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Fixing a CD drive with Polish Kielbasa:

The CD drive in my first computer broke. We couldn't afford to get a new one, and after almost a year of using floppies I got a bit tired of having to carry them across the mountains every time I wanted play a new game. (context: I lived in a small village in southern Poland at the time -- imagine Twin Peaks, but with fewer people and bigger hills). Sometimes getting a copy of quake or Win 95 took several trips back and forth as I didn't have enough floppies and the ones I had would get corrupted.

I turned 10 and finally decided to disassemble the drive and try to fix it. I found the culprit, but I realised that I needed a lubricant for one of the gears. In that exact moment my little brother was just passing by our "computer room", eating a bun with kielbasa (the smoky, greasy kind which is hard to find outside of PL). I put some of that stuff on a cotton swab, lubricated the gears in the drive, and magically fixed it. The drive outlived my old computer (may it rest in pieces). I miss a good Kielbasa Wiejska.




Animal fats make a very good lubricant if the temperature of the parts doesn't rise too high.

Once upon a time, car transmissions used whale oil.


I have a similar story, except instead a CD drive and kielbasa i had a floppy drive (that was on an XT clone) and i used oil... that is olive oil :-).

It worked perfectly for years after that.


Reminds me of my brother where he would bring 6-7 floppies to a cafe just to download an anti-virus update.


This is glorious.




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