This is my prized Commodore 128, a rarity from the latter days of its run when they came in this orange gradient color. So gorgeous!

When you tilt it sideways you can hear its “magic sand” rolling through it like a rain stick, used to clean the chips. The sand does go stale over the years and will probably need to be replaced.

Machines of this era were sealed with factory-corroded hex screws for safety. Good thing I have the right driver in my iFixit kit!

Here it is open with the invincibility shield in place. Vacuuming out the sand for safe keeping.

Looks like the magic sand did its job. Those chips are nice and clean, with only a little bit of the white schmutz! And the sand dispensers haven’t ruptured, so that’s nice.

Time to plug it in with color-matching three-prong–uh, two-prong power supply. I hope this works!

Borrowing my 128D’s monitor for a test. The 1902 display requires a complex five-button initialization procedure to turn on, but it’s worth it.

This 128 works flawlessly. The picture is clear and stable, and the keyboard is crisp and fully functional, both better than my 128D. @AmigaL0ve is coming over to harvest its RF circuit for his 128D, but maybe if I give him a broken Speak-n-Spell he won’t know the difference.

(Originally posted to Twitter on April 18, 2019. It received 18 likes.)