Out with the old...

At this point, the system stopped working. It refused to display anything and above all wouldn't allow any form of movement. I got it to come up once briefly and then it was gone. Now when I opened the control cabinet or turned to the console, I was looking at a pile of scrap electronics. It's possible I could have reverse engineered a non-functional servo system without any documentation but even if I succeeded, the minute anything failed I'd be presented with another challenge, possibly one that couldn't be overcome. 

Out with the old:

So I ripped everything out of the cabinet, being careful to leave the motor wiring, switches, encoders etc in a fit state to reconnect later. Finally I removed the cabinet and its fixings. It's literally big enough to climb inside although not quite big enough to sling a hammock. Without all this stuff, it looks much simpler and a large floor area became clear. Possibly enough room for another machine tool? 

The original operators console contained the control computer system, keyboard, small CRT monitor and tape recorder (for saving and loading programs!). It's basically a 19" rack system about 12U high.