Thank you all so much for the amazing comments! To answer a question that many have had, and it's a good one for sure, what happens if they input a modern date? Or rather, is the machine Y2K compliant? Interestingly, the Centurion doesn't seem to care at all. It treats the year as just a two digit number, and near as I can tell, nothing adverse happens if you drop in "23" as the year instead of "84". However, if you let the machine roll over from 1999 to 2000, it does actually break. That's because the 10's digit was never programmed to actually roll around to 0 again, so it instead just counts up to the next ASCII character, which breaks the date. Best way around this that I can see is to simply turn the machine off on New Years and make sure it's off during the rollover. Now, there might be some issues within applications of some files having dates older than others, but we haven't tested that deeply yet to figure exactly where it's lacking. Sounds like it's time to spend some more time in Meisaka's emulator!
FYI - The lady in the black & white picture is Rena. Rena was the secretary to the VP of engineering. The Centurion hardware is a CPU4 floppy system with CDC 9316 matrix printer and ADDS terminal. This picture was taken around 1977.
Dear David, For the first time in many, many years, I've left a comment on a TH-cam video. I consider myself just a beginner in programming, but I've always been fascinated by old technology. Let me be clear: I can only grasp a small part of what you explain in each video. However, your enthusiasm, passion, and curiosity keep me glued to the screen until the end of every episode. I wish I could have half of your understanding of electronics and even a fraction of your skills in craftsmanship. It's almost magical to watch you work with those ancient systems, debugging, fixing, and improving them in such creative ways. Whenever my mind feels clouded with some issue, watching you work is like therapy. Thank you so much for sharing your adventures with us. On behalf of, I'm sure, a vast legion of silent watchers, please, keep going!
Thank you so much! I'm honestly just a beginner at all of this as well, mostly feeling and guessing my way through problems. Fortunately, I'm just too stubborn to give up and that gets me through most of the time, haha. It means a ton to hear that you're not only enjoying the videos but also finding some inspiration in them!
in poland this style of switches is called ISOSTAT and you can still buy them in almost any electronic store , in europe the biggest online store would be TME so by looking there you can find something that also avalable in mauser C&K G003A , i am not sure about diameter of yyour oryginals , those are black plastic covers 6,25mm diameter, 9mm tall
and also mauser has entire switch cap serction and the stem is standarised so anything that looks the part should fit the only problem is they never tell you how long or wide they are unless they have datasheet, this is how universal those round buttons aremauser have also 10,5mm tall and 8,8mm wide caps but for some reason they list them as 3,3mm made by e-switch
It all had to come apart after the initial mockup for final installation, so I took that opportunity to give everything a good cleaning and wipe down and ensure that no metal pieces ended up where they shouldn't have been!
When you reinstall the Butler Tech Centurion check the serial cable (for Red or Yellow heat shrink tubing) from the 4-Port MUX to the ADDS terminal. The serial cables built by Centurion had color coded heat shrink tubing on each end of the cable near the connectors. Red = RS-232 Yellow = 20ma Current Loop and a Black was RS-232 for the TI-810 serial printer.
When it comes to that welcome message, you might want to be more specific about what an "appropriate date" is. Most people aren't going to think "Pretend it's 1984" :)
For that, I’d recommend resin printing. Then the printing artefacts will be so minor as to be super easy to remove. FFF printing which is what I do takes a fair amount of effort to remove the lines if so desired.
One of these days, I'll learn how to 3D print stuff. Although, as Rikki said, 3D printing replicas would be an awesome project for the students at Butler Tech!
@@UsagiElectric Great idea! I suspect that you can find students that would be happy to take on this task. You could do it but there is a learning curve and it might distract you from other projects like these computers.
Oh yeah, the physical write protect of the Hawk drive is one of my favorite features! I can test weird things out in software without worry of destroying any data. More drive should have a write protect button!
@@nikkiofthevalley But unfortunately, with those, you need to physically remove them (and possibly unmount and remount the filesystem) to access the switch. Also it's really easy to accidentally move the switch when inserting or removing them.
It looks like a replacement for the push button cap could be quickly fabricated from a piece of wooden dowel. Drill a hole in one end. Sand or grind the other end to round it. Paint or just leave "natural."
If it helps any, it's ok and preferable to give viewers updates before a project is completed. Don't force yourself into any more anxiety you already have. The computer may be irreplaceable but YOU are even more so! Don't underestimate your importance. Your mental health is not a trivial thing, it really can suffer from additional constraints you set on yourself. We are happy to hear about whatever your progress is and follow though its thorny process with you. Your voice sometimes gets quite strained - please take care of yourself and please be well!
Thank you so much! As a little behind the scenes, the voice straining is sometimes due to me having to say the same thing over and over because I keep stumbling on my words, haha. But, in this one, I wasn't frustrated because I was running out of time, I was frustrated because something that I was certain was working, wasn't and that threw a wrench into my plans. That's the nature of the beast though, and now I'm quite excited to take a proper deep dive into the Power Supply, as its quite interesting!
@@UsagiElectric Ah, that's good to hear! This is a very common feeling when trying to repair something. "I thought at least THIS damn thing has nowhere to fail, why doesn't it work?!". (and then you find a tiny crack across PCB that somehow only effected a small area of it, or a seemingly normal wire that is broken in the middle) Don't be discouraged - if you work methodically and eliminate possibilities one by one you will eventually get there. (and you should - such a high wattage PSU with a dead rail is rather scary to me - you never know what could be causing the issue and what consequences may be if it isn't fixed) At the very least you can get an interesting video out of your - we are in fact interested in what is it you did and how you got there, even if you think it would dull to see your mistakes or slow progress. And like most of the people here, I'm always excited for your videos whether joyous or sad. Good luck!
@@UsagiElectricI’ll second the original comment from @jwhite but you know what I learned too. Just sleep on it. It’s amazing how much better things go after rest and fresh eyes! Don’t worry about us, we’re with you all the way!
I had a HP 4274A LCR meter stump me like that. Came in with fried transformer. Replaced transformer... Smoking zener, replaced. Pulled cards till I got under 1 amp total draw. I never found anything wrong with ANY of the cards. Gave up on it, put it back on the shelf. 3-4 days later got it down and pulled every single card. Put'em all in antistatic bags and labeled them. They were about to go on ePay. I still had low voltage on +12v rail. Removed the backpane and viola! +12v @ PSU. It was an unseen capacitor on the backpane that shorted. I replaced both +12v and -12v caps on backpane and shes a winner. I'd say play pinball for a few days and have some good R&R. It'll be obvious when you come back.
System Source, Butler Tech, Curious Marc... it's nice to see The Usagi Network continuing to grow. It's also nice to see the vintage hardware moving round to where it's wanted. :)
I loved those little configurable switches, I never even realized they had been discontinued. There is (was) also a bracket available for them with a sliding bar that would fit into that little latching mechanism, you could mount several switches in a row with that bar joining them, and it would make "radio buttons" such that pushing one in would slide that metal bar over and unlatch the rest, then a spring would pull the bar back and latch in the one you had pressed.
When a project is being stubborn and exceedingly difficult, stepping away and giving the kitty pets-n-love while listening to their purr makes all the difference in the world! You'll figure it out. I got faith in you! :-)
An unfinished project/video!?!?! I quit expecting perfection from David! I never did expect perfection, so I can relax even more 🙂 David no matter what, your excitement, thoroughness and knowledge are wonderful!
Very true! It could have been far more catastrophic for sure. Although, I'm starting to hone in on the fault, and it's quite an interesting and not super simple one. I'm quite excited about that!
Before you go too crazy, try putting a load on the 24V rail. Also try a small load on the 5V rail. Sometimes one or the other is required for a regulator to work. Twiddle/lubricate the 24V adj as well. Also, what is an appropriate date? Are you sayin' this bad boy is y2K compliant????
A couple of steps ahead of you on those, haha. It's a failure in the regulation circuit of the 723 IC. We have it narrowed down two a few transistors and diodes. It 's a super interesting failure mode though! The Centurion isn't exactly Y2K un-compliant! It treats years as just two digit numbers, which means you can put pretty much whatever year you want in. The main problem comes if you let it roll over from 99 to 00. The 10's digit wasn't engineered to roll over in the code, so it just counts up to the next ASCII character, which can break the date format. Just make sure you turn it off New Years Eve and leave it off as the date rolls over and you're good!
I've been in the same situation multiple times pulling my hair out unable to get anywhere and nearly scrapping/smashing projects in the process, but after walking away from those projects for a day/week or two and then coming back to them, i had it all figured out and solved within minutes. More often than not, it turns out to be the one thing you were 100% dead set determined it just could not be, and thats what trips you up and leads you down rabbit holes, sometimes ending with a irreversably damaged system.
It's amazing what a good night of rest can do to figuring out a seemingly impossible problem! In this case, I'm already starting to hone in on the problem, and it's definitely an interesting and not super obvious one, which is quite exciting!
Happened to me two days ago trying to fix an early-90s VCR, thankfully without any lasting consequences. Task was simple enough, replace two mains filter caps in the PSU and replace the clock battery, a solder-type CR2032. Did all that, put everything back together, VCR refused to load a tape. It did notice I was inserting a tape but not doing anything beyond moving one lonely solenoid. Pulled both video PCBs back out and checked and re-checked all sorts of connections, nothing. I was super-frustrated and just as I decided to put the lid back on for the time being and call it a day I decided to revisit the one cable I'd moved earlier to make absolutely sure it wouldn't get caught in the loading mechanism. Lo and behold, the plug where that cable connected to the PSU board was completely loose! I plugged it back in and everything worked just fine.
While this is old tech you're re-treading ground not tread in 40 years by pretty much anyone, I say it's 100% understandable and not a bad thing to take a break from such an undertaking, if nothing just for your mental health. You'll get it! The centurion has waited years, it can wait a bit longer
I didn't think I could love you any more than I already did but 2:20 proved me wrong! 🤣🥰 Anyone who quotes my all-time favourite film goes to the "Adoration" level
This old stuff can really challenge you. Definitely keeps you off the street and out of trouble! Just kidding! But it will definitely chew up all your free time, especially when it doesn't play nice. Hope you are able to sort this out without too much grief. Wonderful to see what you have accomplished with these old systems. Definitely enjoy watching as you make these old machines work again.
I'm glad to see that you have a dyslexic keyboard like me. Those buttons could be make using round plastic rod of the right dimension. Drill a blind hole in them that is equal to the diagonal dimension of the button shaft. To lock them on cut a single ring off the end of a compression spring that has the correct wire diameter and bend radius to fit in the groove on the switch shaft. Then you need to make a groove on the inside of the new button to take the spring clip. It needs to be deep enough to allow the clip to expand enough to slide over the shaft.
UE, I wandered into your channel a few months ago and have gotten drawn in. The vintage tech is fascinating. But I think your process is more interesting. You take us on a journey with you, as you explore, analyze, solve problems. Thank you for sharing that, even when it doesn't reach a conclusion. I have learned a lot from the journeys but even more from the conclusions even when they weren't ideal. Thank you.
The collaboration between enthousiasts is heartwarming to see. Giving the students at Butler High School a fully working Centurion CPU 6 while securing yet another different project (CPU 5) to work on... :-) . In the mean time I have pretty much been a coach potato for the last week due to my 3rd Covid-19 infection :-| ... It's inspiring to see your work and I think it will give the push I need to resume work on my current electronics project when my brain fog clears again.
The floppy cabinet looks great! I was in the Discord server the other night while your guys were reversing the PSU 24 volt circuit the other night. Sad to see that it didn't pan out, though I'm sure you'll figure it out in the future!! Thanks for the updates! Toodles~
curious marc and his team are so kool ..those guys are the reason i also watch this channel ..you dont have to be a computer engineer to watch and get some great working knowledge of what you guys do ..thanks so much :)
I know how hard it is to leave something hanging, but without fail, return a day or few later and you'll make further progress. Gotta buff that scratch out too... ❤
The switches on the Centurion look almost exactly like ones I used recently to repair a 1980's Dragon 32 computer (from Wales). They were C&K series F switches. They are available from DigiKey and Mouser as well as other suppliers. Keep up the good work!
Probably take a piece of black plastic rod that’s the right diameter, drill a hole in the end and use that for the button cover. Or, could be a fun machine shop project. Be an easy enough task to turn a few on a lathe
Your projects are all awesome David. Super interesting to watch, you make great valuable content. I never take it for granted or expect a project you want to do a video about will finish at the end of the video. Maybe it would give you more peace of mind if you put that final piece at the beginning of the next video. I wouldn't mind that at all but you may think differently. Anyways, take care of yourself.
That is like an OLIVETTI BCS3030, the duel floppy unit would have a mains powered motor which drives both drives via belts and pulleys and shaft with two pulleys,the printer would be a bidirectional printer don't know why the keyboard isn't part of the desk, it used packages like lexapk,ledgapk,repapk and other apk files.
Got a box of buttons for the switches. Use them for a standard ITT Shadow switches in that form factor with contacts from DPDTx2 to like DPDTx12. Got black and silver. Let me know where to send.
Niiiiiiiiice progress on the Butler Tech one. I love the newcomer instructions. Nice jigsaw technique on the floppy drive hole. I'd probably use the angle grinder problem causer myself, dremel or file at the corners. "Reverse engineering process that is getting slightly out of hand" haha, that's true on ALL vintage electronics reverse engineering, isn't it? So was it with my Soemtron and the PSR. I'm not sure if this is the case for you, but when I reverse engineer stuff, I tend to be curiosity driven and try to RE almost everything, not just the part I strictly need... A good temporal black hole. October 23rd - 54 years before the nuclear war, haha! Going through Philly, eh? You really need to visit FranLab then. Give my best to her... again! I guess Rinoa was somewhere around these parts too.
Thanks Keri! I avoided the angle grinder on the floppy cutout because I didn't want to melt or bubble the paint up, and the jigsaw cuts relatively cold compared to an angle grinder. Reverse Engineering the regulation circuit of the PSU has been quite interesting, and I'm learning a good deal about it for sure!
Those switches are super standard, they're even still made today. I picked up a bag of 5-way arrays a while back from the electronic bay, which has the first four ganged together in a multi-way selector (push one button and the currently selected one pops out), and the fifth is a regular toggle switch. The mounting rails are standardised, and you can get them with various spacing and pretty much any combination of switch layouts. You'll find them if you google interlock push button switch. The cap mounting posts are 3.3mm, so you should be able to find a button cap using the appropriate google-fu based on the dimensions of the original button caps.
As usual, some fascinating work and amazing progress here even if the 24v was a bit elusive - sounds like a fault that’s been there for a while that you’ve only uncovered with the new physical system configuration. With the buttons for the school system, I did wonder if the students themselves might be interested and able to fabricate something as it sounds like it’s a school with exactly those kinds of engineering facilities. Put a bit of the school back into the school’s antique computer. I think I saw you had the same thought in the earlier comments. Great work as always!
Curious Marc has a team. He's good, but he is also surrounded by very smart people like Ken sheriff. I consider every episode to end, unfinished. That is the nature of the Beast. The wang writer or the ti system might qualify as finished. The rest not so much yet. You'll get there.
I don't recall if the Centurion is y2k compliant, if not you should mention that in your startup message as well. Today's students weren't even born when y2k was a thing, so they don't even consider it.
I expect that the students at Butler Tech could machine a couple of buttons for the front panel in their amazing shop - an interesting project for them. Behind you at BT is a Coolermaster Elite 130 case - the exact one my gaming PC is built into. Having said that, it's about to be recased so I can fit a 7800XT
You pounded your brain pretty good already to get as far as you have. After sleeping on it, you'll most likely be able to troubleshoot the power supply circuitry as to why you don't have +24 volts, especially because there seems to be an adjustment to set it. It could be as mundane as a bad connection. This equipment hasn't exactly been stored all its life under museum conditions.
All of this movement of components has made me think: do you need to record this in a service manual. E.g. hawk exchanged into usagi electric centurion case? Also have you stamped the centurion case you made? That in itself is important for history.
Please take care when grinding. The spark from the wheel (or a welder) can melt into glass like a CRT face. A sheet of cardboard to protect ANY gloss surface in the line of fire is kind of mandatory.
Be cool if there was a live stream or similar for us non-stateside folks 😀I don't mind tuning in at silly o'clock and I'm sure there are lots of us who'd love to be there too! Thanks! Edit: LOL Insturction List 😀 Did you check that directory with Games in the name by the way?
I'm not sure how a live stream would be as I think it might be a bit chaotic with people kind of wandering freely all over the place. But I will be taking some footage while there and hopefully making a video! I did indeed check that file that had "games" in the name, but it was just an ASCII file that was blank. No clue what it was supposed to be, but it's empty as far as I can tell.
We use both, really. There's times when SI is more appropriate than American traditional, and vice-versa. For example, weather forecasts are more comprehensible in Fahrenheit because it's based on perceived temperature. But measurements on a small scale make more sense in millimeters than in mils (thousandths of an inch).
For the caps for the new push buttons, think outside the box, and look for things like appropriate caps from Sharpies that can be engineered into push button caps.
Given the proper dimensions, someone could 3D print those missing buttons with, preferably, black ABS (assuming the originals were black) so the printed buttons could be acetone vapor smoothed.
One of these days, I'm just gonna have to learn how to model and 3D print stuff. Although, that sounds like an awesome project for the students at Butler Tech!
@@UsagiElectric Sure, let them do it. Next time just you need something like that post the dimensions of the post and the button itself - making a model of something like that is VERY trivial to anyone who knows how it's done, and you can order it printed and mailed to you for an affordable rate, probably even locally. 3D-modelling is not a skill that is very hard to obtain these days but it needs some time to wrap your head around it IMO. As is a skill of configuring slicer and 3D-printer itself. If you are not particularly interested in learning all that it's quite alright to ask other people to do it for you.
Have you ever tested what the Centurion will do if somebody puts the correct year into it? Some non-Y2K-compatible systems failed when given a two digit year that was less than their year of creation.
Maybe there is some sort of interlock on the 24v on the original system which is not implemented in the bootleg system or has been disabled? Maybe like a pc psu it needs some draw on another voltage eg 5v in order to turn on the 24v?just a thought.
I am super curious. Are you dumping the drive contents to some sort of backup or modern drives, in case the drive gets corrupted? Or maybe so we (programmers) could have a Crack at writing an emulator for these mini computers?
I am indeed, so far we've backed up about 5 different Hawk drive platters, and I'm working on code to back up the Finch drive. We're a bit ahead of you though in that there is already an excellent emulator that can run the backed up disk images. I use it for confirmation and double checking of just about everything before heading out to turn the real machine on! Hop over to the Discord (link in the description above) and shoot me a message if you're curious and want to try your hand at the emulator!
CuriousMarc sets a _really high bar_ with the work that he does. In addition to being a super-genius with a well-equipped lab, it seems like his friends, fans, and cohorts are specialists in every vein of engineering. So, as much as I learn from CuriousMarc, I like your videos because they are approachable. Everything you're doing I could be doing with the tools I have here, or could easily obtain. (Indeed, I hope to be doing these things one day soon.) Also, while failure is equally as valuable as success in a learning scenario, precious little of it is shown here on TH-cam. That's bad for two reasons. For one, it disillusions the home hobbyist who can't replicate the success they see on TH-cam, meaning we get fewer people willing to try fixing these things. For two, it risks bespoke & fixable hardware being sent to the landfill, mis-diagnosed as "irrepairable." With that in mind, please keep doing what you're doing. I see you just released another video, and have queued it up next. 👍
@@KameraShy He was at VCF East this last year, that is why I asked if he was making that very long drive again. It was cool meeting his. I plan to attend VCF MW next September.
![PASULOL รามเกียรติ์ ตอนที่ 4 นนทกพบรัก [Ramakien Ep.4: Nonthok in love]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tMUQgmZzf_A/mqdefault.jpg)
Thank you all so much for the amazing comments!
To answer a question that many have had, and it's a good one for sure, what happens if they input a modern date? Or rather, is the machine Y2K compliant?
Interestingly, the Centurion doesn't seem to care at all. It treats the year as just a two digit number, and near as I can tell, nothing adverse happens if you drop in "23" as the year instead of "84". However, if you let the machine roll over from 1999 to 2000, it does actually break. That's because the 10's digit was never programmed to actually roll around to 0 again, so it instead just counts up to the next ASCII character, which breaks the date. Best way around this that I can see is to simply turn the machine off on New Years and make sure it's off during the rollover.
Now, there might be some issues within applications of some files having dates older than others, but we haven't tested that deeply yet to figure exactly where it's lacking. Sounds like it's time to spend some more time in Meisaka's emulator!
Nice to see the CDC drive made it back to Texas and so neatly installed at its righteous place in a Centurion! It’s HP brethren are tickled pink.
FYI - The lady in the black & white picture is Rena. Rena was the secretary to the VP of engineering. The Centurion hardware is a CPU4 floppy system with CDC 9316 matrix printer and ADDS terminal. This picture was taken around 1977.
I love that Bud used the staff as models for the promo shots. It's completely understandable though because Rena is absolutely stunning!
Dear David,
For the first time in many, many years, I've left a comment on a TH-cam video.
I consider myself just a beginner in programming, but I've always been fascinated by old technology.
Let me be clear: I can only grasp a small part of what you explain in each video. However, your enthusiasm, passion, and curiosity keep me glued to the screen until the end of every episode.
I wish I could have half of your understanding of electronics and even a fraction of your skills in craftsmanship.
It's almost magical to watch you work with those ancient systems, debugging, fixing, and improving them in such creative ways.
Whenever my mind feels clouded with some issue, watching you work is like therapy.
Thank you so much for sharing your adventures with us. On behalf of, I'm sure, a vast legion of silent watchers, please, keep going!
Thank you so much!
I'm honestly just a beginner at all of this as well, mostly feeling and guessing my way through problems. Fortunately, I'm just too stubborn to give up and that gets me through most of the time, haha.
It means a ton to hear that you're not only enjoying the videos but also finding some inspiration in them!
in poland this style of switches is called ISOSTAT and you can still buy them in almost any electronic store , in europe the biggest online store would be TME so by looking there you can find something that also avalable in mauser C&K G003A , i am not sure about diameter of yyour oryginals , those are black plastic covers 6,25mm diameter, 9mm tall
and also mauser has entire switch cap serction and the stem is standarised so anything that looks the part should fit the only problem is they never tell you how long or wide they are unless they have datasheet, this is how universal those round buttons aremauser have also 10,5mm tall and 8,8mm wide caps but for some reason they list them as 3,3mm made by e-switch
The switches are PBS-22H18-15-2 type and are readily available as are the knobs
Those metal shavings give me the worries around the spinning magnet boxes.
It all had to come apart after the initial mockup for final installation, so I took that opportunity to give everything a good cleaning and wipe down and ensure that no metal pieces ended up where they shouldn't have been!
No cool machine or wood shop stuff in my high school. Butler Tech looks awesome!
When you reinstall the Butler Tech Centurion check the serial cable (for Red or Yellow heat shrink tubing) from the 4-Port MUX to the ADDS terminal. The serial cables built by Centurion had color coded heat shrink tubing on each end of the cable near the connectors. Red = RS-232 Yellow = 20ma Current Loop and a Black was RS-232 for the TI-810 serial printer.
I love this channel because it’s such a roller coaster of successes and challenges.
When it comes to that welcome message, you might want to be more specific about what an "appropriate date" is. Most people aren't going to think "Pretend it's 1984" :)
A fair replica of the plastic buttons could be 3D printed if you could make a CAD of the remaining one.
Given that it is a technical school, it could be a wonderful project for students to do!
For that, I’d recommend resin printing. Then the printing artefacts will be so minor as to be super easy to remove. FFF printing which is what I do takes a fair amount of effort to remove the lines if so desired.
One of these days, I'll learn how to 3D print stuff. Although, as Rikki said, 3D printing replicas would be an awesome project for the students at Butler Tech!
@@UsagiElectricJust go for it, its easy to learn 🙂
@@UsagiElectric Great idea! I suspect that you can find students that would be happy to take on this task. You could do it but there is a learning curve and it might distract you from other projects like these computers.
I love that at 11:30 there's a hardware write protect button, and it has a light on/off, brilliant
Oh yeah, the physical write protect of the Hawk drive is one of my favorite features! I can test weird things out in software without worry of destroying any data. More drive should have a write protect button!
@@UsagiElectricIf I remember correctly, some (or all, I don't know) SD cards actually have a physical write protect switch built in.
@@nikkiofthevalley But unfortunately, with those, you need to physically remove them (and possibly unmount and remount the filesystem) to access the switch. Also it's really easy to accidentally move the switch when inserting or removing them.
It looks like a replacement for the push button cap could be quickly fabricated from a piece of wooden dowel. Drill a hole in one end. Sand or grind the other end to round it. Paint or just leave "natural."
If it helps any, it's ok and preferable to give viewers updates before a project is completed.
Don't force yourself into any more anxiety you already have.
The computer may be irreplaceable but YOU are even more so! Don't underestimate your importance.
Your mental health is not a trivial thing, it really can suffer from additional constraints you set on yourself.
We are happy to hear about whatever your progress is and follow though its thorny process with you.
Your voice sometimes gets quite strained - please take care of yourself and please be well!
Thank you so much!
As a little behind the scenes, the voice straining is sometimes due to me having to say the same thing over and over because I keep stumbling on my words, haha. But, in this one, I wasn't frustrated because I was running out of time, I was frustrated because something that I was certain was working, wasn't and that threw a wrench into my plans. That's the nature of the beast though, and now I'm quite excited to take a proper deep dive into the Power Supply, as its quite interesting!
@@UsagiElectric Ah, that's good to hear!
This is a very common feeling when trying to repair something. "I thought at least THIS damn thing has nowhere to fail, why doesn't it work?!". (and then you find a tiny crack across PCB that somehow only effected a small area of it, or a seemingly normal wire that is broken in the middle)
Don't be discouraged - if you work methodically and eliminate possibilities one by one you will eventually get there.
(and you should - such a high wattage PSU with a dead rail is rather scary to me - you never know what could be causing the issue and what consequences may be if it isn't fixed)
At the very least you can get an interesting video out of your - we are in fact interested in what is it you did and how you got there, even if you think it would dull to see your mistakes or slow progress.
And like most of the people here, I'm always excited for your videos whether joyous or sad.
Good luck!
I agree! I love watching but don't push yourself too hard!
@@jwhite5008 With any project problem, step back for a while and the solution will miraculously appear.
@@UsagiElectricI’ll second the original comment from @jwhite but you know what I learned too. Just sleep on it. It’s amazing how much better things go after rest and fresh eyes! Don’t worry about us, we’re with you all the way!
I had a HP 4274A LCR meter stump me like that. Came in with fried transformer. Replaced transformer... Smoking zener, replaced. Pulled cards till I got under 1 amp total draw. I never found anything wrong with ANY of the cards. Gave up on it, put it back on the shelf. 3-4 days later got it down and pulled every single card. Put'em all in antistatic bags and labeled them. They were about to go on ePay. I still had low voltage on +12v rail. Removed the backpane and viola! +12v @ PSU. It was an unseen capacitor on the backpane that shorted. I replaced both +12v and -12v caps on backpane and shes a winner. I'd say play pinball for a few days and have some good R&R. It'll be obvious when you come back.
System Source, Butler Tech, Curious Marc... it's nice to see The Usagi Network continuing to grow. It's also nice to see the vintage hardware moving round to where it's wanted. :)
I loved those little configurable switches, I never even realized they had been discontinued. There is (was) also a bracket available for them with a sliding bar that would fit into that little latching mechanism, you could mount several switches in a row with that bar joining them, and it would make "radio buttons" such that pushing one in would slide that metal bar over and unlatch the rest, then a spring would pull the bar back and latch in the one you had pressed.
When a project is being stubborn and exceedingly difficult, stepping away and giving the kitty pets-n-love while listening to their purr makes all the difference in the world! You'll figure it out. I got faith in you! :-)
An unfinished project/video!?!?!
I quit expecting perfection from David! I never did expect perfection, so I can relax even more 🙂
David no matter what, your excitement, thoroughness and knowledge are wonderful!
If all you need is 24VDC, that is a great problem to have compared with 99% of others. Interesting work you are doing.
Very true!
It could have been far more catastrophic for sure. Although, I'm starting to hone in on the fault, and it's quite an interesting and not super simple one. I'm quite excited about that!
The best part of the video is when he looks at the camera and says "I dont know."
Thats how i feel trying to understand this OS 😂
for the buttons... I recommend to print them using PLA (Black)
That actually sounds like an awesome project for the students at Butler Tech!
Before you go too crazy, try putting a load on the 24V rail. Also try a small load on the 5V rail. Sometimes one or the other is required for a regulator to work. Twiddle/lubricate the 24V adj as well. Also, what is an appropriate date? Are you sayin' this bad boy is y2K compliant????
A couple of steps ahead of you on those, haha.
It's a failure in the regulation circuit of the 723 IC. We have it narrowed down two a few transistors and diodes. It 's a super interesting failure mode though!
The Centurion isn't exactly Y2K un-compliant! It treats years as just two digit numbers, which means you can put pretty much whatever year you want in. The main problem comes if you let it roll over from 99 to 00. The 10's digit wasn't engineered to roll over in the code, so it just counts up to the next ASCII character, which can break the date format. Just make sure you turn it off New Years Eve and leave it off as the date rolls over and you're good!
I've been in the same situation multiple times pulling my hair out unable to get anywhere and nearly scrapping/smashing projects in the process, but after walking away from those projects for a day/week or two and then coming back to them, i had it all figured out and solved within minutes.
More often than not, it turns out to be the one thing you were 100% dead set determined it just could not be, and thats what trips you up and leads you down rabbit holes, sometimes ending with a irreversably damaged system.
It's amazing what a good night of rest can do to figuring out a seemingly impossible problem! In this case, I'm already starting to hone in on the problem, and it's definitely an interesting and not super obvious one, which is quite exciting!
Same. HP 4274A LCR meter. Pulling cards reduced excessive current draw but it wasn't the cards. It was the backpane they were all plugged into.
Happened to me two days ago trying to fix an early-90s VCR, thankfully without any lasting consequences. Task was simple enough, replace two mains filter caps in the PSU and replace the clock battery, a solder-type CR2032. Did all that, put everything back together, VCR refused to load a tape. It did notice I was inserting a tape but not doing anything beyond moving one lonely solenoid. Pulled both video PCBs back out and checked and re-checked all sorts of connections, nothing. I was super-frustrated and just as I decided to put the lid back on for the time being and call it a day I decided to revisit the one cable I'd moved earlier to make absolutely sure it wouldn't get caught in the loading mechanism. Lo and behold, the plug where that cable connected to the PSU board was completely loose! I plugged it back in and everything worked just fine.
I found a Quantum Q2030 drive yesterday, I freaked out for a second thinking it was a Finch drive. It has the same see through case as the Finch.
Those are really gorgeous 8-inch hard drives! You should totally snag it if you get the chance!
While this is old tech you're re-treading ground not tread in 40 years by pretty much anyone, I say it's 100% understandable and not a bad thing to take a break from such an undertaking, if nothing just for your mental health. You'll get it! The centurion has waited years, it can wait a bit longer
I didn't think I could love you any more than I already did but 2:20 proved me wrong! 🤣🥰
Anyone who quotes my all-time favourite film goes to the "Adoration" level
This old stuff can really challenge you. Definitely keeps you off the street and out of trouble! Just kidding! But it will definitely chew up all your free time, especially when it doesn't play nice. Hope you are able to sort this out without too much grief. Wonderful to see what you have accomplished with these old systems. Definitely enjoy watching as you make these old machines work again.
I am 4 months into a 1 month project i know exactly how you feel :)
I'm glad to see that you have a dyslexic keyboard like me.
Those buttons could be make using round plastic rod of the right dimension.
Drill a blind hole in them that is equal to the diagonal dimension of the button shaft.
To lock them on cut a single ring off the end of a compression spring that has the correct wire diameter and bend radius to fit in the groove on the switch shaft.
Then you need to make a groove on the inside of the new button to take the spring clip. It needs to be deep enough to allow the clip to expand enough to slide over the shaft.
I was thinking about the buttons and how great the support community is. Probably a bag full of buttons will show up. :)
Haha, I'm never opposed to having more toggle switches and pushbuttons on hand!
Oh I see you changed your route to avoid my home of Knoxville, real nice goin'!
UE, I wandered into your channel a few months ago and have gotten drawn in. The vintage tech is fascinating. But I think your process is more interesting. You take us on a journey with you, as you explore, analyze, solve problems. Thank you for sharing that, even when it doesn't reach a conclusion. I have learned a lot from the journeys but even more from the conclusions even when they weren't ideal. Thank you.
The collaboration between enthousiasts is heartwarming to see. Giving the students at Butler High School a fully working Centurion CPU 6 while securing yet another different project (CPU 5) to work on... :-) . In the mean time I have pretty much been a coach potato for the last week due to my 3rd Covid-19 infection :-| ... It's inspiring to see your work and I think it will give the push I need to resume work on my current electronics project when my brain fog clears again.
The work being done here is amazing. In addition the video editing is very high quality especially around the section explaining the schematics.
The floppy cabinet looks great! I was in the Discord server the other night while your guys were reversing the PSU 24 volt circuit the other night. Sad to see that it didn't pan out, though I'm sure you'll figure it out in the future!! Thanks for the updates! Toodles~
curious marc and his team are so kool ..those guys are the reason i also watch this channel ..you dont have to be a computer engineer to watch and get some great working knowledge of what you guys do ..thanks so much :)
I'll see you in Maryland! Can't wait to check out the G-15!
I know how hard it is to leave something hanging, but without fail, return a day or few later and you'll make further progress. Gotta buff that scratch out too... ❤
The switches on the Centurion look almost exactly like ones I used recently to repair a 1980's Dragon 32 computer (from Wales). They were C&K series F switches. They are available from DigiKey and Mouser as well as other suppliers. Keep up the good work!
No worries about not being finished yet buddy. The way you deal with things with such patience has taught me a lot with my projects!
Probably take a piece of black plastic rod that’s the right diameter, drill a hole in the end and use that for the button cover.
Or, could be a fun machine shop project. Be an easy enough task to turn a few on a lathe
I really enjoy your videos. Too bad I live in Finland, so it would be too expensive to visit that System Source Museum.
(As a coder) I am stunned that 99% of time you DO scope a project perfectly for an episode! You are doing great man.
Your projects are all awesome David. Super interesting to watch, you make great valuable content. I never take it for granted or expect a project you want to do a video about will finish at the end of the video. Maybe it would give you more peace of mind if you put that final piece at the beginning of the next video. I wouldn't mind that at all but you may think differently. Anyways, take care of yourself.
That is like an OLIVETTI BCS3030, the duel floppy unit would have a mains powered motor which drives both drives via belts and pulleys and shaft with two pulleys,the printer would be a bidirectional printer don't know why the keyboard isn't part of the desk, it used packages like lexapk,ledgapk,repapk and other apk files.
Got a box of buttons for the switches. Use them for a standard ITT Shadow switches in that form factor with contacts from DPDTx2 to like DPDTx12. Got black and silver. Let me know where to send.
Niiiiiiiiice progress on the Butler Tech one. I love the newcomer instructions.
Nice jigsaw technique on the floppy drive hole. I'd probably use the angle grinder problem causer myself, dremel or file at the corners.
"Reverse engineering process that is getting slightly out of hand" haha, that's true on ALL vintage electronics reverse engineering, isn't it? So was it with my Soemtron and the PSR. I'm not sure if this is the case for you, but when I reverse engineer stuff, I tend to be curiosity driven and try to RE almost everything, not just the part I strictly need... A good temporal black hole.
October 23rd - 54 years before the nuclear war, haha!
Going through Philly, eh? You really need to visit FranLab then. Give my best to her... again! I guess Rinoa was somewhere around these parts too.
Thanks Keri!
I avoided the angle grinder on the floppy cutout because I didn't want to melt or bubble the paint up, and the jigsaw cuts relatively cold compared to an angle grinder.
Reverse Engineering the regulation circuit of the PSU has been quite interesting, and I'm learning a good deal about it for sure!
33:10 Inverting input = 0v means there is capacitor shorted to ground from output and its in short circuit protect
Those switches look like what was used in the TRS-80 Model I, maybe you can get some of the plastic buttons from a spare parts Model I CPU board.
Those switches are super standard, they're even still made today. I picked up a bag of 5-way arrays a while back from the electronic bay, which has the first four ganged together in a multi-way selector (push one button and the currently selected one pops out), and the fifth is a regular toggle switch. The mounting rails are standardised, and you can get them with various spacing and pretty much any combination of switch layouts.
You'll find them if you google interlock push button switch. The cap mounting posts are 3.3mm, so you should be able to find a button cap using the appropriate google-fu based on the dimensions of the original button caps.
"Divert a little but up to Cincinnati."
Thats not a little bit, thats at least half a day!
As usual, some fascinating work and amazing progress here even if the 24v was a bit elusive - sounds like a fault that’s been there for a while that you’ve only uncovered with the new physical system configuration.
With the buttons for the school system, I did wonder if the students themselves might be interested and able to fabricate something as it sounds like it’s a school with exactly those kinds of engineering facilities. Put a bit of the school back into the school’s antique computer. I think I saw you had the same thought in the earlier comments.
Great work as always!
Curious Marc has a team. He's good, but he is also surrounded by very smart people like Ken sheriff.
I consider every episode to end, unfinished. That is the nature of the Beast. The wang writer or the ti system might qualify as finished. The rest not so much yet. You'll get there.
You get a cleaner cut with the jigsaw cutting from underneath. Using tape did the trick, though
When computers attack!! Season premiere tonight at 10ET
"Man loves his computers... but what happens...when computers attack?!?
I don't recall if the Centurion is y2k compliant, if not you should mention that in your startup message as well. Today's students weren't even born when y2k was a thing, so they don't even consider it.
I expect that the students at Butler Tech could machine a couple of buttons for the front panel in their amazing shop - an interesting project for them. Behind you at BT is a Coolermaster Elite 130 case - the exact one my gaming PC is built into. Having said that, it's about to be recased so I can fit a 7800XT
Here's a really dumb question, but, have you checked to see if the 24V adjust is turned all the way down ?
(I told you it's a dumb question)
I like the "fuzzy therapy " at the end of your videos.
You pounded your brain pretty good already to get as far as you have. After sleeping on it, you'll most likely be able to troubleshoot the power supply circuitry as to why you don't have +24 volts, especially because there seems to be an adjustment to set it. It could be as mundane as a bad connection. This equipment hasn't exactly been stored all its life under museum conditions.
I wish I still had the desoldering iron I bought for my Dad a while back, those are nice
The plastic button looks like the top off a felt-tip marker pen.
All of this movement of components has made me think: do you need to record this in a service manual. E.g. hawk exchanged into usagi electric centurion case? Also have you stamped the centurion case you made? That in itself is important for history.
Please take care when grinding. The spark from the wheel (or a welder) can melt into glass like a CRT face. A sheet of cardboard to protect ANY gloss surface in the line of fire is kind of mandatory.
Be cool if there was a live stream or similar for us non-stateside folks 😀I don't mind tuning in at silly o'clock and I'm sure there are lots of us who'd love to be there too!
Thanks!
Edit: LOL Insturction List 😀
Did you check that directory with Games in the name by the way?
I'm not sure how a live stream would be as I think it might be a bit chaotic with people kind of wandering freely all over the place. But I will be taking some footage while there and hopefully making a video!
I did indeed check that file that had "games" in the name, but it was just an ASCII file that was blank. No clue what it was supposed to be, but it's empty as far as I can tell.
I assume you tried tweaking the 24V adjustment knob while reading the leads.
Coming through Columbus to Cincy? You'll be driving right by me. Wave Hi as you drive past!!
Those students are lucky to have you!
Howd you put that large scratch on the rack face? 😮
It was messing with my OCD the whole episode! 😂
Did you test the 24V power supply under load?
My head cannon is that you wanted to make the title "The Centurion Bytes Back!" and decided against it
I like and respect old school guys with historical computers of my age ....
I had to do a double take when I saw you measuring there... guy in the heart of America using metric measurements? Absolutely based. I approve.
We use both, really. There's times when SI is more appropriate than American traditional, and vice-versa. For example, weather forecasts are more comprehensible in Fahrenheit because it's based on perceived temperature. But measurements on a small scale make more sense in millimeters than in mils (thousandths of an inch).
For the caps for the new push buttons, think outside the box, and look for things like appropriate caps from Sharpies that can be engineered into push button caps.
The missing momentary switch black caps looks like a job for a 3D printer?
Lol... I answer emails all day long for a laser software company... and I still misspell appropriate an inappropriate amount of times per week.
Could people get at the school design and print replacement buttons? could be a student project
Given the proper dimensions, someone could 3D print those missing buttons with, preferably, black ABS (assuming the originals were black) so the printed buttons could be acetone vapor smoothed.
or you can get polysmooth PLA and use alcohol smoothing as an alternate.
One of these days, I'm just gonna have to learn how to model and 3D print stuff. Although, that sounds like an awesome project for the students at Butler Tech!
@@UsagiElectric Sure, let them do it.
Next time just you need something like that post the dimensions of the post and the button itself - making a model of something like that is VERY trivial to anyone who knows how it's done, and you can order it printed and mailed to you for an affordable rate, probably even locally.
3D-modelling is not a skill that is very hard to obtain these days but it needs some time to wrap your head around it IMO. As is a skill of configuring slicer and 3D-printer itself. If you are not particularly interested in learning all that it's quite alright to ask other people to do it for you.
Could 3d print the button covers. =D
Just want to bring up - make sure everything is grounded correctly.
Love your videos!
Damn, I'll be flying back to Philly from ROSCon + PX4 DevCon that day... :( Otherwise I totally would have come for the Open House!
You are looking for Alps Alpine Black Modular Switch Cap?
Have you ever tested what the Centurion will do if somebody puts the correct year into it? Some non-Y2K-compatible systems failed when given a two digit year that was less than their year of creation.
Have the highschool kids model and 3d print the replacement switches.
"Once mounted, I immediately had sagging and stability issues." Story of my life.
Maybe there is some sort of interlock on the 24v on the original system which is not implemented in the bootleg system or has been disabled? Maybe like a pc psu it needs some draw on another voltage eg 5v in order to turn on the 24v?just a thought.
Regarding the plastic buttons: I’m sure a 3D printer would be fine given you have a sample one on the board. Perhaps a project for the students?
I am super curious. Are you dumping the drive contents to some sort of backup or modern drives, in case the drive gets corrupted? Or maybe so we (programmers) could have a Crack at writing an emulator for these mini computers?
I am indeed, so far we've backed up about 5 different Hawk drive platters, and I'm working on code to back up the Finch drive. We're a bit ahead of you though in that there is already an excellent emulator that can run the backed up disk images. I use it for confirmation and double checking of just about everything before heading out to turn the real machine on!
Hop over to the Discord (link in the description above) and shoot me a message if you're curious and want to try your hand at the emulator!
Колпачки можно сделать из колпачков фломастеров 🙂
Who let that guy in the hat at 5:00 into the video? 😆
I have it on pretty good authority that he's an absolute legend!
Hey dude, did you know there's plastic razor blades? Don't know if they'd be preferable to you, just wanted to drop the tip in case that it is.
"Appropriate date and time" might have the kids entering the current date and time, instead of 08/23/84.
Those power switches look awfully similar to what is used for power and reset on the NES.
19:15 Looks like an easy part to 3D print?
CuriousMarc sets a _really high bar_ with the work that he does. In addition to being a super-genius with a well-equipped lab, it seems like his friends, fans, and cohorts are specialists in every vein of engineering. So, as much as I learn from CuriousMarc, I like your videos because they are approachable. Everything you're doing I could be doing with the tools I have here, or could easily obtain. (Indeed, I hope to be doing these things one day soon.)
Also, while failure is equally as valuable as success in a learning scenario, precious little of it is shown here on TH-cam. That's bad for two reasons. For one, it disillusions the home hobbyist who can't replicate the success they see on TH-cam, meaning we get fewer people willing to try fixing these things. For two, it risks bespoke & fixable hardware being sent to the landfill, mis-diagnosed as "irrepairable." With that in mind, please keep doing what you're doing. I see you just released another video, and have queued it up next. 👍
Are you planning to come up to VCF East next year? Did I hear that's in early May of 2024?
Fantastic job on the drawer; wow!
When you are in Cincinnati, look up A-HI Computer and Electronics. Alan has three floors of old PC items.
How about VCF Midwest?
@@KameraShy He was at VCF East this last year, that is why I asked if he was making that very long drive again. It was cool meeting his. I plan to attend VCF MW next September.
I would love to be a fly in the wall fair to San Francisco trip.