OK, but I just looked for the CFD..
Perhaps it would have been easy to repair -would I have been using it for parts then? No..
Doubtful, In my experience, HP packed their 8000 series pulse/pattern/function generators (afaik mostly made by HP Germany in Böblingen) full of custom unobtainium chips. Usually, the faster the generator, the more custom chips were used and the less reliable they are. Sure, sometimes you're lucky and it's only bad caps or a smoked output stage. But the chance of getting something with bad unobtainium is significantly higher with these units. I sold all of them.
You are right. This even includes the display.
I had an eye on HP 8116A but because of the lack of an input for an external reference clock and also the mean age of the ones being offered I didn't through my money on one of those.
The 8110A is much younger so hopefully more lifetime left of it.
Only HP pulse generator I keep is the HP 5359A. I've had bad experience with repairing HP 8082A, 8112A, 8116A, 8165A so far.
The HP 5359A.. ..interesting.. *checking**added to list*.
Oh, oh, is that really the therapy I was looking for in this thread?
BTW, how does 8110A look from the inside?
I haven't made photos of the inside yet, but even though the fans are sounding like at the end of their lifetime it's very clean inside. Taking the burnt in CFD into account I assume it was used in a clean lab surrounding running permanently. Hopefully it had not too much stress being switched on/off too often.
I have a nearly fully equipped 8110A only missing the 81107A Multichannel Deskew board.
No performance tests yet but as far as I could test fully functioning.
BTW2: How about this as a source for displays, just found it, don't know wether it's legit:
http://www.tzsupplies.com/keysight-agilent-hp-boards-and-i3778484/
Nice point-to. Haven't come across that yet. On the other hand: As long as I haven't seen the CFD offered working I won't even think about throwing money in.
Perhaps the unobtaniumness of the 8110A's CFD is a good justification for acquiring a logic analyzer to re-engineer the CFD's interface and -if needed- build a converter for using todays standard displays, for example OLED ones...