Indeed the batteries are shot and corroding. The corrosion may have actually caused some damage to components or the PCB as well. Time will tell. I have already ordered a Lithium 3.6 Volt replacement battery. It's great to know that the batteries being dead can cause problems. Wouldn't it be cool if that alone fixed it ! Fingers crossed but not optimistic. 

As for the missing cards there is a really weird story there. I asked the guy I bought these units from if he knew what happened to the cards. He is the original owner who bought it new for $6000 back in 198x. He said it basically ruined him because it was such a buggy unit. He had it back to Linn many times and he said that the only person to ever touch it was Forat. That if they were missing Forat must have taken them out for some reason. I find this story to be very confusing as I don't think that this would be the case but this guy (I've gotten to know him a little) is not technical at all and I'd believe that he'd never have opened it himself. I have the missing cards in the other unit though so I guess I'll try them. It seems like the unit might also not boot properly without the cards since the firmware would probably be looking for them The cards that are there have been heavily tinkered with by forat. There are wires running all over them and I can see that some ICs have a second piggy backed and soldered on top of the original. Memory expansion I am figuring. I haven't taken out the cards to really inspect them though. 

@ Bob

I actually do have a digital scope now. I found the schematics online no problem. Once the batteries come and install them and clean up the corrosion I'll start digging into everything else. 

I probably paid too much for these two units but if the main one gets working it has all of the Forat mods including the 709 software, A/D card, SMPTE card and the 256SRAM expansion so it's much more valuable then. 

If you guys have any more thoughts or suggestions in the meantime let me know. Otherwise I'll report back once I have the batteries fixed. 

Sincerely,

rich Clarke