List your test equipment "scores" here!

[apelly]

That looks like an old Tek scope. I never knew such machines had a spool of spare solder inside. Cool 

It's high silver content solder for use on their ceramic terminal strips. Apparently normal tin/lead damages the bond to the ceramic. I think all their scopes came with a bit.

[lowimpedance]

Tek 556 ?? . All the old TEK space heaters of this vintage were supplied with a small spool of this silver loaded solder for the inevitable repair not involving a bottle swap .

[Cubdriver]

Well, I know it's not a Tek 545 or 575, so that eliminates two possibilities...

Nice to see that the solder spool wasn't pilfered from it.

-Pat

[Cubdriver]

Not a 506, 515A or 531A either....   

(nor a 310)

-Pat

[DaJMasta]

Got a pair of Symmetricom TimeSource 3500s off ebay in unknown condition but local enough for me to pick up.  Took 'em apart and the specs were right... I've struck rubidium!





Will be a few days until I have a -48V supply to actually turn them on, but the boards look like they're in good shape, and since they are GPS disciplined rubidium sources, the datasheet says the 10MHz out is good down to 5ppt.  Provided they both work, the price was good, even for parts it may be ok given two rubidium oscillator modules (though they're mounted annoyingly enough that it's really difficult to see what brand they are).

[JenniferG]

Won a GPD-3303s power supply today on ebay for $114 plus $30 shipping.  Hope this was a "score".  It's the version without overshoot problem.  Also, allegedly it is in good condition, cosmetic and otherwise.

[Vgkid]

Got a pair of Symmetricom TimeSource 3500s off ebay in unknown condition but local enough for me to pick up.

Nice I was watching them, wondering when they would sell. Most likely an lpro-101.

[DaJMasta]

Nice I was watching them, wondering when they would sell. Most likely an lpro-101.
[/quote]

There's a chance, but I don't see any images that match up.  The module looks surprisingly like a PRS10, slightly off square and with the same connector in the same orientation, but I'm not sure the mounting holes match, and of course the phase noise spec is like 20-30dB too high for it to be a genuine PRS10 

For some reason (probably thermals), the module is wedged in between two thick aluminum plates and the front panel which seem to be permanently connected - no mounting screws but definitely solid in place.  Then there's thermal pads on both sides and the front plate and a cage of screws holding the thing in a cutout in the board.... and at least one of the screws needed to remove the board from the front plate is covered by one of those aluminum brackets sticking off the front.  There's got to be a trick to it, but at least for today it's beyond me.

Also had a loose screw from one of them blocking the sliding out of the second unit, so I had to take the back off, fish around, and eventually finagle the screw out just to open it... the chassis shell is all just riveted aluminum.

[Vgkid]

I know the 2700 used a prs-10. Google images says that the newer ones used a x72 or its variants.

[VE7FIM]

Nice score on those TimeSource 3500 units!

The Timesource 2700 CDMA units also come with a Rubidium module, and can be had for $150. I have one from a few years back, so I took it down off the shelf and opened it up. 30 screws and one (time) nut later, here's what you get if you buy one of these units:

The Rubidium module itself is a Stanford Research PRS-10, which is a NICE unit. These usually sell for $200, so this is a great deal, just for the module.

The RF front-end is also re-usable, depending on your frequency needs.

Not much else of (easily extractable) value, though.

[Ysjoelfir]

Tek 556 ??

Nope, I guess SWMBO would kill me if I would get one of those :S

Well, I know it's not a Tek 545 or 575, so that eliminates two possibilities...

Nice to see that the solder spool wasn't pilfered from it.

Not a 506, 515A or 531A either....   

(nor a 310)

-Pat

You were correct, it's none of the mentioned. It's actually a 502A. Thought It could have been guessable as the picture shows no plug-in unit, and there weren't that many Tek tube scopes without plugins iirc

Whopping 1MHz at lowest resolution and down to 100kHz at full resolution of .1mV/Div - dual beam with blue phosphor! I like that thing. Sadly, it's not working right now, somehow the timebase is not basing its time, so just two dots are visible. But that sould be fixable.


Just a little overview of the technological progress:

[Cubdriver]

Sweet!  The ones I listed are all I currently have on hand to directly compare it to.  P-11 phosphor, huh?  Nice.  I've got my eye out for one with that, too, but am not holding my breath.  Good luck getting its time base sweeping again.  My fingers are crossed that it's something minor.

-Pat

[bitseeker]

Just a little overview of the technological progress:

Nice visual history. Quite the size comparison, too.

[Cubdriver]

I hadn't noticed that.  LOL - screen size is inversely proportional to cabinet size!  Amazing how things have progressed down through the years.  Imagine the exploded heads that would result if you could bring the top one back in time and show it to the guys working with the bottom one!

-Pat

[james_s]

I hadn't noticed that.  LOL - screen size is inversely proportional to cabinet size!  Amazing how things have progressed down through the years.  Imagine the exploded heads that would result if you could bring the top one back in time and show it to the guys working with the bottom one!

-Pat

Imagine if I showed my current PC to myself 25 years ago, I'd have needed new underwear. I never would have believed that I'd have 16 gigabytes of RAM and several terabytes of HD space, nevermind the fact that the CPU is thousands of times more powerful and it cost less than half what the PC my family had at the time did. It's actually a much bigger difference than the scopes if you consider the amount of processing power and storage space per unit of volume.

[Cubdriver]

Imagine if I showed my current PC to myself 25 years ago, I'd have needed new underwear. I never would have believed that I'd have 16 gigabytes of RAM and several terabytes of HD space, nevermind the fact that the CPU is thousands of times more powerful and it cost less than half what the PC my family had at the time did. It's actually a much bigger difference than the scopes if you consider the amount of processing power and storage space per unit of volume.

That is quite true.  I remember about ten or fifteen years ago finding a computer magazine from the early 80s (whenever it was that the IBM PC came out and could be had with a hard drive - 84ish??) and reading about the then current systems - IBM PC, whatever the current top Rat Shack TRS-80 was, probably a Commodore something-or-other, and perhaps an Apple II.  I believe at the time I found and read it, HDDs were getting into the 1-2G neighborhood size-wise.  I was amazed at the progress then, in that you could get a 5-1/4" half height drive that held north of a gig for a few hundred bucks, when less than 20 years earlier the option was a 5-1/4" full height unit that held 10 MEGAbytes of storage, and it was $3 or $4k for the drive alone.      1/100 of the storage for 10x the price (without compensating for inflation - with inflation it would be what, probably about 20x the price)!

Computers have certainly improved by leaps and bounds over the years.

-Pat

[james_s]

IIRC the XT came out in 1983 and it was a big deal that it came standard with a 10MB hard drive, 5.25" FH. In the next couple of years the 20MB ST-225 became very popular and by the late 80s 40MB was becoming fairly common while 120MB was about as big as they got. I remember drooling over 1.2GB drives, must have been around 1995, they were around $1400 plus a few hundred bucks for the required SCSI interface. I remember thinking if I had 1.2GB I could install every game I'd ever want and I'd never run out of space.

Now on the topic of test equipment, my 1980 Tek 465B is still quite usable. It offers superior performance to many of the lower end scopes that are currently on the market, albeit at much lower prices than the $2500 (1980 dollars) that the 465 originally cost. The dimensions are similar to a modern scope though about 4x as deep by necessity of the CRT.

[JenniferG]

IIRC the XT came out in 1983 and it was a big deal that it came standard with a 10MB hard drive, 5.25" FH. In the next couple of years the 20MB ST-225 became very popular and by the late 80s 40MB was becoming fairly common while 120MB was about as big as they got. I remember drooling over 1.2GB drives, must have been around 1995, they were around $1400 plus a few hundred bucks for the required SCSI interface. I remember thinking if I had 1.2GB I could install every game I'd ever want and I'd never run out of space.

I remember my first PC.  It was in 1988.  A used Pinecom XT clone.  It had a 5.25" floppy drive as well as an RLL 13MB full height hard drive.  Wow was that thing a heavy giant loud beast   But it was my first hard drive.  Don't know how thrilled I was to graduate to a hard drive.. from a floppy.  Lol I used to use tape on my old TI 99/4A.

debug g=c800:5
fdisk

[james_s]

debug g=c800:5

Uhg, that's a memory I could do without. Seems like about half the time the system would just lock up.

[bitseeker]

debug g=c800:5

Ah, the good ol' days of hard disk controllers. Of course, can't forget g=c800:ccc either.

[bitseeker]

Imagine the exploded heads that would result if you could bring the top one back in time and show it to the guys working with the bottom one!

They'd probably think it was a new-fangled panel or plugin for that bottom scope.

"It looks like an airplane, without wings." -- Otis Peabody, Back to the Future

[Berni]

Well we do still make boatanchor scopes today.

http://www.keysight.com/en/pcx-x205195/infiniium-90000a-series-oscilloscopes?cc=RS&lc=eng

Just that they are a 'bit' higher performance, use even more power to run and make a lot of noise while doing so. Still costing a fortune to buy new tho.

[JenniferG]

Looks like a fancy toaster oven

[AF6LJ]

Well we do still make boatanchor scopes today.

http://www.keysight.com/en/pcx-x205195/infiniium-90000a-series-oscilloscopes?cc=RS&lc=eng

Just that they are a 'bit' higher performance, use even more power to run and make a lot of noise while doing so. Still costing a fortune to buy new tho.

That would look nice on my bench.

[Berni]

Well we do still make boatanchor scopes today.

http://www.keysight.com/en/pcx-x205195/infiniium-90000a-series-oscilloscopes?cc=RS&lc=eng

Just that they are a 'bit' higher performance, use even more power to run and make a lot of noise while doing so. Still costing a fortune to buy new tho.

That would look nice on my bench.

Sure wouldn't look bad on mine ether. Tho probes for it would quickly get expensive.