Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[AVGresponding]

Found a picture of "Teton Waters Ranch"

I hope that's airbrushed or otherwise faked, or the poor woman will be having serious back pain problems.

[mnementh]

You know, I can't even remember the last time I've seen a printer (IRL, not old pics online  ) that needed one of those cables.

mnem
 

[m k]

Anyway, just figured the echo 

Can you move around with arrows?
You can't with VT220.

Yep I could use the 4 arrow keys just fine to move the cursor anywhere I wanted to... yet it's set to emulate VT220.
I guess emulation of anything is always the same story... it's never 100% true to the original, no matter what the S/W or H/W manufacturer claims... it's only a matter of will the user find himself in the corner case where he will actually notice/spot the discrepancies...

In case you later decide to use the device as your TE console terminal, remember that RS-port doesn't like spikes.
That can happen when you pull out the connector when both ends are powered and ground is disconnecting first.

I find this terminal box a cool retro piece of computing, I am happy I can play with it but.... realistically I don't think it's pratical enough for me to use it for actual duties... needs two thick power cables, a monitor, a keyboard... not portable, a mess on the bench, too much work digging out all that stuff, and storing it back, every time I need a terminal....

I think the most practical and realistic way of doing it, from my perspective at least, is to get an old laptop that's recent enough to run Linux, a minimalist implementation of it at least, yet old enough that it offers a real DB9 serial port, and RJ45/ Ethernet and a DB25 Printer port. Then I could run a terminal emulator on it a have all the other benefits like sending and receiving/logging data files, run S/W, debug tools, whatever one might one to do with old TE or development boards or computers or whatnot, over a serial port... all in a laptop, so self sufficient and compact, quick and easy to fire up when you need to. That's my plan anyway.

Of course I would also do that from the future stationary / desktop computer that I will add / dedicate to the lab bench at some point.

Yes, terminals are pretty much over, I was once learning how to fix Panda terminals and predicted it was a waste.
But one superior feature still, switch it on and it is ready.

I have one 4:3 monitor with a clear handle at the back.
One day few China gadgets will upgrade it and then I can keep my nose off from blocking all those buttons.

BTW,
How thanks are arranged?
First I was the only one somewhere, then mnem went first.
Last time cyclin_al was in between us and Vince was first.

[m k]

Here is my RS232 emergency set....
Helped me a lot in the past 25 years...
The QUICK TESTER has my name on the back and like drills: You should not lend it 
(Attachment Link)

Not so long ago I had to use some hard earned gold plated latinum and get all cables and adapters back back back.
Luckily I still had my modular plug pliers and Crone punch tool, though they were not needed.

And so it was proved, again.

[Vince]

You know, I can't even remember the last time I've seen a printer (IRL, not old pics online  ) that needed one of those cables.

mnem
 

Well my terminal uses a // port. The old computers I like to tinker with do too.
My main / only for now computer also uses a // printer, a HP LaserJet 6P.
Bought new in 1997 to print my final year project report on it.
I thought the printer was toast last year when it would print black vertical lines, mangle the paper a bit, then would print all black pages and squeal badly as the page was coming out. Then it would not come out at all...
...but in the end turned out it was just the toner cartridge that needed replacing (was only 10 years old and 4,000 pages, it's advertised capacity).
The drum in the cartridge was seized solid, didn't even know such a thing could happen, but there you go.

20 Euros and a new toner / cartridge later, printer is back in business and printing happily just as if it were new, so printer good for another 10 years.
You will be retired before that printer packs up. 

[Vince]

BTW,
How thanks are arranged?
First I was the only one somewhere, then mnem went first.
Last time cyclin_al was in between us and Vince was first.

I was wondering about that too the other day. I don't know the logic used by the forum here.

It's not listed sequentially, by order of arrival, as I have witnessed just like you, that the order can change dynamically.
Not listed by alphabetical order either.

So some other criteria... depending on the profile maybe ? Like date of arrival on the forum / subscription ? Number of posts ? Age ? Number of thanks ? Who knows... well I guess the code is open source so one could just look it up, but one would know his way around to find it... I guess the source code must be huge and span lots of files 

[Cerebus]

Did no one see my post #114732?

Yes, no, maybe.

The problem is that you keep on making posts like "I've just picked up a <generally desired object of TE lust> for <around 1/4 of what anybody expects to have to pay for it> and would you know, I've just discovered that I've already got two of them at the back of the garage that I'd forgotten I had.". So one never knows whether one of your posts is safe to read. It's a bit like deciding if you can safely turn on the news when you've already got dangerously high blood pressure. 

[Cerebus]

"Téton" really ?

I'll let you decipher what it mean in french 

Puts a whole new spin on "Rack of Beef".

[mnementh]

Also, adds new meaning to the phrase "Let's play hide the sausage..." 

mnem
Hey! I'm almost out of soggy ol' boots; I need to get some of 'em back!

[mnementh]

...20 Euros and a new toner / cartridge later, printer is back in business and printing happily just as if it were new, so printer good for another 10 years.
You will be retired before that printer packs up. 

Yeah, I spent a few years doing printer service for HP. There's a reason those old beasts are gone... Serial is sooooooooooo fucking slooooooooooooow on anything with graphics. Well, that and even on the models that you could plug a JetDirect module into, networking them required unholy pacts with the old ones and occasional virgin sacrifice, and they were even slooooooooower on graphics print workloads than serial direct.

mnem
nope. don't miss 'em a bit.

[factory]

Anyone looking for a HP 3400B, there is was a pair of them for $200 buy-it-now on ePay US (US only).

https://www.ebay.com/itm/165365862755



David

[Vince]

Don't understand what you mean ?

How could serial be why these printers are gone ? Mine is // as I just said 
Even in 1997 when I bought it, every printer was //,  I do'nt remember that printers were serial back tehn and that oyu had to pay extra to get a // interface ?! 

The reason they are gone is probably simply because... they are 25 years old  now ?

Take any USB printer that's 20 or even just 10 years old... how many are still left today ?

Plus the HP LaserJet 6P is still far from gone, I expect, seeing as the cartridges are still readiliy available and for cheap at that.
If it was gone, nobody would bother making the cartridges available and/or they would charge through the roof or them, due to lack of demand / low volume.

I doubt a fancy fast USB printer today will be in as good a shape in 25 years as my 6P is today....

Nah, 25 years still going strong. I now make a point of keeping it just so I can see how long it can last. I will apply for an entry in the Guinness Record Book ! 

But // sucks... cable is heavy. I need a serial printer so I can hook it to my old scopes 

Been thinking / dreaming of a A3 format colour laser printer for 10 years now. Prices are going down but not fast enough for me to afford one. At least not a good one, not a cheap bottom of the barrel one that's designed to cost a fortune to run and fall apart the days after the warranty expires,  or even have firmware tricks for planned obsolescence or to force you into buying expensive OEM consumables.
Nah, no thanks. So until I can get a viable and affordable A3 colour laser, I will keep my old // Laserjet. It's a workhorse and costs nothing to run. Cost me two 20 Euros cartridges in 25 years, 400 pages each... how do these cheap modern inkjet printers compare ?!    I don't care if they have a fast USB port.... it hardly balances things out !

Would love an old black and white HP tracer too, so I can print 3 or 4 page foldout schematics from service manuals 

EDIT : in 1999 IIRC, or something like that, I remember maxing out the RAM in the printer. IIRC it had 6MB built-in, and it had a couple RAM slots for expansion. I maxed it out for cheap as it was using consumer  computer grade RAM sticks which I got cheap at some computer fair. I don't know if that makes processing images faster or not Can't remember how it was before the upgrade...
but yeah I agree it's a bit slow at printing full page pictures.
Hold on, lemme print a test page.... oh I was wrong, it has 2MB built-in not 6, and has 3 slots for expansion not 2. It says that I installed one 4MB stick and two 8MB sticks. Total RAM 22MB.

[Vince]

Anyone looking for a HP 3400B, there is a pair of them for $200 buy-it-now on ePay US (US only).

https://www.ebay.com/itm/165365862755



David

Hmm I am usually not into these type of meters, they all look old and ugly to me but... this one has a modern front panel, looks really nice, am tempted to add it to my shopping list !

However the insane prices of this model from what I understand, will make sure this never happens ! 

[med6753]

Anyone looking for a HP 3400B, there is a pair of them for $200 buy-it-now on ePay US (US only).

https://www.ebay.com/itm/165365862755



David

Hmm I am usually not into these type of meters, they all look old and ugly to me but... this one has a modern front panel, looks really nice, am tempted to add it to my shopping list !

However the insane prices of this model from what I understand, will make sure this never happens ! 

OK, who here bought them? Already gone.

[factory]

Found a picture of "Teton Waters Ranch"

I hope that's airbrushed or otherwise faked, or the poor woman will be having serious back pain problems.

Somehow reminded of a lost Photonicinduction video, where a pair of footballs & a pound shop bra suffer very badly. 

David

[mansaxel]

I find this terminal box a cool retro piece of computing,

Ahem,

I think this is not qualified as "retro", it only is an emulator of "retro". And its usage pattern is only a little less limited than the originals. (As I wrote upthread, I've got one, I know.)  I rather much prefer using the VT510 and the IBM 3153 I've also got. But those are really rare occasions. Mostly, I've made things act so that I rarely need to connect a physical console at home. Commissioning a new network device probably is the only occasion.

If I wanted to, I'd probably put it as a remote terminal to my shell machine; mine does ssh over LAN, and you can configure it to automatically reconnect to a host using Telnet, rsh or ssh, if a direct serial connection is not possible.

The original use case for these is now but gone completely. Before the networked PC, there was a market for terminals to minicomputers; where a bunch of users had terminals connected to either multiport serial adapters or terminal servers, all set up to automatically connect to either a login prompt or even a menu system with authentication baked in.  In my very early IT career, I herded one of these systems; a  small ERP system on AIX. The terminals were gone; there were PCs on the desktop, but they still ran serial lines to the host and opened terminal connections.  IBM still was pretending that Broken Thing was going to beat Ethernet, so shipping a host with onboard Ethernet was out of the question, or I'd converted them to Telnet or SSH immediately. There even was a serial multiplex line across town to the warehouse, which I got to debug once too.

Anyway, the problem back in say 2002 or so was that the original supply of VT terminals was drying up. And people had not converted to PCs or they did not want PCs but only a terminal. The Axel was sold mostly as a stopgap measure; it could be used to replace the unobtainium terminals, and you could even have a flat screen on them.

Then, I've now only talked about things that happened 20+ years ago, so I guess that, after all, it's my perspective that's twisted. The retro replacement has gone retro in the end!

My VT510 still is connected to the router console in the garage. It's easier like that.

[Cubdriver]

Anyone looking for a HP 3400B, there is a pair of them for $200 buy-it-now on ePay US (US only).

https://www.ebay.com/itm/165365862755



David

Hmm I am usually not into these type of meters, they all look old and ugly to me but... this one has a modern front panel, looks really nice, am tempted to add it to my shopping list !

However the insane prices of this model from what I understand, will make sure this never happens ! 

OK, who here bought them? Already gone.

'twas not I.  Damn that was fast!  (not that I needed them, and wasn't planning to buy)

On a different note, a hard copy manual for the Tek 105 square wave generator should be here some time next week.

-Pat

[factory]

Anyone looking for a HP 3400B, there is a pair of them for $200 buy-it-now on ePay US (US only).

https://www.ebay.com/itm/165365862755



David

Hmm I am usually not into these type of meters, they all look old and ugly to me but... this one has a modern front panel, looks really nice, am tempted to add it to my shopping list !

However the insane prices of this model from what I understand, will make sure this never happens ! 

OK, who here bought them? Already gone.

Not surprised, given the price the last two I can see* sold for.

*ePay hides some US items for foreigners, even under completed listings, bastards. 



David

[mansaxel]

Someone in Denmark wants to take our last pennies: https://www.ebay.de/sch/analogue-dk/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=

McBryce.

Oh, my.  Yes, indeed. Lots of "Beobachten" -clicks there.

https://www.ebay.de/itm/185157919596?hash=item2b1c45a36c:g:W~kAAOSw2h5g43Az <- I've got one like that. Last price I saw was 5000€, so it's gone up.

[tautech]

EDIT : in 1999 IIRC, or something like that, I remember maxing out the RAM in the printer. IIRC it had 6MB built-in, and it had a couple RAM slots for expansion. I maxed it out for cheap as it was using consumer  computer grade RAM sticks which I got cheap at some computer fair. I don't know if that makes processing images faster or not Can't remember how it was before the upgrade...
but yeah I agree it's a bit slow at printing full page pictures.
Hold on, lemme print a test page.... oh I was wrong, it has 2MB built-in not 6, and has 3 slots for expansion not 2. It says that I installed one 4MB stick and two 8MB sticks. Total RAM 22MB.

Good old printers were those, had a 6MP for many years which was great for toner transfer down to 15 mil/thou traces. Replaced with color laser now that won't play ball with TT and not sure if I can even crack how to get a clean transfer with this one. 

[mnementh]

Yeah, that was my point... These printers didn't die; they were made of recovered Cthulhu scales and will be around in some form until the day after the heat death of the universe. No, the reason you have one of the last dozen or so is that their use case has died of old age and infirmity. 

mnem
 

[tggzzz]

Blasted enablers; I hate you all.

I'm picking it up tomorrow, after testing.

Anybody want a Tek 2467? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/165357463536

Another MCP Scope. This time it is a 7104 with 7A13, 7A24, 7B10, 7B80. Currently £10, collection only from a holiday resort in winter
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tektronix-7104-Oscilloscope/165365385517

[tautech]

Yeah, that was my point... These printers didn't die; they were made of recovered Cthulhu scales and will be around in some form until the day after the heat death of the universe. No, the reason you have one of the last dozen or so is that their use case has died of old age and infirmity. 

mnem

Shifted ours on as we only had 1 PC with a printer port and although we were accessing the printer from anywhere on the network that PC had to always be ON. That was a PITA as it wasn't on my PC so we when we scored an OKI network printer  the 6MP had to go. Still we have 2, the OKI and a scanner/copier/printer both networked for convenience.

[Vince]

I find this terminal box a cool retro piece of computing,

Ahem,

I think this is not qualified as "retro"
....
Then, I've now only talked about things that happened 20+ years ago, so I guess that, after all, it's my perspective that's twisted. The retro replacement has gone retro in the end!

See, you get to admit it in the end !

I notice as I get older I am having a similar problem for various other things :

1) I lost interest in computers in the late '90s, when the Pentium 2 came out and the race for clock speed went exponential and gaming 3D graphics cards started being a thing and all the rage.
So in the early 2000 I used to say "  I don't like modern computers "... but now it's 2022 so a 2002 (say) computer is freaking 20 years old now, so I can't say I don't like it because it's "modern", any more, because it's old now !  So I can't just say I don't like modern computers anymore... now I have to specify what years / period I like.

2) Music : lost interest like computer in the late '90s or so, when TV started going the reality TV route, and "singers" were now coming out of these programs... So in 2000 I could say " I don't like modern singers/artists, it's crap "... but now in 2022 a 2000 artist is fucking old ! So here again I can't say anymore I don't like modern pseudo "artists".. I have to specify " lost interest in the late '90's " instead.

3) Cars : again lost interest in the mid to late '90s, depending on particular brand and model. It all started going downhill to me, from that point. So Used to say " I don't like modern cars "... but now a 20 year old is hardly new anymore... so it's not a matter of old or new anymore...

[...] The terminals were gone; there were PCs on the desktop, but they still ran serial lines to the host and opened terminal connections.  IBM still was pretending that Broken Thing was going to beat Ethernet, so shipping a host with onboard Ethernet was out of the question, or I'd converted them to Telnet or SSH immediately. There even was a serial multiplex line across town to the warehouse,

Yeah these old terminal based application software just don't wat to die.
I remember in 2004 I worked for 6 month in a warehouse of computer parts. They had desktop computers everywhere but they were still using a virtual terminal S/W on the PC to run their ancient server based application. I remember that the title bar in the terminal window on the PC said " AS400 "... it would crash very now and then and the guy in charge of administering the system would com eot us and say "OK I just restarted AS400, should be back and working in XX minutes..... " or something.
Looking at Wikipedia, looks like "AS400" was the name of the H/W running the OS/system... an IBM server.

Hell.... even right now in 2022, the H/W store I go to all the time, the biggest in France... when you get to check out, if you look at their computer screen yuo can see they run the checkout with some app in a virtual terminal ! Maybe AS/400 again who knows ! 

It assume it costs so much to migrate a large organization / business to a modern / all new platform, new software etc... that it's likely in 20 years tehy will still be using their virtual terminal simply because it works, does the job, and spending millions  migrating/upgrading, and going through the growing pains can only be justified if it can demonstrated that doping so will save the company millions every years.
this is never gonna happen...
Only way they will give up their ancient server / terminal system is if there is a technical aspect that forces them to do so... or some law is voted they forces them to do something their system can't do...

Nothing wrong with that, I just love ASCII / curses based programs. Lightweight, easy to read on the screen, responsive, run on modest H/W, even small 8 bits micro-controllers I bet....
Hell, even brand new computers still use text interfaces in their BIOS !    There must be a reason for it... They could easily implement a full blown graphical user interface with mouse and touch screen if they wanted to.

[Vince]

EDIT : in 1999 IIRC, or something like that, I remember maxing out the RAM in the printer. IIRC it had 6MB built-in, and it had a couple RAM slots for expansion. I maxed it out for cheap as it was using consumer  computer grade RAM sticks which I got cheap at some computer fair. I don't know if that makes processing images faster or not Can't remember how it was before the upgrade...
but yeah I agree it's a bit slow at printing full page pictures.
Hold on, lemme print a test page.... oh I was wrong, it has 2MB built-in not 6, and has 3 slots for expansion not 2. It says that I installed one 4MB stick and two 8MB sticks. Total RAM 22MB.

Good old printers were those, had a 6MP for many years which was great for toner transfer down to 15 mil/thou traces. Replaced with color laser now that won't play ball with TT and not sure if I can even crack how to get a clean transfer with this one. 

Thanks for giving me yet another reason to keep my beloved printer !