#A500 Powerlessness!
This is really ridiculous!
My A500 power supply went south last week and guess what? You CAN'T GET a
replacement supply, at least not within a week or two. I'm in Milwaukee, a cit
a metro area of 1.6 million, and the Commodore dealers either don't carry A500
replacement supplies or have none in stock. Plus which, they're $99 new. Plus
which, they're underpowered, which is probably why mine died after only a year
and a half. Hey, no problem, I thought to myself, I'll just buy a third-party
power supply. Wrong. Phoenix made one (CPS-500) that turned out to be shoddy.
Now the new Phoenix supply is temporarily unavailable because Phoenix got
bought out by someone (tried several mail-order firms and all said, in effect,
"we won't be able to get any for awhile.")
One of the mail-order houses actually advised me to cut off the power cord
on my A500 OEM supply and splice it into an IBM power supply, making sure the
voltages were correct! HUH?! This is a computer that's supposed to turn on
business people?
Oh, yeah: the local authorized Commodore repair shop, usually very helpful,
said flatly it wouldn't repair a power supply, but would take a dead one in
trade for a new OEM supply for the meager price of $96. Such a deal. I wanna
puke. You either have to know a solder jockey or have the patience of Job.