Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mansaxel]

What schematic capture / CAD software do you guys and girls use when designing stuff to be made by JLCPCB?

KiCAD. I've, to be honest, not tried anything else, so don't know what I'm missing. But the price is certainly attractive. It's not let me down; while there are obvioulsy weak sides in component libraries, they seem to be possible to fix.

[Specmaster]

dissection of the wikipedia history page

Why not take a look at the original adverts,plenty of 1974 mags online to chose from,for those in the uk corner https://worldradiohistory.com/Everyday_Electronics.htm

gurgling for "wireless world" "sinclair scientific" leads to https://worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-UK/Technology/Technology-All-Eras/Archive-Wireless-World-IDX/70s/Wireless-World-1974-07-OCR-Page-0063.pdf

That's a 1 page PDF of the full page advert. July 1974. £49 (+VAT)

So £49 plus VAT was the price for the built one, no mention at that stage of the kit version, but typically his kits ended up around the £5 mark cheaper.  Thanks for the link anyway, I think that we today owe a lot to his penny-pinching methods, without him or someone of a similar approach, we would be paying far more today for our electronic gear and gadgets. Even Dave has had a run in with his worst invention, the C5 and he seemed to have fun. EEVblog #501, #604 and #1419 and there are a few others where he talks about Sinclair. 

[mansaxel]

Distrelec is quite good, but of course expensive. Since they shut their store down in Stockholm, I see 0 reason to shop from them.

The ELFA shop in Solna is no more?



End of an era, etc, etc...

Yes, it's a shame. But it apparently was not financially viable. My biggest gripe is that I was unaware of it happening, there must have been  glorious deals to be had at the end.

Checking the trade rags, yes, there was. (Link in Swedish, which grizewald does at least write   -- the rest of you lot will have to deal with it.)

[VK5RC]

OK not quite TE but maybe in the future.....
I like the form factor - nice sharp display, battery, mike and speaker in a small package, M5 Core2. Someone has done the hard work to use as a spectral display for some Ham tranceivers plus other 'stuff'

[grizewald]

OMG, what have I done  , I just said yes to my first RPN calculator, so its official then, I'm either about to or I've joined the dark side, may the force with you be.
Incoming soon is a HP17BII and a HP10BII to keep my other HP10BII+ calculator company, making my HP collection upto 3.

I too have been turned to the dark side...



Even after all these decades of using calculators with an = key, after about 10 minutes using RPN, it just went "click". I totally get it!!

[Squarewave]

Meanwhile, in a Facebook vintage electronics group, these photos were posted today of this person's collection of meters and test gear, impressive or what?

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.

I like collecting the rare Avos. Think I have most of them apart from the first ever one made.

[grizewald]

Yes, it's a shame. But it apparently was not financially viable. My biggest gripe is that I was unaware of it happening, there must have been  glorious deals to be had at the end.

Same here! When they had the occasional clear out, you could get things for sensible prices. The final closing sale could have been epic.

(Link in Swedish, which grizewald does at least write   -- the rest of you lot will have to deal with it.)

Hopefully not too painfully. I realised that if I don't force myself to write Swedish, I'll never get any better at it.

[Specmaster]

Meanwhile, in a Facebook vintage electronics group, these photos were posted today of this person's collection of meters and test gear, impressive or what?

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.

I like collecting the rare Avos. Think I have most of them apart from the first ever one made.

Wow, thats a fair few meters you have then, I have 4 fully working ones and somewhere in my pile I have a parts mule. I don't have enough room or since I retired, enough bread to collect much more unless I'm extremely clever at ferenging, which I'm slowly getting better at. 

[mansaxel]

OMG, what have I done  , I just said yes to my first RPN calculator, so its official then, I'm either about to or I've joined the dark side, may the force with you be.
Incoming soon is a HP17BII and a HP10BII to keep my other HP10BII+ calculator company, making my HP collection upto 3.

I too have been turned to the dark side...



Even after all these decades of using calculators with an = key, after about 10 minutes using RPN, it just went "click". I totally get it!!

I'm not at all, in my opinion, a maths person, mostly from lack of training and not keeping the skillset current. (I've been told, much to my surprise, that I actually understand things. This seems strange to me. Anyway.) 

I, who still have my first scientific calc, a Sharp "=" one, "got it" totally after quite a short time with the hp 42 emulators and of course 'dc', and the arrival of a DM42 made it all obvious. On the computer, I usually only go for 'bc' (which is = style) when I need the maths lib; that is missing in 'dc'. Or I haven't found it 

[tggzzz]

Even after all these decades of using calculators with an = key, after about 10 minutes using RPN, it just went "click". I totally get it!!

I like the mentality of gathering all the operands, then operating on them. In the same way I gather all the components on my desk, and only then start soldering them into the circuit.

Plus the x<>y key allows you to double check what you are about to do, before you do it.

Plus you don't have to remember (and take in to account) what answer 1+2*3= gives on this type of calculator.

[Specmaster]

Talking about the dark side, my ticket to that is coming via Evri  what could possibly go wrong. Its currently being sorted at the sellers local depot.

[Zenith]

dissection of the wikipedia history page

Why not take a look at the original adverts,plenty of 1974 mags online to chose from,for those in the uk corner https://worldradiohistory.com/Everyday_Electronics.htm

gurgling for "wireless world" "sinclair scientific" leads to https://worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-UK/Technology/Technology-All-Eras/Archive-Wireless-World-IDX/70s/Wireless-World-1974-07-OCR-Page-0063.pdf

That's a 1 page PDF of the full page advert. July 1974. £49 (+VAT)

So £49 plus VAT was the price for the built one, no mention at that stage of the kit version, but typically his kits ended up around the £5 mark cheaper.  Thanks for the link anyway, I think that we today owe a lot to his penny-pinching methods, without him or someone of a similar approach, we would be paying far more today for our electronic gear and gadgets. Even Dave has had a run in with his worst invention, the C5 and he seemed to have fun. EEVblog #501, #604 and #1419 and there are a few others where he talks about Sinclair.

I'm not so sure. TI pushed HP off their perch with calculators. Sinclair produced a lot of stuff which was gee whizz and caught the popular drift. It was cheap (and tacky). There was usually something innovative about his products. He wasn't a total con man, but he was getting on that way, e.g. with the microdrive.

Better examples of people who broke cozy cartels by introducing a cheaper product are John Bloom (washing machines) and Freddy Laker (air travel).

[mnementh]

What schematic capture / CAD software do you guys and girls use when designing stuff to be made by JLCPCB?

KiCAD. I've, to be honest, not tried anything else, so don't know what I'm missing. But the price is certainly attractive. It's not let me down; while there are obviously weak sides in component libraries, they seem to be possible to fix.

I survived 3 versions of Eagle. Somehow, my testicles recovered from being ground into a fine paste threee different ways.

mnem
Then I got married.

[grizewald]

Even after all these decades of using calculators with an = key, after about 10 minutes using RPN, it just went "click". I totally get it!!

I like the mentality of gathering all the operands, then operating on them. In the same way I gather all the components on my desk, and only then start soldering them into the circuit.

And that's totally why RPN works. I realised very quickly that using RPN is actually the way we were taught to do things at school. You wrote down the first operand, then wrote the second one underneath it and the operation you were doing to the right of that. Then you proceeded to apply your operator to the rows and columns of digits, writing down the answer underneath.
Not an = sign in sight!

[Specmaster]

What schematic capture / CAD software do you guys and girls use when designing stuff to be made by JLCPCB?

KiCAD. I've, to be honest, not tried anything else, so don't know what I'm missing. But the price is certainly attractive. It's not let me down; while there are obviously weak sides in component libraries, they seem to be possible to fix.

I survived 3 versions of Eagle. Somehow, my testicles recovered from being ground into a fine paste threee different ways.

mnem
Then I got married.

And thats when you discovered a fourth way of achieving the same result 

[bd139]

Message to gnif. The calculator discussion is important. This is essential test gear meme material as well in this thread. Please don’t delete as its not off topic.

[mnementh]

What schematic capture / CAD software do you guys and girls use when designing stuff to be made by JLCPCB?

KiCAD. I've, to be honest, not tried anything else, so don't know what I'm missing. But the price is certainly attractive. It's not let me down; while there are obviously weak sides in component libraries, they seem to be possible to fix.

I survived 3 versions of Eagle. Somehow, my testicles recovered from being ground into a fine paste threee different ways.

mnem
Then I got married.

And thats when you discovered a fourth way of achieving the same result 

b-b-b-b-but.... I like when she does it!

mnem

[mnementh]

dissection of the wikipedia history page

Why not take a look at the original adverts,plenty of 1974 mags online to chose from,for those in the uk corner https://worldradiohistory.com/Everyday_Electronics.htm

gurgling for "wireless world" "sinclair scientific" leads to https://worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-UK/Technology/Technology-All-Eras/Archive-Wireless-World-IDX/70s/Wireless-World-1974-07-OCR-Page-0063.pdf

That's a 1 page PDF of the full page advert. July 1974. £49 (+VAT)

So £49 plus VAT was the price for the built one, no mention at that stage of the kit version, but typically his kits ended up around the £5 mark cheaper.  Thanks for the link anyway, I think that we today owe a lot to his penny-pinching methods, without him or someone of a similar approach, we would be paying far more today for our electronic gear and gadgets. Even Dave has had a run in with his worst invention, the C5 and he seemed to have fun. EEVblog #501, #604 and #1419 and there are a few others where he talks about Sinclair.

I'm not so sure. TI pushed HP off their perch with calculators. Sinclair produced a lot of stuff which was gee whizz and caught the popular drift. It was cheap (and tacky). There was usually something innovative about his products. He wasn't a total con man, but he was getting on that way, e.g. with the microdrive.

Better examples of people who broke cozy cartels by introducing a cheaper product are John Bloom (washing machines) and Freddy Laker (air travel).

I loved microdrives! Well, not to store information, but the same way some people love auto-wind wristwatches. Tiny electromechanical enginerdery just for the sake of being tiny!

mnem
...and it has nothing to do with the fact I made a freaking mint fixing microdrive-equipped iPods back in the day...

[Cerebus]

I loved microdrives! Well, not to store information, but the same way some people love auto-wind wristwatches. Tiny electromechanical enginerdery just for the sake of being tiny!

mnem
...and it has nothing to do with the fact I made a freaking mint fixing microdrive-equipped iPods back in the day...

The microdrives being refered to are the dread Sinclair microdrives



I suspect you're referring to something else. 1" HDDs?

[Zenith]

I loved microdrives! Well, not to store information, but the same way some people love auto-wind wristwatches. Tiny electromechanical enginerdery just for the sake of being tiny!

mnem
...and it has nothing to do with the fact I made a freaking mint fixing microdrive-equipped iPods back in the day...

There may be some confusion here. The Sinclair Microdrive came out in 1983, a bit before iPods. It was an alternative to floppy discs. I recall they had a continuous tape loop. Hard drives were an impossible luxury for owners of microcomputers back then.

It was advertised and people paid for them and had to wait about six months for them to turn up. When they turned up, they were slow and not very reliable.

http://retro8bitcomputers.co.uk/Sinclair/ZXMicrodrive

[Cerebus]

I loved microdrives! Well, not to store information, but the same way some people love auto-wind wristwatches. Tiny electromechanical enginerdery just for the sake of being tiny!

mnem
...and it has nothing to do with the fact I made a freaking mint fixing microdrive-equipped iPods back in the day...

There may be some confusion here. The Sinclair Microdrive came out in 1983, a bit before iPods. It was an alternative to floppy discs. I recall they had a continuous tape loop. Hard drives were an impossible luxury for owners of microcomputers back then.

It was advertised and people paid for them and had to wait about six months for them to turn up. When they turned up, they were slow and not very reliable.

http://retro8bitcomputers.co.uk/Sinclair/ZXMicrodrive

I once had to help out a poor fool who had bought a Sinclair QL complete with microdrives to run financial analyses on the Student Union's finances using the QLs spreadsheet (the name of which escapes me). Loading a small stored spreadsheet from a microdrive gave you ample time to wonder off and have a cup of coffee, saving it did the same too. A paper tape punch and reader would have been faster, and probably more reliable too. I'm not sure that the aforesaid poor fool actually saved any time in aggregate versus doing the same analysis with pen and paper.

I don't know whether technically this was how it worked, but judging from watching it in operation, pretty much every file operation seemed to require the tape to run through a full cycle beginning to end. If that's correct it would explain the terrible reliability (both witnessed and reputed) as making the whole tape pass though the mechanism for every file operation would be a massive hit in that regard.

[med6753]

Message to gnif. The calculator discussion is important. This is essential test gear meme material as well in this thread. Please don’t delete as its not off topic.

It seems the application of what is or is not OT is arbitrary and somewhat heavy handed just as some have feared. One of my posts today was deleted and it was basically an inquiry of what was posted prior and that original post remains present. Apparently what is or is not off topic going forward is going to be a moving target and purely discretionary and you won't know if you crossed the line until you get whacked like I did. 

I guess being one of the largest and most active contributor to TE content on this thread carries no weight, does it?       

[bd139]

Message to gnif. The calculator discussion is important. This is essential test gear meme material as well in this thread. Please don’t delete as its not off topic.

It seems the application of what is or is not OT is arbitrary and somewhat heavy handed just as some have feared. One of my posts today was deleted and it was basically an inquiry of what was posted prior and that original post remains present. Apparently what is or is not off topic going forward is going to be a moving target and purely discretionary and you won't know if you crossed the line until you get whacked like I did. 

I guess being one of the largest and most active contributor to TE content on this thread carries no weight, does it?     

I dunno perhaps we should charge for our contributions after all the key metric in this ecosystem is attention dynamics and not content 

Ferengi mode off.

[med6753]

Message to gnif. The calculator discussion is important. This is essential test gear meme material as well in this thread. Please don’t delete as its not off topic.

It seems the application of what is or is not OT is arbitrary and somewhat heavy handed just as some have feared. One of my posts today was deleted and it was basically an inquiry of what was posted prior and that original post remains present. Apparently what is or is not off topic going forward is going to be a moving target and purely discretionary and you won't know if you crossed the line until you get whacked like I did. 

I guess being one of the largest and most active contributor to TE content on this thread carries no weight, does it?     

I dunno perhaps we should charge for our contributions after all the key metric in this ecosystem is attention dynamics and not content 

Ferengi mode off.

I'm not quite sure what you just said but sounds good to me. 

[tautech]

Message to gnif. The calculator discussion is important. This is essential test gear meme material as well in this thread. Please don’t delete as its not off topic.

It seems the application of what is or is not OT is arbitrary and somewhat heavy handed just as some have feared. One of my posts today was deleted and it was basically an inquiry of what was posted prior and that original post remains present. Apparently what is or is not off topic going forward is going to be a moving target and purely discretionary and you won't know if you crossed the line until you get whacked like I did. 

I guess being one of the largest and most active contributor to TE content on this thread carries no weight, does it?     

I dunno perhaps we should charge for our contributions after all the key metric in this ecosystem is attention dynamics and not content 

Ferengi mode off.

I'm not quite sure what you just said but sounds good to me. 

Some moderation is petty and not properly thought out like one a few days back in the GC board when gnif jumped in and locked the thread which removes the ability to report even the mod but at least he acknowledged a PM I sent and although not unlocking the thread did amend his last post with info I'd sent him.
However to let the topic get properly fleshed out he could've edited the topic title for it not to be so divisive/inflammatory/click bait and left a warning to keep OT.

Once we had dedicated and pinned threads in the Supporter Lounge to discuss such stuff......