Beauty of old electrical and measuring things, etc.

[DaveE]

I was really surprised to see you can still buy it

I remember a pretty unpopular laser we (tried) to sell. After it had been out for a while and sales went to zero we just kept 1 in stock and mothballed manufacturing. Manufacturing and service became the engineer who designed it, which he hardly ever had to actually do. If there was a real problem, we'd probably just give them the better model. No one bought it, but it literally took years for the company to remove it from our "catalog".

I bet even if they do sell them that they don't actually make new ones. How would they get those knobs and such 45 years later?

 

[berkeman]

Yes. It was inevitable, and cost and feature wise essential. From the instrument designers perspective there is really no other way. Can you imagine a modern spectrum analyzer without menus, where every knob has a dedicated function? They'd look like an old 747 cockpit. It just doesn't work now that instruments are so much more flexible. Those knobs and buttons are a big labor cost and come with reliability problems too. There were lots of things that FRA just wouldn't do. It's a fair tradeoff IMO.

All fair points. But have you ever tried to use a 4034? Seriously, I can set every knob and switch on a curve tracer before turning on the trace (which is a good interview question for EEs, IMO), but that 4034 overloaded concentric ring control thing is a royal PITA, IMO. I guess I need to watch the Tek instruction videos or something. Never had to do that before...

 

[DaveE]

All fair points. But have you ever tried to use a 4034? Seriously, I can set every knob and switch on a curve tracer before turning on the trace (which is a good interview question for EEs, IMO), but that 4034 overloaded concentric ring control thing is a royal PITA, IMO. I guess I need to watch the Tek instruction videos or something. Never had to do that before...

um... nope. But there are good and bad UIs with any technology. I'm convinced that in my day the fact (yes, FACT) that everyone wanted Tek Scopes but HP Spectrum Analyzers was because of the UIs in each. It can be easily overlooked in instrument companies that are focused on the spec sheet.

 

[Rive]

But the latest generation of mixed signal oscilloscopes that we bought have a super-non-intuitive user interface with a main overloaded concentric ring control that still baffle me when I use them

I've been also completely baffled by some new scope recently, but then overcome the hurdle.
The key was to stick a mouse in the back of the thing and use the screen instead
Later on I've even added a keyboard to the mix.
I don't know if it would work with that Tek, though. But for some with that barely hidden Windows in them...

On the other hand it feels kind of like one of those Windows phones from way back
Windows is just not built for this

 

[berkeman]

The key was to stick a mouse in the back of the thing and use the screen instead

That's a good idea; I'll try it the next time I use that 'scope. Thanks.

 

[DaveE]

Look what I found stashed away in the top of my cabinet. Maybe not electrical, but it is old. Suitable for framing, I think.

Remember when an 8" floppy "diskette" with 360K was state of the art in portable storage? Remember CP/M, my first PC OS? No, y'all are probably too young for that flash in the tech pan.

 

[DaveE]

Look what I found stashed away in the top of my cabinet. Maybe not electrical, but it is old. Suitable for framing, I think.

Remember when an 8" floppy "diskette" with 360K was state of the art in portable storage? Remember CP/M, my first PC OS? No, y'all are probably too young for that flash in the tech pan.

View attachment 322323

In my case it went into a North Star Horizon. An S-100 buss computer. Maybe the last one with a wooden enclosure!

 

[collinsmark]

Look what I found stashed away in the top of my cabinet. Maybe not electrical, but it is old. Suitable for framing, I think.

Remember when an 8" floppy "diskette" with 360K was state of the art in portable storage? Remember CP/M, my first PC OS? No, y'all are probably too young for that flash in the tech pan.

View attachment 322323

I still have many dozens of floppy disks, even the 5 1/4 inch variety (when floppies were still floppy).

I keep meaning to pick up a usb floppy drive reader, but then I realize that I have a computer that will read them -- I just need to fix the computer.

I'm guessing it's something simple like needing to replace the CMOS battery. I might even have a fresh battery coin cell that will work (CR2032).

So then I keep meaning to look around for what can be used as a fresh CMOS battery. I'm sure there's at least one around here somewhere. It'll turn up.

Then I get distracted.

The cycle repeats.

 

[Tom.G]

So then I keep meaning to look around for what can be used as a fresh CMOS battery. I'm sure there's at least one around here somewhere. It'll turn up.

If the battery is soldered in, as many early ones were, you might want to read the old thread that the below quote came from.

And yes, you do have to clean afterwards. The flux residue absorbs moisture from the air and is partially conductive. As an example, one time I worked on a computer motherboard and failed to clean the flux off. The area was around the CMOS backup battery, a coin cell. They typically last a few to several years. Not this one, it lasted three weeks. So did its replacement. Had to remove the motherboard and wash off the flux!

Cheers,
Tom

 

[DaveE]

https://spectrum.ieee.org/open-circuits

 

[berkeman]

https://spectrum.ieee.org/open-circuits

Pretty cool, thanks Dave.

 

[dlgoff]

https://spectrum.ieee.org/open-circuits

Awesome. Perfect for this Beauty thread. And from their link, https://opencircuitsbook.com/, I see many things that I've used and probably still have today, somewhere.

 

[TonyStewart]

My 1st job in R&D was in 1975 at Bristol Aerospace. My introduction to HP Basic required me to measure my colleague's design of a UHF Tx to GOES I. I just had to measure frequency error and phase modulation errors a few milliseconds automatically at small intervals after power up. So I used something like this Tektronix Time Interval Counter and the HP9825. It has a Ruby stabilized fractional N synthesizer with another loop to reduce phase noise using an SC-cut Quartz oscillator accurate to within 1e12 by calibration. It took me a few hours to generate the printout .

This unit has a 9 digit frequency range with a diode doubler and a 0.1 Hz resolution. But ours had a rotary dial too.

80 column 10 segment display with a Silicon on Saphire CPU.

 

[TonyStewart]

p.s. I was one of the 1st HP9825 users in Canada in 1976, I had no support other than the HP Basic manual, but I should have written an article on how I converted two HP9825's with long distance datasets (RS412) in a SCADA system with a rack full of power supplies and analog measurements and a box filled with 96 x 25 A relays.

I think I remember some of the tricks I used to encode the keyboard each with macro remote commands and the synchronous data coming back using DMA to a smart CRT setup in Forms mode to look like a spreadsheet with 2 pages of data flashing if operator attn required after calibration. (before Visicalc was invented)

It replaced a control box with similar manual functions for Black Brandt pre-launch control on two umbilical cables. I recall they had problems with the data link every time the Short Wave radio was used ( yrs after I left the company for a big pay raise) in one remote control system from lack of EMI control up in Churchhill NRC research range. NRC range had several walls full of rack mounted telemetry equipment from PCM to PLL Rx to quad-helix phase control tracking antenna. It's also where I learned how to "Shake N Bake " with 100 g drop tests and 50 g spin tables and make my OCXO's survive 1e-10 stability. The shaker was a 10kW vacuum tube amplifier and 4ft diameter woofer baseplate for lack of a better description and it shook the whole bldg #3 from the basement.

 

[TonyStewart]

Look what I found stashed away in the top of my cabinet. Maybe not electrical, but it is old. Suitable for framing, I think.

Remember when an 8" floppy "diskette" with 360K was state of the art in portable storage? Remember CP/M, my first PC OS? No, y'all are probably too young for that flash in the tech pan.

View attachment 322323

I used to test 8" HDDs when 5.25" HDDs just came out with the Seagate ST-506 6 MB with a stepper driver. six megabytes could store hundreds of Apple ][ programs.

 

[DennisN]

Remember when an 8" floppy "diskette" with 360K was state of the art in portable storage? Remember CP/M, my first PC OS? No, y'all are probably too young for that flash in the tech pan.

I'm old enough to remember that .
Though I don't remember which was the first computer/OS I tried.
It could have been a machine running CP/M or possibly the Swedish ABC 80 (if so, I tried it in elementary school).

 

[DennisN]

Another post from the land of dusty old cameras running on ancient battery types...
(no, I still haven't started collecting these things, they've just somehow magically appeared in my home )

I had been looking for a good vintage system camera since I've thought about trying to shoot some film just for fun. I read a discussion on the internet somewhere where quite many recommended the Pentax Spotmatic because it apparently was/is a reliable workhorse. So I got me one of those, and yes, it appears to function properly. Here it is:

Pentax Spotmatic (1964 - 1976)

Front: with a mounted Yashikor 35mm f/2.8 M42 lens, a lens I really like.

Side: the silver-colored lever controls the self-timer.

Top: simple and easy, and nothing digital whatsoever here .

Next up we've got a Yashica camera which just happened to end up at my place.
I was looking for a Yashica lens (Yashinon-DS 50mm f/1.9) and found one, but with a camera attached to it:

Yashica TL-Electro (1972 - ?)

Front: with a Yashinon 55mm f/1.8 lens mounted; actually not a lens I particularly like,
but I think it looks good mounted on this camera.

Side: I think the design of the camera is very clean and minimalistic.

Top: The "PASSED" quality sticker is still attached to it .

And last, another camera which came as a bonus when I was looking for a lens.
It's a really basic camera which I first did not intend to keep, but now I think it's cool because it's quite small and lightweight for being a system camera (only 460 g), so I'll keep it:

Nikon EM (1979 - 1982)

Front: with a Nikon E 100mm f/2.8 mounted. An ok lens with a bit of uncommon focal length.

Side: The lens is actually quite small and lightweight for being a 100mm.

Top: extremely basic for being a system camera. There's no shutter speed dial so you can't
manually set the shutter speed; the camera always shoots in "Aperture priority" mode.

That's it for this time from the land of dusty old cameras .

 

[TonyStewart]

I'm old enough to remember that .
Though I don't remember which was the first computer/OS I tried.
It could have been a machine running CP/M or possibly the Swedish ABC 80 (if so, I tried it in elementary school).

I think my 1st exposure to 8" diskettes was the IBM Series 1 boot disk every day when the OS was rebooted. circa 1979.

 

[nsaspook]

Fancy new DSO scopes vs classic analog CRT scopes.

 

[Swamp Thing]

A modern DIY project with a retro tuning dial :

 

[DaveE]

The Weston cell. Clearly the most beautiful voltage reference ever made. I had one just like this rescued from some ancient lab equipment many decades ago but it's lost or gone now. Not RoHS compliant, LOL.

 

[DaveE]

Not really a measuring thing or electronic, but dear to my heart. I used one in high school chemistry class the year before I bought my first calculator. I'm probably the youngest person here that actually, really, used one of these. Very much associated with old electronics in my mind. There's beauty in logarithms as a tool in real life, not just another function in your math class, which every analog EE knows.