Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[tggzzz]

(All directions vs. other directions)

I've seen bookshops over here that have a "Literature" section and a "Fiction" section. The staff couldn't tell me why a book was placed in one section not the other.

[tggzzz]

Random craziness which Med will find amusing based on his itty bitty moron heritage: Someone is trying to pay me to rewrite a cobol program for processing commissions that has been doing the rounds for 40 years into something “modern”. Looking at it I’ve actually come to the conclusion that they should just leave it the fuck alone and keep their z10. I give in. It’s the right tool for the job.

Were you, by any chance, told that the function needed to be unchanged? Without a spec? Including the bugs?

Those questions are based on re-engineering exercise I saw; your decision was almost certainly sane.

[Robert763]

Most kit will run happily on 400Hz unless it has AC motors, e.g. fans, or some kind of line frequency related functionality.
Pretty much anything with a modern switch mode PSU will run from DC to a few kilohertz. If there is no continuity between live and neutral with a tester that won't turn on a diode it will run on DC. Unless there are AC fans or motors that are switched by relays etc.

[BU508A]

Anybody here with some experience with this tool?

SEQURE SQ-ES126 (code: BGSQES126, US$76.43)
https://ban.ggood.vip/WLKx​



I saw it in this video from JohnnyQ90:

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/KJoAAOSwn9Jfym5n/s-l1600.jpg

I'm finding it interesting because it looks like, that one can set the torque electronically.
And it is much cheaper than Wiha (and I'm a Wiha fanboy  )

[bd139]

Random craziness which Med will find amusing based on his itty bitty moron heritage: Someone is trying to pay me to rewrite a cobol program for processing commissions that has been doing the rounds for 40 years into something “modern”. Looking at it I’ve actually come to the conclusion that they should just leave it the fuck alone and keep their z10. I give in. It’s the right tool for the job.

Were you, by any chance, told that the function needed to be unchanged? Without a spec? Including the bugs?

Those questions are based on re-engineering exercise I saw; your decision was almost certainly sane.

Actually there was an extensive spec for this one and a test data corpus! I thought it was easy money until I noticed that:

1. The specification hadn’t been updated for 11 years and after poking around like the useless noob i am in ISPF I noticed the source was last edited in 2020.
2. No one has submitted the test job for 7 years. I don’t know enough about zOS to run it myself and like fuck I’m learning JCL.
3. The guy who wrote it is dead and the guy who maintains it is retiring this year.
4. It works and they’ve got a looong IBM contract.
5. Migrating it isn’t going to fix the 9 million other problems they have.

Ergo let sleeping dragons sleep or they’ll burn your shit down.

[mansaxel]

Random craziness which Med will find amusing based on his itty bitty moron heritage: Someone is trying to pay me to rewrite a cobol program for processing commissions that has been doing the rounds for 40 years into something “modern”. Looking at it I’ve actually come to the conclusion that they should just leave it the fuck alone and keep their z10. I give in. It’s the right tool for the job.

No TE purchases yet. Very disappointed this month already 

They could run it off a Hercules emulator, possibly avoiding a fat power and cooling bill. Bit of a problem to get Z/OS licensed on that machine, though. If, OTOH, it can be run under MVS or similar, (being 40yo it just might) it's free reign. IIRC. YMMV, Etc.

[tggzzz]

Random craziness which Med will find amusing based on his itty bitty moron heritage: Someone is trying to pay me to rewrite a cobol program for processing commissions that has been doing the rounds for 40 years into something “modern”. Looking at it I’ve actually come to the conclusion that they should just leave it the fuck alone and keep their z10. I give in. It’s the right tool for the job.

Were you, by any chance, told that the function needed to be unchanged? Without a spec? Including the bugs?

Those questions are based on re-engineering exercise I saw; your decision was almost certainly sane.

Actually there was an extensive spec for this one and a test data corpus! I thought it was easy money until I noticed that:

1. The specification hadn’t been updated for 11 years and after poking around like the useless noob i am in ISPF I noticed the source was last edited in 2020.
2. No one has submitted the test job for 7 years. I don’t know enough about zOS to run it myself and like fuck I’m learning JCL.
3. The guy who wrote it is dead and the guy who maintains it is retiring this year.
4. It works and they’ve got a looong IBM contract.
5. Migrating it isn’t going to fix the 9 million other problems they have.

Ergo let sleeping dragons sleep or they’ll burn your shit down.

Oooh. An inaccurate spec. Even better, said Humpty Dumpty.

[mansaxel]

EDIT:  Brain switched on a bit more:  What is the variance ±% on 50 Hz on your side of the pond?

The grid is being kept, preferably, within 0,1Hz from 50Hz. IIRC. 0,2%, then.

[beanflying]

All the better to pre choppy choppy stock for the Laser. Between this big boy and the Tracksaw I can't see me ever needing a Table Saw was part of the reason to go this size. Added feature is added likelihood of retaining the number of digits I was born with   

You think?

Proportion of YouTube videos watched involving stand-alone mechanical saws that make me wince expecting digits or limbs to go flying:

Horizontal bandsaws	10%
Table saws	20%
Vertical bandsaws	90%

Kickback or getting dragged into Tables saws is more like the 90% partly due to blade angles and also fence issues. Good pushsticks and methods are needed with all of them regardless

Yep, little stuff is where the highest risk is but often we're too lazy to mitigate risk. 

I used to have a evenings piece work sideline cutting a range of wedges for wedging the treads and risers in wooden stair construction and cut some 5 different sizes by the drum full. 
First cut was a 35mm wide wedge then split in half which was were real risk was and we had a tunnel covering the blade so to not wear any from the rear edge of the saw and anti kickback fingers on the inlet to the tunnel but it didn't stop one little swine one evening and flicked the sharp cornered little mongrel into the soft web between my thumb and forefinger to punch a good triangular divot and leak the red stuff big time. Put a funny look on my face I can tell you !   

Radial Arm Saws: Hold my beer.

I think that's more than a bit realistic  snipped from this video https://youtu.be/AHRwN99fGCY

[bd139]

Random craziness which Med will find amusing based on his itty bitty moron heritage: Someone is trying to pay me to rewrite a cobol program for processing commissions that has been doing the rounds for 40 years into something “modern”. Looking at it I’ve actually come to the conclusion that they should just leave it the fuck alone and keep their z10. I give in. It’s the right tool for the job.

No TE purchases yet. Very disappointed this month already 

They could run it off a Hercules emulator, possibly avoiding a fat power and cooling bill. Bit of a problem to get Z/OS licensed on that machine, though. If, OTOH, it can be run under MVS or similar, (being 40yo it just might) it's free reign. IIRC. YMMV, Etc.

I looked at that, downloaded it, read the installation guide for zOS and instantly decided I couldn’t be arsed to delve that far into it and now the dmg is threatening me inconsequentially from the bin.  My knowledge of mainframes is extremely limited. The sights of a 3270 terminal give me the heebie jeebies, probably because of the historical tappety tapping of a muggle in a bank denying me financial gratification on a regular basis.

But it’s the right tool for the job so who am I to assist with turning it into the wrong tool for the right job even if it violates the Rules of Acquisition? 

[Wolfgang]

Random craziness which Med will find amusing based on his itty bitty moron heritage: Someone is trying to pay me to rewrite a cobol program for processing commissions that has been doing the rounds for 40 years into something “modern”. Looking at it I’ve actually come to the conclusion that they should just leave it the fuck alone and keep their z10. I give in. It’s the right tool for the job.

Were you, by any chance, told that the function needed to be unchanged? Without a spec? Including the bugs?

Those questions are based on re-engineering exercise I saw; your decision was almost certainly sane.

Actually there was an extensive spec for this one and a test data corpus! I thought it was easy money until I noticed that:

1. The specification hadn’t been updated for 11 years and after poking around like the useless noob i am in ISPF I noticed the source was last edited in 2020.
2. No one has submitted the test job for 7 years. I don’t know enough about zOS to run it myself and like fuck I’m learning JCL.
3. The guy who wrote it is dead and the guy who maintains it is retiring this year.
4. It works and they’ve got a looong IBM contract.
5. Migrating it isn’t going to fix the 9 million other problems they have.

Ergo let sleeping dragons sleep or they’ll burn your shit down.

Oooh. An inaccurate spec. Even better, said Humpty Dumpty.

Zombie customers like yours are the main reason why the z Series is still alive. They are dead, but they wont admit it yet.
The moment of thruth normally comes when people die or retire, or when some legal requirement just cannot be hacked into
a pile of old code nobody understands anymore. z Series - the feeling of living on a time bomb.

[mansaxel]

6237b update:

It's here. Gorillas of Kentucky did not harm it. Lotsa bubblewrap. Looking good. Pictures as soon as I have it on the bench and have opened it up for some care and voltage correction.

I've opened it, seen the RIFA, noticed a bump in the lid which will be easy to straighten, measured continuity in the 240V part (makes sense), switched it to the right mains voltage, and fitted a C14 plug instead of the US one.

Date codes of components are mostly in the late 1980s with the pass transistors being early 1990 Motorola types. This must be a fairly late 6237b.

Remaining things:

• Fit a smaller fuse
• Straighten the case
• Clean some sticker gunk off
• RIFA swap, a new one is on its way from TME. (and I won't power it until I've got a new capacitor in.)
• Functional check
• Performance check

I'd put some pics in this post if I could be arsed, but frankly, the forum picture posting bugs drain motivation. I've got the pics, just need to get a web server with TLS running so I can self-host and use IMG tags only. That's not broken. Yet. 

[VEGETA]

Guys following up from my Texio cs-4125a scope: the guy doesn't want to sell it anymore... he is delusional since he never ever used the scope and thinks he can sell if for more. I contacted nearly all those who sell analog scopes, no scopes to be found now. most of them are broken or very expensive.

anyway, someone offered me his Hanmatek DOS1102 digital scope for about 115$. it is used with good condition but doesn't power on now since he didn't use it for a while and now sent to be repaired. he expects it to be repaired easily since it was fully functional before, so maybe power cord or input issue. this guy is a mechanical so he doesn't know a thing about electronics.

so is this scope any good?

the only issue i found with it is that it supports 5mv per division as maximum, not 1mv. so can i solve this by getting a x10 probe or amplifier of some sort?

anyway, right now this is the only scope available if its repair got it to work again for about 113$ (80 JOD).

I hope someone used it here to enlighten me about it. especially for using it to measure psu ripple and noise

[mansaxel]

Zombie customers like yours are the main reason why the z Series is still alive. They are dead, but they wont admit it yet.
The moment of thruth normally comes when people die or retire, or when some legal requirement just cannot be hacked into
a pile of old code nobody understands anymore. z Series - the feeling of living on a time bomb.

If you want "time bomb", look for the IBM 1401 code that runs in special microcode on z/Series machines. They did include 1401 emulation in the 360 to make customers move over and customers, being customers, always took the easy way out, and just loaded the tapes into the emulator.  And once it's in there, it'll stay there..

This was a major headache in the Y2K process, according to a few mainframers who were affected.

I have, sort of, been tempted with learning to feed and water a z/Series to get me a good retirement plan.  But, frankly, the fact that I can tell TCP from UDP and have a passing familiarity with multicast apparently makes me level 43 guru in a world where devlopers[sic] talk about Frameworks and refuse to believe you can network  two computers unless one, or preferably both of them has a web server with an API.

I've just turned 51, and I'm feeling very old at times.

[tautech]

All the better to pre choppy choppy stock for the Laser. Between this big boy and the Tracksaw I can't see me ever needing a Table Saw was part of the reason to go this size. Added feature is added likelihood of retaining the number of digits I was born with   

You think?

Proportion of YouTube videos watched involving stand-alone mechanical saws that make me wince expecting digits or limbs to go flying:

Horizontal bandsaws	10%
Table saws	20%
Vertical bandsaws	90%

Kickback or getting dragged into Tables saws is more like the 90% partly due to blade angles and also fence issues. Good pushsticks and methods are needed with all of them regardless

Yep, little stuff is where the highest risk is but often we're too lazy to mitigate risk. 

I used to have a evenings piece work sideline cutting a range of wedges for wedging the treads and risers in wooden stair construction and cut some 5 different sizes by the drum full. 
First cut was a 35mm wide wedge then split in half which was were real risk was and we had a tunnel covering the blade so to not wear any from the rear edge of the saw and anti kickback fingers on the inlet to the tunnel but it didn't stop one little swine one evening and flicked the sharp cornered little mongrel into the soft web between my thumb and forefinger to punch a good triangular divot and leak the red stuff big time. Put a funny look on my face I can tell you !   

Radial Arm Saws: Hold my beer.

I think that's more than a bit realistic  snipped from this video https://youtu.be/AHRwN99fGCY

Dado heads scare me more !
Who ever thought wobbling a saw blade at a few 1000rpm was a good idea. 

[mansaxel]

the only issue i found with it is that it supports 5mv per division as maximum, not 1mv. so can i solve this by getting a x10 probe or amplifier of some sort?

Please understand that a "X10" probe divides the signal, not the other way around, so you'll end up with 1V indicated if you have an actual signal that's 10V if measured with a DMM or similar.

[vk6zgo]

Just a heads up for international bidders: never buy an HPAK E36xx supply from the US. Some of them can't be converted to 230v.

Sure they can, you just need a big enough transformer 
BTW take care if using the yellow "110" worksite tool transformers. They are actually 55-0-55 volt with the center tap connected to ground. Some equipment does not like it's neutral being 55V below ground.

Not always. There's some marginal penny pinching bastard stuff that doesn't like 50Hz out there. Heathkit comes to mind

Good call with the tool transformers - never knew that. Makes sense though as it keeps the earth potential low enough that it's just going to wake you up a bit at 50V AC or so. Last time I did anything on 110V I was using my scariac to do the job which is definitely tapped at neutral and 110V.

I was thinking specifically of the E36XX units, but you are correct, a lot of cheap NA transformers don't like 50Hz even ones with dual 115V primaries. Power thansformers have a minmum volt/hertz product related to the core size. You need more Iron in the core at lower frequencies (This is why aircraft use 400Hz, the core is about 1/8th the size of a 50Hz one saving weight) So if you have a 50Hz 230V transformer ( 4.6V/Hz) you can run it at 276V 60Hz (insulation assumed to be OK) but one rated at 2 x 115V 60Hz (3.8 V/Hz) would only be good for 192V at 50Hz. So a lot of cheap 60Hz transformers run hot on 50Hz.

For some strange purpose, the Navy (think it was the RN, as they looked Marconi-like, but maybe the RAN) used 800Hz.
There were these really nice looking transformers at a surplus store back in the early '60s.
They were a "trap for young players", who found out they had bought a "door stop" when they got it home.

[VEGETA]

the only issue i found with it is that it supports 5mv per division as maximum, not 1mv. so can i solve this by getting a x10 probe or amplifier of some sort?

Please understand that a "X10" probe divides the signal, not the other way around, so you'll end up with 1V indicated if you have an actual signal that's 10V if measured with a DMM or similar.

I know it divides the signal, maybe I wrote the wrong words in my post.

However, isn't there an amplifier probe or little product to address such issue? I mean I can hook an op-amp circuit to do so but this probably won't be that professional and accurate.

I am more interested now about the scope itself... I hope someone tried it before.

[med6753]

Random craziness which Med will find amusing based on his itty bitty moron heritage: Someone is trying to pay me to rewrite a cobol program for processing commissions that has been doing the rounds for 40 years into something “modern”. Looking at it I’ve actually come to the conclusion that they should just leave it the fuck alone and keep their z10. I give in. It’s the right tool for the job.

No TE purchases yet. Very disappointed this month already 

They could run it off a Hercules emulator, possibly avoiding a fat power and cooling bill. Bit of a problem to get Z/OS licensed on that machine, though. If, OTOH, it can be run under MVS or similar, (being 40yo it just might) it's free reign. IIRC. YMMV, Etc.

I looked at that, downloaded it, read the installation guide for zOS and instantly decided I couldn’t be arsed to delve that far into it and now the dmg is threatening me inconsequentially from the bin.  My knowledge of mainframes is extremely limited. The sights of a 3270 terminal give me the heebie jeebies, probably because of the historical tappety tapping of a muggle in a bank denying me financial gratification on a regular basis.

But it’s the right tool for the job so who am I to assist with turning it into the wrong tool for the right job even if it violates the Rules of Acquisition? 

Tell them they need to upgrade to a Z!4. 

[Brumby]

Oh, HELL no!!!!!! 

[med6753]

Zombie customers like yours are the main reason why the z Series is still alive. They are dead, but they wont admit it yet.
The moment of thruth normally comes when people die or retire, or when some legal requirement just cannot be hacked into
a pile of old code nobody understands anymore. z Series - the feeling of living on a time bomb.

If you want "time bomb", look for the IBM 1401 code that runs in special microcode on z/Series machines. They did include 1401 emulation in the 360 to make customers move over and customers, being customers, always took the easy way out, and just loaded the tapes into the emulator.  And once it's in there, it'll stay there..

This was a major headache in the Y2K process, according to a few mainframers who were affected.

I have, sort of, been tempted with learning to feed and water a z/Series to get me a good retirement plan.  But, frankly, the fact that I can tell TCP from UDP and have a passing familiarity with multicast apparently makes me level 43 guru in a world where devlopers[sic] talk about Frameworks and refuse to believe you can network  two computers unless one, or preferably both of them has a web server with an API.

I've just turned 51, and I'm feeling very old at times.

I think having the ability to run legacy software going all the way back to S/360 plus be open source at the same time is rather smart, don't you think?

The Y2K issue was not the mainframe's fault, it was the legacy applications that had the potential time bomb....which in reality turned out to be a whimper. 

[Brumby]

The one thing that did make me wonder, though, was some of the B roads.  The speed limit for a few of the ones I traversed was generous to say the least - especially when they were 1.5 lanes wide, winding, undulating and with six foot vegetation brushing up to the bitumen.

THIS!!! ===>  https://youtu.be/39O4cmGt7g8?t=128

[mnementh]

pffffft.

I spent 2 decades in Texas; home of the "Here, hold muh beer and watch this!" school of driving. Maybe I'm a little jaded...

mnem
"...and you're the one who jaded me."

[mansaxel]

I think having the ability to run legacy software going all the way back to S/360 plus be open source at the same time is rather smart, don't you think?

The Y2K issue was not the mainframe's fault, it was the legacy applications that had the potential time bomb....which in reality turned out to be a whimper. 

I do not detest the Z/Series, not at all. It is a remarkable construction that is proven to solve customer problems, at a sometimes elevated price, but very reliably.  And the commitment to its legacy, from IBM, is remarkable.

The unwillingness to maintain code base that stems from not actually having the change pressure from the hardware is something else! 

Finally, Y2K was a "whimper" simply because people were allowed to find and fix problems. In advance. For once.
Left to its devices that rollover might have been a considerable shitshow. We know there were lots of things found and corrected, most often related to date management, but a lot of other oopsies were dealt with as well, as stowaways on that ride.

Probably the most important part is that we've learnt something about code longevity as a profession. It is wise to plan and prepare and take out some margins for things unforeseen.  I hope that we will have some of that left for the time_t rollover in 2038. Indeed there have been cleanups in many operating systems to deal with this.

[mansaxel]

I'm just going to put this here. From the Swedish magazine "Populär Radio", December 1953.