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My vintage Palm Pilot screen went black and I fixed it with a potato
Last Tuesday I was showing my old Palm Pilot m505 to my nephew and the screen just went completely black after 5 minutes. I tried the reset button on the back, pulled the batteries, nothing worked. Found some forum from 2002 saying to rub a raw potato slice on the battery contacts to remove corrosion. I actually tried it, let it sit for 2 minutes, wiped it off with a napkin, put the batteries back in, and the thing booted right up. Has anyone else used weird food tricks to fix dead electronics?
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dylan_brown3019d ago
Pulled the same kind of thing with a Game Boy Color back in 2007. Screen went all fuzzy and lines everywhere, thought it was toast. Read some guy on a retro gaming site swearing by rubbing a banana peel on the circuit board contacts to fix screen issues. Figured what the heck, peeled a banana, rubbed the inside of the peel all over the contacts, let it dry for like 10 minutes. Plopped the batteries back in and the screen cleared right up. Still have that Game Boy, works perfect to this day. Weirdest part is I don't know if the banana actually did anything or if it just gave me time to dry out some moisture. But man, potatoes and bananas fixing electronics feels like cooking up a magic spell.
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lewis.mila19d ago
Oh man that banana trick is wild. I've heard of people using ketchup to clean pennies but never fruit on circuit boards. So basically we're all out here raiding our kitchens instead of buying contact cleaner. That's honestly kind of genius though. Next time my remote dies I'm just gonna grab a lime and hope for the best.
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