Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Kosmic]

Have you guys seen that Keysight has sent TiN a new 3458B. - the black version - it arrived today. There is a picture in the metrology subsection. https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/new-keysight-3458a/new/#new 

There's also a live feed 

https://xdevs.com/live/

Is he going to have to give back the 3458A after he's done with the evaluation or get to keep it?

Yeah it's a loan from Keysight. Other than the color, Keysight modernised the whole instrument, replacing through hole components by surface mount and apparently improving performance. Pretty sure Tin will be able to verify that 

[Dek]

Therapy...ahhhhhhh

Quick check of a newly acquired 177, DC and Ohms work, not tested AC and A yet.
Sticker residue removed and buffed up nice.

Dek.

[0culus]

@Oculus, I really think the 45 was HP's real breakthrough calculator. The 35 while it was the first and ground breaking but the 45 had the feel of "being sorted" and was a real bit of kit. The 55/85  etc were holding the beer till the 41C/CV etc  came along. 
Below more gratuitous HP LED prom,
@Larryc001  - serious Tek collection - again hope the floor is up to it - lovely collection
@menem - my first calculator that I bought with my money was a Sharp flourescent - it was good but the quality wasn't up there - chewed through batteries - it is still hard for me to get away from the impression I formed in those years that LCD and CFL displays are for 'cheap gear' - It is now rather amusing that my most expensive bit of kit (or close to it) is a CFL HP 3458A.

Have you guys seen that Keysight has sent TiN a new 3458B. - the black version - it arrived today. There is a picture in the metrology subsection. https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/new-keysight-3458a/new/#new 

Yeah, the 35 is way more collectible (especially if you have one of the rare ones with the bug that causes it to give wrong results to certain operations) but the 45 is objectively a better calculator, especially for EE math. 

I want to find a nice 67. They crammed so much onto those. 4 functions per key! 

[bd139]

Therapy...ahhhhhhh

Quick check of a newly acquired 177, DC and Ohms work, not tested AC and A yet.
Sticker residue removed and buffed up nice.

Dek.

Cool stuff. I have a deceased one in storage at the moment awaiting donor parts

Cost £2 from radio rally 

[mansaxel]

@menem - my first calculator that I bought with my money was a Sharp flourescent - it was good but the quality wasn't up there - chewed through batteries - it is still hard for me to get away from the impression I formed in those years that LCD and CFL displays are for 'cheap gear' - It is now rather amusing that my most expensive bit of kit (or close to it) is a CFL HP 3458A.

My first serious calculator is a Sharp, but LCD. EL-506P. Bought 1985 to get me started in senior high. It still is my carry-with-me calculator, and it is on its original set of batteries. Yes, I pursued a career in arts and humanities, so it's seen very little use, but still! On the phone I'm running Free42, and on the computer it's dc or bc.

[worsthorse]

Adding the Controller in circuit these figures remain approximately the same at 5.2V for single channel operation; output of either WHITE or WARM WHITE channel is approx 6.4W. However, when both channels are enabled the controller is programmed to reduce max output to approx 60% Duty cycle; this drops total output to approx 8.4W @ 2.16A total current. meh.

Still, a good experiment; you can get excellent illumination from this LED magnifier simply by rewiring with 18ga using the original controller and a good 5V/2A power pack, or even better @worsthorse: Heads-up!  you can remove it all and get amazing illumination using a nice, quiet, EMI-free linear to drive both channels at 4.8-5V/3.2A. For approximately US$25 plus your time & power source.

Cheers,

mnem
*toddles off to ded*

@mnem... thanks for the heads-up.  I will probably pick one up and modify it as suggested. One thing I have plenty of around here is 12 volts.   

[worsthorse]

@Oculus, I really think the 45 was HP's real breakthrough calculator. The 35 while it was the first and ground breaking but the 45 had the feel of "being sorted" and was a real bit of kit. The 55/85  etc were holding the beer till the 41C/CV etc  came along. 
Below more gratuitous HP LED prom,
@Larryc001  - serious Tek collection - again hope the floor is up to it - lovely collection
@menem - my first calculator that I bought with my money was a Sharp flourescent - it was good but the quality wasn't up there - chewed through batteries - it is still hard for me to get away from the impression I formed in those years that LCD and CFL displays are for 'cheap gear' - It is now rather amusing that my most expensive bit of kit (or close to it) is a CFL HP 3458A.

On the HP45, I agree, it really was the breakthrough calculator for HP, both in terms of construction and price/performance.  I have two of them... one at my desk and one on my bench. I built new battery packs for them and they see daily use. Every once in a while I cruise ebay looking for a HP41CV but that's mostly because I couldn't afford one way back when. So far I've managed not to indulge my nostalgia. 

[Cerebus]

yep.  remember my first calculator better than my first girlfriend.  it was a ti sr10.  there is a rumor that my brother still has it in a pile o junk somewhere in his garage.  gotta' keep nagging him to dig it out.

"You silly twisted boy, you!" I definately remember my first girlfriend better than my first calculator. The girlfriend looked like what I imagine a young version of Jaime Murray looked like, the calculator was a Sinclair Scientific calculator that I built from a kit. I learned a lot from exploring both of them.

Which of these two would you opt to assign memory storage to?

Jaime Murray: Sinclair Scientific:

[nixiefreqq]

yep.  remember my first calculator better than my first girlfriend.  it was a ti sr10.  there is a rumor that my brother still has it in a pile o junk somewhere in his garage.  gotta' keep nagging him to dig it out.

"You silly twisted boy, you!" I definately remember my first girlfriend better than my first calculator. The girlfriend looked like what I imagine a young version of Jaime Murray looked like, the calculator was a Sinclair Scientific calculator that I built from a kit. I learned a lot from exploring both of them.

Which of these two would you opt to assign memory storage to?

Jaime Murray: Sinclair Scientific:

wtf?   a calculator with neither an "enter" button or an "=" key?

you were wise to concentrate your attention on the girl.

edit   let me clarify before someone asks.  the sr10 did not frustrate me as much as the gf.....and neither had an "enter" button.

[tggzzz]

wtf?   a calculator with neither an "enter" button or an "=" key?

The Sinclair Scientific was remarkable. Absolutely everything (keyboard scanning, arithmetic, transcendental functions) in 320 ROM instructions with 3 registers.

See watch how it was achieved: http://files.righto.com/calculator/sinclair_scientific_simulator.html

[Cerebus]

wtf?   a calculator with neither an "enter" button or an "=" key?

Yup, an RPN four banger-ish. I can't remember what you had to use for 'enter' but Sinclair were famous for "any trick to make it cheaper" across all their products. An extra keytop or row of keys clearly cost too much by their reckoning.

Went and found a manual online to refresh my memory. There was no stack, just an accumulator. So to enter the first number after clearing the calculator you pressed '+' afterward to add it to the '0' in the accumulator. From that point onward you were reliant on having sorted your operations into the correct order to interact with the accumulator/partial result that was sitting there from earlier stages of the calculation.

edit   let me clarify before someone asks.  the sr10 did not frustrate me as much as the gf.....and neither had an "enter" button.

I've heard a lot of women complain that a lot of men have difficulty finding that button. 

[nixiefreqq]

let me quote bd on my ti 55:


"poor man's calculator"

 

wonder what he has to say about the sinclair?

[Cerebus]

The Sinclair Scientific was remarkable.

Up to a point.

It had the dickiest on/off switch I have ever encountered on any bit of kit before or since. There was a 'U' shaped copper spring contact clipped/staked to the back of the moulded on/off switch button that slid across the PCB to short a couple of tracks to turn it on. The copper contact needed regular maintenance; either reshaping to revive its pressure against the PCB, relocated in the moulded button because it had slipped or cleaning because it had become oxidized/dirty.

It also ate batteries. I doubt I ever achieved the claimed minimum 25 hours operation on a set of four AAAs.

[bd139]

Being Sinclair I’m surprised it didn’t catch fire 

[bd139]

let me quote bd on my ti 55:


"poor man's calculator"

 

wonder what he has to say about the sinclair?

Cheap man’s calculator-ish

[Cerebus]

let me quote bd on my ti 55:


"poor man's calculator"

 

wonder what he has to say about the sinclair?

Well in my defence I built it myself, and in its defence it probably existed before BD139 did!

[bd139]

The reason it was a kit was probably so there was some plausible deniability by Sinclair when you took it back when it didn’t work 

As for my age, I choose not to confirm or deny that

[BU508A]

The reason it was a kit was probably so there was some plausible deniability by Sinclair when you took it back when it didn’t work 

As for my age, I choose not to confirm or deny that

Which one? The biological age or the optical age? 

[nixiefreqq]

hmmmmm.  well ok.  will defer to you guys since sinclair calculators were never a thing over here.

but the timex sinclair computer was a big seller in the states.  and it was a fun despite being a toy.

[BU508A]

TEA time:

I've purchased a Fluke PM6681 with the UCXO and no 3GHz prescaler for around 325.- Euro:



The Signal Path did a repair video on a PM6680B and a follow-up video about a OCXO module for the PM66xx series,
which he got from one of his viewers.
This is the website:
https://syncchannel.blogspot.com/2016/04/flukephilips-pm66xx-frequency-counter.html

I think, I'll assemble this module.
The OCXO is available here:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/253708933535




A 3GHz prescaler is also available on ebay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/333316913399

[Cerebus]

Quoting myself for context:

... It had the dickiest on/off switch I have ever encountered on any bit of kit before or since....

Found a picture.



The slide switch is the blue square coming from the front of the PCB and clipped in place by that plated contact around it. 'oribble, absolutely 'orrible. As you can see, the tracks on the PCB that it shorts are in the battery compartment and so subject to maximal environmental exposure, especially if you had a battery leak.

Note also the way the display is located. There's a cutout in the PCB into which the display PCB pushes, and then is kept in place only by solder bridges. The digit common anodes/cathodes on part of the the 'north' side and the segments along the 'south' side. Even at the tender age I was when I built mine I can remember having enough savvy to realise that wasn't kosher and I soldered some clippings of resistor wire across there in the vain hope that they might provide some additional mechanical support.

[bd139]

Seeing as we're on Sinclair and I'm bored, some trivia for people.

Sinclair Radionics was the main company in the late 1970's of Clive Sinclair, the slightly less competent Madman Muntz of the UK. He produced all the consumer crap you're all probably aware of but also developed some test gear.



No coincidence it looked like and shared a lot of parts with this equals button encrusted scum imposter calculator:



Eventually they evolved into something usable-ish:



About then they started developing something a few of us own today!

Perhaps unsurprisingly being Clive, he buggered the company thoroughly, it got bought out by NEB (Labour's scheme to try and get large businesses under state control), who buggered it further, also unsurprising. Clive Sinclair and Chris Curry (guy who founded Acorn and ARM) bailed out. Sinclair went in the direction of computing with Sinclair Research as did Chris Curry who had enough of his shit pretty damn quickly and started Acorn

The company was renamed by NEB to Thandar Instruments. Familiar name.



Looking a bit more familiar now. In fact Thandar made a lot of test gear which stacked neatly:



They even reused the CRT from Sinclair's failed NEB portable television effort to make a scope, the one pictured below I repaired a few years back:



Now onto an interesting thing. I have only ever seen one in existence in the rotten test gear stores of Cossor, but yes there was an actual Sinclair branded power supply called the PL310 back in the day. I think it had a VERY short run before the company was rebranded to Thurlby. But it did indeed exist and had Sinclair at the top left instead of Thurlby. That might explain why the first run of them was "problematic"



I have considered creating a web site archiving information and manuals for British test gear manufacturers recently as a lot of this history is missing or fragmented.

Edit: also a point to make. One of Sinclair's most amazing products was a digital watch which exploded regularly. Current drain was pretty high so it'd finish off the sealed button cell batteries very quickly which would over-discharge and explode. My daughter has an illuminated llama toy which has them in it which suffers from the same thing. It occasionally goes BANG! rather loudly in the middle of the night. You wouldn't want it on your wrist 

[tggzzz]

The Sinclair Scientific was remarkable.

Up to a point.

It had the dickiest on/off switch I have ever encountered on any bit of kit before or since. There was a 'U' shaped copper spring contact clipped/staked to the back of the moulded on/off switch button that slid across the PCB to short a couple of tracks to turn it on. The copper contact needed regular maintenance; either reshaping to revive its pressure against the PCB, relocated in the moulded button because it had slipped or cleaning because it had become oxidized/dirty.

It also ate batteries. I doubt I ever achieved the claimed minimum 25 hours operation on a set of four AAAs.

All true, but none of that changes how remarkable it was.

As for the on off switch, it was from Sinclair and so expected. He had been producing grotty and low quality audio modules for years, and there were many complaints about them in the electronics mags.

While I could have built one myself, I decided his reputation was so poor that it would likely be a dud. I got mine at a low price from, of all places, a pharmacy about 100m from the Royal Institution, just after witnessing some impressive detonations

[med6753]

yep.  remember my first calculator better than my first girlfriend.  it was a ti sr10.  there is a rumor that my brother still has it in a pile o junk somewhere in his garage.  gotta' keep nagging him to dig it out.

"You silly twisted boy, you!" I definately remember my first girlfriend better than my first calculator. The girlfriend looked like what I imagine a young version of Jaime Murray looked like, the calculator was a Sinclair Scientific calculator that I built from a kit. I learned a lot from exploring both of them.

Which of these two would you opt to assign memory storage to?

Jaime Murray: Sinclair Scientific:

Ms Jaime is the same age as my Daughter. Thanks for reminding me how freaking old I am. 

[Cerebus]

I've been kind of assuming that the Sinclair => Thurlby association was common knowledge, at least among the Brits here assembled.

I used to know three people who used to work at Sinclair; well, strictly I still do know them but our paths haven't crossed for a while. Their comments on Clive Sinclair himself were, let's say "not favourable" and gloss over the actual vocabulary used, but not as unfavourable as their remarks on Alan Sugar (who took over the remains of the computing side of Sinclair when Clive bailed out) and we'll definitely gloss over the vocabulary used there as I believe I could still be arrested for using some of those words publicly.

That Clive Sinclair has since become "Sir Clive" and Alan Sugar "Lord Sugar" tells you all you need to know about the system that doles out those honours.