That is a question I've been wondering about lately. I know their slogan was "From the mind of Minolta", but it should have been "Made by the Minolta Ironworks"!
This story began last sprint when I went to a charity sale. There was a small Minolta Hi-Matic F on the table. The lady wanted 3$ for it. so I started inspecting it. The hotshoe was held by globs of blue tac. The battery compartment was missing. The bottom plate is bent out of shape. The top plate is crooked. The focusing ring won't turn. And to add to the list of injuries, there's a very serious dent on the filter ring. So, after pointing all this out and arguing a lot, I managed to drop the price at 50 cents. The camera literally looked like s*** and I wasn't expecting it to even work. But I took it anyways just for fun.
So, I looked around the internet or some information. The camera takes two very large mercury cells... problem right there. While looking through my drawer of batteries, I discovered that two 357 cells would fit snugly in one of the compartments. But what polarities to use? And what set of connectors to short out so that the contact would work. A bit of experimentation and investigation led me to discover that I had to short-out the two right connectors (when the camera is on its back lens pointing up). Since this was a test, I just used a rolled-up ball of aluminum foil that I jammed in that side of the compartment. As for the polarities, experimentation again. I discovered that the positive terminal is on the bottom (back side) of the camera. This makes the test light work OK. So, I taped up the batteries and was ready for a first test. Would the shutter work? I cranked-up the camera, opened the back and pointed it at a light. I pressed the button and surprise! It worked!
But I was still stuck with a few problems, namely the stuck focus ring. While looking at the dent on the filter ring, I thought it could very well be the problem. Having no filter ring dent removal wrench, I resorted to use the second best thing: a chunk of wood with a hole the size of the lens in it, a dowel and a big hammer! Yep, you read right, I actually used a hammer on the camera. I tried to smooth out the ring the best I could when at some point, the focus started to turn loosely... incredible. I checked the shutter again. It still worked. I tested the rangefinder and it worked too! Distances were on par. I thought I would have wrecked it completely but it looked like it wasn't so.
Now, I had to tackle the flash hotshoe. I removed the three screws (one was missing) and proceeded to remove the blue tac goo that the previous owner had put under it. I put the screws back in and to my surprise they didn't turn loose. I put a flash on it and after aligning the contacts (there's a big dent in the top that prevents the flash from sitting properly), it worked too...
I couldn't believe it. All that was left to do was to put a roll of film in it and take it for a spin, which I did. I finished the roll this afternoon and took it to that Wal* place for 1 hour processing (no prints). Negatives came back looking fine. I immediately put them through my instant film scanning contraption, inverted the images and asked Picasa to be lucky. And here are the results, starting by the camera itself.
