Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

Yeah, upon reviewing the listing, it appears the AKWOX  () model you linked to does explicitly CLAIM to actually have Cherry switches. The one I linked to does not so promise.   

Might still have value as a comparison of the clones vs real Cherry switches tho; or as a cheap source of emergency replacements. 

mnem
 

[bd139]

Can get 10 for £8 here next day http://www.ukkeycaps.co.uk/product/cherry-mx-switches

[mnementh]

Yeah, and they have an assortment of testers here with prices that seem a lot more sensible for genuine Cherry: http://www.ukkeycaps.co.uk/category/switch-testers

Did you see their V60 programmable KB? Or are you just DONE with mini boards...? http://www.ukkeycaps.co.uk/product/kbp-v60-type-r-programmable-mechanical-keyboard-ansi

mnem
moo?

[bd139]

Testers are “coming soon”. Prices are about right.

As for the mini keyboards I am indeed done. I spend a lot of time in spreadsheets so need full size.

[mnementh]

I spent several years putting up with several different minis because of cramped space; it wasn't until I caught myself looking wistfully at laptop sidekey units for the umpteenth time that I realized I needed to re-prioritize. 

mnem
 

[Saskia]

I need someone to type in the stuff for me so that I can retire and go fishing.

[mnementh]

*imagining the realities of dictating code to a secretary-type person instead of typing it yourself* 

mnem
What could possibly go wrong...?

[bd139]

[jjoonathan]

Advantest manuals have some strange phrases that suddenly make perfect sense if you imagine someone with a stereotypical Japanese accent dictating to a translator without a technical background.

Still beats google translate!

[Specmaster]

Thanks for checking those voltages for me and I agree with you, they are close enough. It looks as if the MAX134 is the guilty part after all. Soon find out now hopefully, it wont take long for the new one to arrive.

I've got my eye on some more matching gear to hopefully join it 

I've discovered that the 8840A is not the best meter to go poking about inside it checking voltages as the input impedance is so high that if the measure the higher voltage first (in this case, 1.22V), it struggles to read the lower voltage afterwards and takes a long time for the voltage to decay, whereas the Brymen works perfectly 

You're welcome.

Yeah, you kind of have to get in the habit of shorting the leads between measurements with the 8840   

Maybe I should have powered up the 7075 for some more unnecessary decimal places... 


Got 4 items I'm gonna get overbid on, almost certainly   

A parts only 7150, which is already at £21 + £11,
That Thandar baby scope is at £31 +£9 and will probably take off in the dying seconds, wouldn't surprise me if it went over £100
 
Those Premas are already at £53 + £11,
And a Heathkit cap tester with 3 bidders now and 4 days to go... no chance...   


I'm happy with my fairly basic Logitech wireless kb/mouse set. If I ever need it to weigh more, I'll just glue some lead to the bottom of it!   

Yep, agree with the need to get into a habit of shorting the leads on the 8840A and also on the 88422A but TBH is something I'd rather not have to do when poking live circuits, particularly when poking chip pins when a slip between pins has the potential to ruin your day 

That parts only 7150 is also in my watch list, only because I already have 2, but I need a handle for one of them and the one that we are both watching does not have a handle so is of less interest to me, TBH I was only watching it because I have a bit of knowledge of them now and have some brilliant white LEDs for the display and @£21 plus P&P is already to expensive, especially when it will also need a new Schaefer filter plus what ever to bring it back to life.

The Thandar, will I'm sure get into the £100 mark, Heathkit too will go far higher unless your very lucky and those Prema's will also head upwards a lot more yet I think, don't forget that they are 6.5 and not 5.5 digit displays.

But fear not, I'm not going to be bidding on any off them as they are already too pricey for my liking and I have way to many meters for my own good already. 

[mnementh]

Sloppy Joes on toasted Pump with melted Swiss; topped by perfect slightly skunky cherry tomatoes and a glass of dwagon-strength home-brewed Orange Pekoe iced tea.

Comfort food with a touch of class!  And the best part... my fabulous wife made it for me!

mnem
I am not worthy.

[Saskia]

tortilla wrap with scrambled egg w/feta, ham, mushrooms, lotsapeppers.

Beats tacohell.

[mansaxel]

The best keyboard, IMHO, is still the vintage IBM thing from the 90ies.
Its heavy as hell, its loud, but you can physically kill a Klingon with it and it will show no damage.
You can still *buy* this new for ca. 500€ !!!

The IBM Model M buckling spring keyboard.  My all time favorite.  I have a couple of them and need to find an adapter to let them work on USB connections. I'm currently using a Cherry MX 3000 that's the closest thing I've found thus far for key feel, but it's still just not as good.  (And, unlike the Fluke 27/FM and IBM Model M, would NOT work very well as a blunt force weapon.)

-Pat

Add one vote for the Model M. I've got several, mostly with swedish, and one with UK layout, the last one from a RS/6000 Model 43p I bought from the UK to play Quake on. The £15000 graphics card rendered Quake 2 in full screen pretty well.. I paid something like £400 for the entire machine, and still have it.

They work pretty nicely with most PS/2 -> USB adapters.

And, to be very clear the keys are not Cherry or similar secondary products. The buckling-spring mechanism is unique and unsurpassed.

Today's keyboard issue: iDRAC console on a machine with SE keyboard layout on the actual console, SE keyboard selected in the Lennart-infested crapux running on it, and the ONLY sensible mapping on the in-browser console emulation is found by running the SE keyboard in US mode on the Mac, BUT typing normally on it. As if it was set to SE.

My brain hurts.

[mansaxel]

Sloppy Joes on toasted Pump with melted Swiss; topped by perfect slightly skunky cherry tomatoes

We had cod back pieces in tomato/broccoli/white beans sauce, which is one of my favourites. The children hate it.

I am not worthy.

I think you are.

[Specmaster]

Congratulations on your avoidance  I'm bored. Looking at Ducky keyboards now 

I like the looks of their Mecha Mini. If they made that in a full-size KB for about $125 I might be interested.

I've gotten a little spoiled by my cheap-ass metal-frame gaming KB; I'm never going back to plastic. If they can bring that weight & feel in a cheap RGB gaming keyboard for $27, there's no excuse to settle for plastic from anyone else. It's such a little thing to make happen; but having enough weight that the damned thing stays where you put it is fucking important.

I realize it's just a bit of powder-coated stamped steel; but who the duck cares? It makes SO much difference; metal frame should be a minimum requirement for any supposedly "decent" keyboard.

https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/C9D23970-BAEE-41FD-9E1B-F6B3A3B895ED

mnem

It's a full size jobby I'm looking at. The One2 skyline. ISO layout. Cherry MX reds. No crazy LED wank. And keycaps that don't bloody fall off every two minutes like my Corsair one. And yes it has a chunk of metal in in it. And it has macro capability



https://www.mechkeyboards.eu/ducky-channel-one2-skyline-dkon1808-rukpdzhbs-1077-p.asp

The best keyboard, IMHO, is still the vintage IBM thing from the 90ies.
Its heavy as hell, its loud, but you can physically kill a Klingon with it and it will show no damage.
You can still *buy* this new for ca. 500€ !!!

Yeah those were nice for sure. I had one for about 3 years. They are also extremely loud and you will end up living with angry Klingons if you use them 

Nice keyboard, but are you sure that it has macro capability? I didn't see that mentioned anywhere in the technical details for the keyboard that you linked to?

Personally I still love my cheap Zero X08 mechanical gaming keyboard from Wish for £20, with red switches and backlights with rollover and an aluminium case, only issue I have it is that it has the American style of enter key, but I've become used to it now.

Edit: The spec in the video is with Blue switches, but mine are the red switches. The keyboard is currently unavailable from most shops as the design is moving over to make use of the blue optical switch and the benefit of this switch I think, but I could be wrong, is that they can be tuned by the user and also I think, even have 2 functions applied to each switch, a bit like the button on DSLR's where a light touch autofocuses and the further slightly harder press takes the photo. That feature could be usesful in some games.

[Wolfgang]

Sloppy Joes on toasted Pump with melted Swiss; topped by perfect slightly skunky cherry tomatoes and a glass of dwagon-strength home-brewed Orange Pekoe iced tea.

Comfort food with a touch of class!  And the best part... my fabulous wife made it for me!

mnem
I am not worthy.

... now that all 3 star restaurants have gone broke due to Corona - we better get used to food like this.

[bd139]

Today's keyboard issue: iDRAC console on a machine with SE keyboard layout on the actual console, SE keyboard selected in the Lennart-infested crapux running on it, and the ONLY sensible mapping on the in-browser console emulation is found by running the SE keyboard in US mode on the Mac, BUT typing normally on it. As if it was set to SE.

My brain hurts.

Ugh I feel for you. If I ever see Mr Poettering I'm going to kick him in the fucking balls. I had a massive argument with him a few years back on Reddit over the whole DBus failure problems early on CentOS 7 and decided he was a cunting great big fucknugget. Have had problems with localectl and systemd over the last few days as well. If you install debian and select a UK keymap, then install X then start it with startx or lightdm, no amount of futzing with systemd or localectl will actually set the fucking X keymap to UK. But if you reboot it, fine! 

He appears to be religiously copying windows misfeatures like statefulness while Microsoft are undoing theirs.

Nice keyboard, but are you sure that it has macro capability? I didn't see that mentioned anywhere in the technical details for the keyboard that you linked to?

Personally I still love my cheap Zero X08 mechanical gaming keyboard from Wish for £20, with red switches and backlights with rollover and an aluminium case, only issue I have it is that it has the American style of enter key, but I've become used to it now.

It does indeed have macro capability. Programmable on the keyboard itself. There is apparently a whole ARM cortex M3 hiding in it. Also a "Cal" (calculator key) which will open a suitable RPN calculator  .

Yeah those are pretty good I understand. Can't beat it for the money really. Alas the ANSI style keyboard would give me a fit of rage with the piddly enter key. I'm born and bred ISO layout

[Ice-Tea]

Worth it or not:

HP/Agilent 54622D 100MHz, 100MS/S 4MPTs MSO (Probably bare scope, no leads) from reputable vendor with warranty for US$225 delivered?



I just watched Dave gush about one in a video from 2014... sounds still pretty capable even today, especially compared against the cheap schizz from China.

mnem
moo?

Better deals to be had, apparently. With probes:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/buysellwanted/fs-(eu)-agilent-54622d/?topicseen

;-)

[Specmaster]

My sister-in-law sent me this on FB this morning and it made me laugh my head off, so I'll share this with you all although I expect that it will be most meaningful to the Brits on here for obvious reasons 

[mansaxel]

Ugh I feel for you. If I ever see Mr Poettering I'm going to kick him in the fucking balls.

TBH I think it is the "frontend programmers" (a term that most probably wins the prize for "new way to describe superficial moron who prefers style to correctness") that managed to ship another b0rkened version of iDRAC (complete with security holes large enough for HMS Queen Elizabeth to pass both her islands through) that are to blame. The in-browser console of VMWare ESXI has the same issue; the pro tip being  to install the remote console app from them. That one is quite good, actually.

But it is always right to throw fæces at the Lennart.

[Specmaster]

@bd139 What I'm struggling to understand here is the fact that they don't make any mention of the macro ability in their publicity which I would have thought would have been one thing to yell about from the rooftops, look at us we can do this and that etc, most unlike any company I know to keep its advantages a secret

[bd139]

Ugh I feel for you. If I ever see Mr Poettering I'm going to kick him in the fucking balls.

TBH I think it is the "frontend programmers" (a term that most probably wins the prize for "new way to describe superficial moron who prefers style to correctness") that managed to ship another b0rkened version of iDRAC (complete with security holes large enough for HMS Queen Elizabeth to pass both her islands through) that are to blame. The in-browser console of VMWare ESXI has the same issue; the pro tip being  to install the remote console app from them. That one is quite good, actually.

But it is always right to throw fæces at the Lennart.

I've never actually experienced iDRAC. It doesn't surprise me though. I usually circle around the turn that is the HP ILO and the larger steaming pile of satan's forbidden nuggets that is AWS console.

@bd139 What I'm struggling to understand here is the fact that they don't make any mention of the macro ability in their publicity which I would have thought would have been one thing to yell about from the rooftops, look at us we can do this and that etc, most unlike any company I know to keep its advantages a secret

https://www.duckychannel.com.tw/upload/2019_06_052/201906051343413wwpbu3Fr2.pdf

Page 38 and onwards.

[mnementh]

The best keyboard, IMHO, is still the vintage IBM thing from the 90ies.
Its heavy as hell, its loud, but you can physically kill a Klingon with it and it will show no damage.
You can still *buy* this new for ca. 500€ !!!

The IBM Model M buckling spring keyboard.  My all time favorite.  I have a couple of them and need to find an adapter to let them work on USB connections. I'm currently using a Cherry MX 3000 that's the closest thing I've found thus far for key feel, but it's still just not as good.  (And, unlike the Fluke 27/FM and IBM Model M, would NOT work very well as a blunt force weapon.)

-Pat

Add one vote for the Model M. I've got several, mostly with swedish, and one with UK layout, the last one from a RS/6000 Model 43p I bought from the UK to play Quake on. The £15000 graphics card rendered Quake 2 in full screen pretty well.. I paid something like £400 for the entire machine, and still have it.

They work pretty nicely with most PS/2 -> USB adapters.

And, to be very clear the keys are not Cherry or similar secondary products. The buckling-spring mechanism is unique and unsurpassed. (SNIP)

My brain hurts.

https://www.pckeyboard.com/page/SFNT

Looks like Linus agrees with you. And you CAN buy them again; even in black, like I painted mine so many years ago.

It also looks like (according to his little display) I confused my 2nd gen Model M with one of the many IBM/Lexmark keyboards that came after, or that I bought one of the ones they got when they bought out the name.  Mine definitely had that oddball RJ-45 plug with the two clips on the side, and it exited out the back, not down. 

mnem

[bd139]

Look for an IBM M13. That's the best one  (integrated trackpoint and it's black)

[AVGresponding]

Found some precision (1% I think) capacitors (polysomething) while on a rummage through some of my boxes looking for something else (which I didn't find, of course     ).

If they're where I think they're from, they're 25 years old, and bought for a Maplin capacitor tester I never started...   

Nice close values though: