Coffee Break DIY: 4.5V Battery Replacement for Old CMOS Batteries

As a hobby, I do a lot of vintage electronics restoration and discovery. Due to time-constraints I rarely find the chance to document any such efforts, which has included everything from restoring a 1950s television set to factory new condition, to repairing old oscilloscopes and making them sing songs. But my main passion remains on retro computer systems, from the 1970s through 1990s. This past year I even developed an extraordinarily comprehensive online design tool called Aquarius Draw for the failed 8-bit Mattel Aquarius computer, which allows designing art and generating necessary code in BASIC and Z80 Assembly for transferring to the actual machine (talented users have made use of it as seen in the gallery).

But every so often I take a few photos of simple projects and figure it doesn't hurt to make a quick blog about it. Here's a fast DIY solution to replacing an old and depleted CMOS battery for a recently acquired Macintosh Performance 5400/180 computer using only random parts laying around. Read Full Article