[time-nuts] Maintaining boatanchors (was Capacitor Failures)

[k6rtm at comcast.net]

I've got a lot of old(er) HP and Tek test gear. Built to last, the manuals include schematics and theory of ops, and they still perform. 

It's not the old electrolytics that scare me -- it's the old EPROMs. All those wonderful micro-based instruments with their extensive self-test on startup routines -- sooner or later enough of that trapped charge will leak out, and bits will start flipping... 

What to do? Pop out the parts and rewrite them? Dump them to disk as well? 

bob k6rtm