prices from repair shops. As well as feeling more in control of the situation. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1993 BKDEDMAC.RVW 931029 ====================== DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters Editor and/or reviewer ROBERTS@decus.ca, RSlade@sfu.ca, Rob Slade at 1:153/733 Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" (Oct. '94) Springer-Verlag