Nick brought his 1997 NEC Model “Ready 9716” to see if we could get it to post into an operating system. Dmitry, Nick and I tightened the battery holder and put in a new 2032 battery. Next we worked through the cables to be sure that they were connected correctly by comparing with a similar system. Progress, but still no boot. On a hunch we moved the RAM into different slots and that was the ticket, the system settled into a functional configuration that would hopefully accept a Windows 95 install. The NEC 9716 is an interesting Pentium II MMX system. In 1997 Japanese companies were still producing proprietary hardware that sometimes make it hardware to install Windows 95 and Windows 95-era drivers.

Dmitry brought a boxed Franklin Ace 100 computer to work on, so we set everything up in the library room. He reported having some issues with the display output at home but the Franklin attached to our in-house Apple /// display booted up just fine. I believe he may have had grounding issues either with his home power system or the display was not grounded properly. We borrowed a drive controller from an Apple ][e and used it to test his original compact Franklin dual drive. I have never worked on a Franklin 100 before, it was a pleasure to get to see one up close.