Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mansaxel]

Wow, I didn't realize the world was so healthy now. But, ya never know when they'll be worth their weight again.

It isn't. Just got a confirmed case in the family. No danger, just inconvenience, as far as I can tell, though.

[bitseeker]

...



And here's the family portrait... 3 generations of 546xxx scope! 

...

Wow! Congrats on that CRT surviving. Those scopes look great!

I got an HP 54601A a few years back and a year or so afterward scored a 54657A Storage & GPIB module for it that adds FFT. Unfortunately, I need to upgrade the firmware in the scope to use it and haven't succeeded in finding one that's version 2.2 or higher.

Oscilloscope Compatibility

54657A and 54658A These modules are compatible with all Agilent
54600-series oscilloscopes except 54600A, 54601A, and 54602A
oscilloscopes with an operating system version lower than 2.2. If your
54600A, 54601A, or 54602A oscilloscope has an earlier operating system,
it can be updated using upgrade kit HP part number 54601-68702.

---------------

Update: Well, a new search found this post with info on the last version made, but the image file attached is version 2.0. Same as my scope has.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/agilent-54601a-oscilloscope-eprom-firmware-needed/msg4051633/#msg4051633

[Robert763]

Another TEA incoming. Put a offer on a spectrum amalyser late last night  and it was accepted.
It's a true portable, battery operated 5 - 1100 MHz with a 6.4" colour touch screen. My offer was 3 digits  Just £100 including shipping 
Pictures when it arrives.
That puts the RF spectrum analyser count up to 7

Sounds neat. Well, you passed me up on the SA count. Depending on how you count an RF test set, I'm up to four or five SA. And to think...it started with wanting just one. Doesn't it always?

Have to wait for pics. Message from seller yesterday, Royal Mail failed to pick it up 

[bitseeker]

Wow, I didn't realize the world was so healthy now. But, ya never know when they'll be worth their weight again.

It isn't. Just got a confirmed case in the family. No danger, just inconvenience, as far as I can tell, though.

That's good. Speedy recovery to him/her.

[bitseeker]

Well, my first day was exhausting ! 

Yes I know... it's not even noon, my day is not even finished yet... but yes it is !

No, have not been fired just yet, didn't even get that opportunity.

...

Well, that story sounded like quite the misadventure. Hope the rest of your week is better.

[Specmaster]

found my old log trig tables in the bottom of a box down the basement.

it smells like knowledge. (actual knowledge is musty)


(the calculator is just to prove it's authenticity as belonging to a TI smitten fool)

Well once again your kindness in giving me a pass has paid dividends for you because I can stand alongside you head held high, clutching my TI calcs, 1 x 58, 1 x BA-Solar, 1 x 56, 1 x 92, 1 x 2200, 2 x 86, 1 x 5038 and 2 x Inspires. What with your 30X we can take the world on, and just in case we need reinforcements, I can also throw in 4 x Commodores,  8 x Casios 1 x Sharp, 3 x HPs and 1 Sinclair and all bar 2 have an = key 

[bd139]

At least you’re heading in the right direction now  . Repent!

Got rudely awoken by pigeons on top of my chimney this morning. Another thing I won’t have to bloody put up with in a couple of weeks.

Have got inventory appointment next week so I am going to LiDAR the room and plan bench engineering 

[bitseeker]

This gets more interesting by the minutes. As my intoxicated brain is only capable of processing keywords it only saw mice and explosions. 

Incidentally I didn’t drink enough to buy an SA 

What?! Did you not get the memo that collecting SA's is the latest thing in the thread now?

[bd139]

This gets more interesting by the minutes. As my intoxicated brain is only capable of processing keywords it only saw mice and explosions. 

Incidentally I didn’t drink enough to buy an SA 

What?! Did you not get the memo that collecting SA's is the latest thing in the thread now?

Working on that still. Have a spreadsheet going. Apparently when I’m drunk I make spreadsheets first.

[Specmaster]

At least you’re heading in the right direction now  . Repent!

Got rudely awoken by pigeons on top of my chimney this morning. Another thing I won’t have to bloody put up with in a couple of weeks.

Have got inventory appointment next week so I am going to LiDAR the room and plan bench engineering 

Just because you will no longer have a chimney won't deter pigeons, you have a window ledge and maybe even a balcony at the new place, oh and forget that squirrels can climb, so even they will still have the power to haunt you. 

Good luck on the move, you must be looking forward to it now?

[bitseeker]

Just got the  HP 3551A Transmission Test Set delivered ...

It's in bad shape 

It's in the garage now because it's got that ancient military surplus / old ham radio shack smell emanating. But here's a teaser pic. Severe corrosion from what I think is bad batteries. Oh dear ... 

More pics tomorrow I expect.

Condolences...well, hopefully the rest is OK.

[bitseeker]

This gets more interesting by the minutes. As my intoxicated brain is only capable of processing keywords it only saw mice and explosions. 

Incidentally I didn’t drink enough to buy an SA 

What?! Did you not get the memo that collecting SA's is the latest thing in the thread now?

Working on that still. Have a spreadsheet going. Apparently when I’m drunk I make spreadsheets first.

Ah, very good. Carry on.

[bd139]

At least you’re heading in the right direction now  . Repent!

Got rudely awoken by pigeons on top of my chimney this morning. Another thing I won’t have to bloody put up with in a couple of weeks.

Have got inventory appointment next week so I am going to LiDAR the room and plan bench engineering 

Just because you will no longer have a chimney won't deter pigeons, you have a window ledge and maybe even a balcony at the new place, oh and forget that squirrels can climb, so even they will still have the power to haunt you. 

Good luck on the move, you must be looking forward to it now?

Fair point. We’re on the 4th (top) floor so this may be a problem. If it is they will have to fall off  .

The top floor was important for clear sky view (GPS antenna  )

[Specmaster]

At least you’re heading in the right direction now  . Repent!

Got rudely awoken by pigeons on top of my chimney this morning. Another thing I won’t have to bloody put up with in a couple of weeks.

Have got inventory appointment next week so I am going to LiDAR the room and plan bench engineering 

Just because you will no longer have a chimney won't deter pigeons, you have a window ledge and maybe even a balcony at the new place, oh and forget that squirrels can climb, so even they will still have the power to haunt you. 

Good luck on the move, you must be looking forward to it now?

Fair point. We’re on the 4th (top) floor so this may be a problem. If it is they will have to fall off  .

The top floor was important for clear sky view (GPS antenna  )

Hmm, also should the unthinkable happen, the worst place to be in the event of fire or other emergency event in the building 

EDIT:
Just sold a duff calculator for spares, eBay seems to be picking up.

[med6753]

At least you’re heading in the right direction now  . Repent!

Got rudely awoken by pigeons on top of my chimney this morning. Another thing I won’t have to bloody put up with in a couple of weeks.

Have got inventory appointment next week so I am going to LiDAR the room and plan bench engineering 

Just because you will no longer have a chimney won't deter pigeons, you have a window ledge and maybe even a balcony at the new place, oh and forget that squirrels can climb, so even they will still have the power to haunt you. 

Good luck on the move, you must be looking forward to it now?

Fair point. We’re on the 4th (top) floor so this may be a problem. If it is they will have to fall off  .

The top floor was important for clear sky view (GPS antenna  )

You must be a light sleeper. Awakened by the cooing of pigeons? Now if it were a mob of crows I could understand it. 

Box fan my boy. Adopted it many years ago when working night shift and had to sleep during the day. Drowns out all that noise. Still use it to this day. 

And what is this inventory that you speak of? TE stuff? 

Edit....and for your own safety you better X-ray that Spanish women's purse for knives. 

[Specmaster]

At least you’re heading in the right direction now  . Repent!

Got rudely awoken by pigeons on top of my chimney this morning. Another thing I won’t have to bloody put up with in a couple of weeks.

Have got inventory appointment next week so I am going to LiDAR the room and plan bench engineering 

Just because you will no longer have a chimney won't deter pigeons, you have a window ledge and maybe even a balcony at the new place, oh and forget that squirrels can climb, so even they will still have the power to haunt you. 

Good luck on the move, you must be looking forward to it now?

Fair point. We’re on the 4th (top) floor so this may be a problem. If it is they will have to fall off  .

The top floor was important for clear sky view (GPS antenna  )

You must be a light sleeper. Awakened by the cooing of pigeons? Now if it were a mob of crows I could understand it. 

Box fan my boy. Adopted it many years ago when working night shift and had to sleep during the day. Drowns out all that noise. Still use it to this day. 

And what is this inventory that you speak of? TE stuff? 

Edit....and for your own safety you better X-ray that Spanish women's purse for knives. 

I concur with you, the noise of a box fan is similar to white noise, which many people use to aid sleeping. My sons plays white noise on his phone all night so he can sleep better. I have a box fan on in my lab and nobody believes me when I say that cannot hear them when they call me from downstairs, when the fan is running. 

[tautech]

At least you’re heading in the right direction now  . Repent!

Got rudely awoken by pigeons on top of my chimney this morning. Another thing I won’t have to bloody put up with in a couple of weeks.

Have got inventory appointment next week so I am going to LiDAR the room and plan bench engineering 

Just because you will no longer have a chimney won't deter pigeons, you have a window ledge and maybe even a balcony at the new place, oh and forget that squirrels can climb, so even they will still have the power to haunt you. 

Good luck on the move, you must be looking forward to it now?

Fair point. We’re on the 4th (top) floor so this may be a problem. If it is they will have to fall off  .

The top floor was important for clear sky view (GPS antenna  )

You must be a light sleeper. Awakened by the cooing of pigeons? Now if it were a mob of crows I could understand it. 

Box fan my boy. Adopted it many years ago when working night shift and had to sleep during the day. Drowns out all that noise. Still use it to this day. 

And what is this inventory that you speak of? TE stuff? 

Edit....and for your own safety you better X-ray that Spanish women's purse for knives. 

I concur with you, the noise of a box fan is similar to white noise, which many people use to aid sleeping. My sons plays white noise on his phone all night so he can sleep better. I have a box fan on in my lab and nobody believes me when I say that cannot hear them when they call me from downstairs, when the fan is running. 

And you make out like this is a disability when it's actually a highly developed skill of the married man. 

[m k]

HP MegaZoom Mega-Post!!!

...I didn't have time or energy for that tonight, so I took one for the team and just swapped the CRT neck board over and tried it.




Franken-monitor is no joy; it is not possible to make a CDM-7SF191 serve as a CDM-7SX191 just by swapping the CRT neck PCB. 

Re: the rolling picture with the CRT neck board swap, did you try adjusting the horizontal/vertical hold controls (CRT main board)  & the contrast control (CRT neck board), when you swapped the board to the older CRT?

David

Yeah; it's not a rolling picture, it's only raster and retrace, no video information. The black bar you see there is just a digital camera artifact. I'd have pursued it further, but I was hoping I hadn't fried something with my little experiment, so only powered it up like that a couple times before deciding to pull the plug.

Cheers!

mnem
 

Did you measure any voltages before or after?

[med6753]

And you make out like this is a disability when it's actually a highly developed skill of the married man. 

And once you've been married and developed that skill it remains with you forever even in an unmarried state. 

[Specmaster]

<snip>

what?  a kit built sinclair scientific?

if it were anyone else you would be dead to me.

but since you are usually a voice of reason around here........ you get a pass.

Well thanks for sparing me  What can I say, I was young and full of cum back then and the Sinclair was the only scientific calculator within my price bracket. When that calculator was launched in 1974 it sold as a kit for £49.95 and in today's money that equates to £579 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Scientific#Assembly_kit

No, you've misread the pricing:

In January 1975, the kit was available for US$49.95, half the price at the time of introduction a year earlier,[13] and in December 1975 it was available for GB£9.95, less than a quarter of the introductory price.

So that's $49.95USD (£21.90GBP at Jan '74 exchange rates, about £165 in today's money) and then £9.95 by the end of the same year (about £75 in today's money).

Oh No I didn't.. the following is an exert from the other link I also posted. Wikipedia has a typo $ in place of a £.

"Conclusions
The Sinclair Scientific came out in 1974 and was the first single-chip scientific calculator (if you ignore the display driver chips). It was stylishly compact, just 3/4 inch thick. It originally sold for the price of $119.95 or £49.95 and by the end of the year was available as a kit for the amazingly low price of £9.95.

Unfortunately, as calculator prices collapsed, so did Sinclair Radionics' profits, and the company was broken up in 1979 after heavy losses. Clive Sinclair's new company Sinclair Research went on to sell the highly-popular ZX 80 and ZX Spectrum home computers. Clive Sinclair was knighted for his accomplishments in 1983, becoming Sir Clive Sinclair. "

http://files.righto.com/calculator/sinclair_scientific_simulator.html

http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/sinclair_scientific.html

[bd139]

Hmm, also should the unthinkable happen, the worst place to be in the event of fire or other emergency event in the building 

Yeah aware of that. This is temporary accommodation while I consolidate finances. There are three disparate exit stairwells in different locations on the floor and it was built in the last 10 years so less of an issue with fire safety than some of the older buildings.

[Specmaster]

While the Sinclair scientific calculator might not be everyone's idea of a calculator, it was no doubt the reason for similar calculators to become much more affordable. The much heralded HP35 cost in 1972 £165 which is why the Sinclair scientific is a real milestone in personal calculators, much the same thing happened when Sir Clive Sinclair moved onto personal computers, he broke the stranglehold of companies that were profiteering from their products because they could do so back in the day when they had no real competition.

http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/hewlett_packard_hp-35.html

[bd139]

Some vintage IC fun...

Better than a Mouser ziplock 



Mmmmm gold legs...



P date code suggests 1970. These are fairly early ones which is always interesting. Considering the first commercial ICs went on the market in 1961 and NASA bought nearly all of them until 1965, these are primordial era tech 

Found via looking at old magazines/catalogues they were $2.50 a pop in 1970 approximately. That's $16.80 in today's money.

[xrunner]

Just got the  HP 3551A Transmission Test Set delivered ...

It's in bad shape 

It's in the garage now because it's got that ancient military surplus / old ham radio shack smell emanating. But here's a teaser pic. Severe corrosion from what I think is bad batteries. Oh dear ... 

More pics tomorrow I expect.

Condolences...well, hopefully the rest is OK.

It was sold cheap as-is for parts not working. I only bought it for parts and not expecting to restore it. If it was something I wanted to use or had a chance of being a restoration candidate I might have changed my mind. But it isn't looking that way and that will be OK. I'll salvage the good parts as I had planned and they will go to a deserving TEA item or to someone else who needs a knob or other hp part.

[Neper]

Previously, it was a different time.

It certainly was and I'm glad I got out of it all soon enough while radio still was Telefunken tape machines, EMT record players, and Neumann consoles.