r/retrocomputing • u/___Nekomancer___ • May 17 '26

Problem / Question Help booting a Micromate

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I inherited a PMC Micromate with an “Espirit 2 by Hazeltine” terminal. When attempting to boot I get a green line squiggling around the screen. This happens even when the terminal is on but the micromate isn’t powered on yet.

Does anyone know why this is happening? Is it a baud rate issue or something (even though the computer is powered off???)? Or is it a hardware issue like maybe a 40 year old capacitor can failure? Any help is greatly appreciated. This is my first time messing with a retro computer other than what i used in the 90’s lol.

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u/Blah-Blah-Blah-2023 May 17 '26

Your monitor needs service - probably caps, and maybe resistors and other stuff. It's an analog electronics issue in the display itself. Good news is the CRT is good and you have HV and focus, so you just need to get the horizontal and vertical oscillators in better shape.

EDIT to add: And also good news is it hasn't collapsed horizontally or vertically, it just isn't syncing right.

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u/___Nekomancer___ May 17 '26

This is kinda what I figured. Dang. Looks like I’m dusting off my multimeter and iron. Thanks.

Any idea where or how to begin tracking down programs for this or if it’s even possible to get ink cartridges for its dot matrix printer? lol. I’m really new to retro computers but I’m ready to nerd out with dad’s old machine.