Vid, this is really good information. For a given board (driver board, power supply, CPU, etc...) do you recommend that everyone perform each of these mods if there's any doubt at all about its current state? For example, I was pretty sure that the 40-pin interconnect on my Gorgar was just fine. However, the driver board for this Blackout I just acquired looks like it's had some work done, but could use quite a bit more. Same with the power supply. The CPU looks like it has RN sockets, but I don't know how new they are.

I know that most of the time - if it ain't broke don't fix it. But where should I draw "broke" line? If someone who didn't know any better were playing it and looking at it, they'd think it was in fine shape, electronically. But having read this guide, I can see at least five things between the two boards that probably should be done to make it future-proof.

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And the rest is on kind of an "as I feel like it" basis?

It turns out all the parts for this guide are only going cost me about 20 bucks. Totally worth it - especially if it might have the side effect of fixing some other issues I'm having (such as a flickering and lagging display).

What's your opinion on proactively replacing IDC connectors with Trifurcon crimp-ons? Should I wait until there's a problem, or is it worth the trouble of replacing all ~25 IDCs in my Blackout to prevent any possible further issues?

Just out of curiosity - is it OK to put, say, three 5-pin male headers side-by-side to form a 15-pin one? The connector that would plug into them would be a single 15-pin, of course. But does the male side need to be a continuous strip? If so, then the 24-pin ones that Great Plains sell for $1.40 each seems pretty expensive if you're going to just throw all the leftover header pins out instead of combining them elsewhere.

For the bridge rectifier safety mod:

I have 18 gauge wire taken from an old PC power supply, and I have the 1/4" quick disconnects from Radio Shack that Vid linked to back on Page 2. However, the disconnects are for 16 gauge wire, which I didn't realize until just now. So now I'm wondering if I should buy some larger gauge wire or smaller gauge disconnects. The wires leading from the transformer into the bridge rectifiers are quite substantial - much more so than this 18 gauge wire I'm using.

Vid, what would you do in my position? Would you buy some larger wire to go with the connectors I have or quick disconnects that fit the smaller wire that I have? I want to make sure I do this right.

If gold sockets are bad for tin IC pins, what about the inverse?

I have a couple of MC6820 chips that appear to have gold pins. Is it some other metal instead of gold?

On my Taxi, I'm replacing the lamp matrix transistors to MOSFETs, and am trying to put jumper wires in where the cement resistors used to be. It says that you used 16 gauge wire, but I can't even get 18 gauge to fit in those holes, let alone 16. How do you go about making sure the wires you attach stay securely connected? I'm using stranded - do you use solid instead?

Yeah, I can't get it in there, no matter how tightly I wind it. I smash it down, and 1/3 of the wire ends up mushrooming out. It doesn't look nearly as clean as your picture does, and you're using 16-gauge.

I found some solid-core copper wire in my Wire Bag that I can use. It looks to be either 22 or 20 gauge.