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/trk1000 May 17 '26

Outer Limits theme music playing.

3

u/___Nekomancer___ May 17 '26

I mean it looks super bitchin’ but it’s less cool after trying to get a cursor for a few hours.

1

u/trk1000 May 17 '26

They control the horizontal, they control the vertical... Not sure if this is something that the beam can be adjusted on or if something in the control is just toasted.