What mysterious retro goodies can we find inside these boxes?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 พ.ค. 2024
- Part 1 of ?? As a new year's resolution, I've decided it's time to declutter my office. That means I need to go through and sort the contents of about 7 or 8 Banker's boxes. The boxes are filled the brim with old computer parts and other interesting items, so I think we should be able to find some fascinating and interesting old items.
0:00 Intro
2:50 Treasure hunting in Box 1
45:49 ESDI Cachecard testing
47:19 CPU testing
56:18 Intel Aboveboard setup and testing
1:07:35 ESAM's Cognitive Learning Testing C64
-- Info
Intel Aboveboard Plus Classic?
Compuadd Inc. ESDI Hardcache
Metrabyte Corp. DDA-06 by Keithley
ESAM's Kee
ESAM's Cognitive Learning System
C-1120-0A V 1.0
ESAM's Memory
Switch Training
C-1300-0A V 1.0
Curve Tracer Model A by Jud Williams
-- Links
Intel Above Board drivers (1992 version, not shown in this video)
archive.org/details/Intel-Above
ESDI Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESDI
Computadd Hardcache ESDI ROM dump:
archive.org/details/hardcache...
MinusZeroDgrees Intel Above Board manuals and info:
www.minuszerodegrees.net/manu...
ESAM ROM dumps and photos:
archive.org/details/esam-cogn...
40 Best Windows 95 Games:
archive.org/details/40-best-w...
Adrian's Digital Basement Merch store:
my-store-c82bd2-2.creator-spr...
Adrian's Digital Basement ][ (Second Channel)
/ @adriansdigitalbasement2
Support the channel on Patreon:
/ adriansdigitalbasement
-- Tools
Deoxit D5:
amzn.to/2VvOKy1
store.caig.com/s.nl/it.A/id.16...
O-Ring Pick Set: (I use these to lift chips off boards)
amzn.to/3a9x54J
Elenco Electronics LP-560 Logic Probe:
amzn.to/2VrT5lW
Hakko FR301 Desoldering Iron:
amzn.to/2ye6xC0
Rigol DS1054Z Four Channel Oscilloscope:
www.rigolna.com/products/digi...
Head Worn Magnifying Goggles / Dual Lens Flip-In Head Magnifier:
amzn.to/3adRbuy
TL866II Plus Chip Tester and EPROM programmer: (The MiniPro)
amzn.to/2wG4tlP
www.aliexpress.com/item/33000...
TS100 Soldering Iron:
amzn.to/2K36dJ5
www.ebay.com/itm/TS100-65W-MI...
EEVBlog 121GW Multimeter:
www.eevblog.com/product/121gw/
DSLogic Basic Logic Analyzer:
amzn.to/2RDSDQw
www.ebay.com/itm/USB-Logic-DS...
Magnetic Screw Holder:
amzn.to/3b8LOhG
www.harborfreight.com/4-inch-...
Universal ZIP sockets: (clones, used on my ZIF-64 test machine)
www.ebay.com/itm/14-16-18-20-...
RetroTink 2X Upconverter: (to hook up something like a C64 to HDMI)
www.retrotink.com/
Plato (Clone) Side Cutters: (order five)
www.ebay.com/itm/1-2-5-10PCS-...
Heat Sinks:
www.aliexpress.com/item/32537...
Little squeezy bottles: (available elsewhere too)
amzn.to/3b8LOOI
--- Links
My GitHub repository:
github.com/misterblack1?tab=r...
Commodore Computer Club / Vancouver, WA - Portland, OR - PDX Commodore Users Group
www.commodorecomputerclub.com/
--- Instructional videos
My video on damage-free chip removal:
• How to remove chips wi...
--- Music
Intro music and other tracks by:
Nathan Divino
@itsnathandivino - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
ESAM'S KEE: It was one of the first public blitz boards for helping non-verbal handicapped persons. The system cost in Sweden was approx $400. And the system was config with Swedish words instead. How do i know this you ask. My sister had this system. And you are right the external cords on the button box is for external buttons. For ppl that only had head movements. So the leaned the head left or right. later on it worked with an eyelid button. So save that system it worth alot. And im happy to see this system again.
I think I can speak for the vast majority of your viewers in saying that we enjoy ALL your content. Watching your videos is like hanging out with a friend and your enthusiasm is contagious. The topics you cover are interesting and your knowledge is impressive but most of all, we just like you. :)
That describes it extremely accurate. Often I don't understand more than 50% of what he does and explains. But it's interesting and calming to watch Adrian. And his joy at what he does is infectuous.
To me, Adrian is like the Bob Ross of retro computing.
Yes, please, let us see them all.
Absolutely! Sometimes I have to pause for a while and do something else, but I prefer to watch when I can give Adrian's videos the attention they deserve.
for the most part. I skip the CRT videos.
Hi Adrian, I was the President of a large disability provider including a school. The technology for using computer aided communication started in the 1980s. It replaced picture boards where a person would point to a preprinted page that had pictures. That actually has never gone completely away as its not dependent on having access to power and also can be easily customized. At the same time as this was developed there were self contained devices as well as computer based. Many used a plug in cartridge. SOme of the more sophisiticated systems also allowed you to load images from a mater set into a cartridge that met the needs of the person.
I like the electronic picture boards, the ones that have many customisable pages and will speak out words or phrases. (“AAC”)
@@kaitlyn__L yes they are very useful. The same sort of technology drove Stephen Hawkins ability to communicate. At one point we invested in creating a closed social network for our people served so they could communicate as more and more of the world was via the net. It was picture based so a person could send a message that would come up as text at the other end and family members could choose from some basic sentences that would be turned back to pictures at the other end. We dropped this as platforms like Facetime and Zoom developed and provide face to face communications - but our non-verbal people still kept the ability to send pictograms.
With modern AI I think the system we developed could have gone much further.
You also have a lot of freedom with laminated bits of paper and velcro. Found one of my brothers the other day!
The grid scan and select system was born with POSM in 1960. This ESAM system sits on those shoulders and all the work that sprouted from that time around the world. Quite a lot of work was done in the 1970s with computers and disability access (such as MAVIS, Carba Linguaduc, Prentke Romich and others), but it exploded with affordable computers in the 1980s. This system demoed was $2000 USD plus all in AFAIK. Definitely looks like it was a labour of love.
That was my dead link on the aboveboard! I uploaded all those docs to the IA.
And that is why I never forget to send a small donation to the Internet Archive !
not all heroes wear capes
On the contrary the c64 stuff was very interesting it never ceases to amaze me what that amazing little computer could be used for .
Yeah that was cool, and it used a basic computer instead of an expensive Intel based machine for the time.
Adrien, long time viewer. The last items you tested would now be considered AAC (Augmentative Alternative Communication). I know it well since i use modern descendants of such devices (some of my videos showcase that). I've used AAC the early 90s. From what I know, the examples you have aren't exactly cutting edge, but are contemporary for that time. That being said, those simple device and that software changed someone's life. At the time, I was still handwriting notes to communicate. Fast forward to now and I'm keenly aware how crucial and powerful it is to my own voice. The key is remembering it's "augmentative" not primary. Garbled as it is, there's absolutely no better way to communicate my independent thoughts, desires, ideas. Although when *I* decide necessary, I still use devices which have their roots firmly planted in those beautiful comm tools you have.
Win32s was a 32-bit application runtime environment for Windows 3.1. So those games on that disc do probably work with Windows 3.1.
I remember back in the day playing a few early Windows 95 games on Windows 3.1 that were Win32s compatible. Ultra Pinball was one of those games. Performance was shaky, but it did work.
I recall Lemmings was Win32s compatible. I remember running it on Win3.11 on a 486 PC card in my Acorn.
Win32s was needed not only to run 32bit games on 16bit Windows. Microsoft TCP/IP protocol (installed separately, it was not a part of Windows 3) was 32bit and required Win32s too!
I came here to paste the same info about Win32s.
Thank you for the deeper exploration of assistive technology at the end of the video. I don't feel like it was lacking or unexciting. It's really cool to see the history of the real benefits of hardware and software that made life easier for folks who needed greater accessibility.
Agreed! All the content was interesting, but the best was the last! So cool & cool it was developed for the 64. Wondering if this may have been the basses for Intel's device developed for Dr. Hawking's around the late 80s?
And I felt that Adrian was respectful of folks who need to use those assistive technologies.
esam's kee was trademarked, and the trademark was for "COMPUTER INTERFACE UNIT FOR USE BY DISABLED PERSONS IN ACCESSING A COMPUTER"
The curve tracer is meant to be connected to the oscilloscope in XY mode, and you can use it to compare characteristics of 2 (or in this case even 3) transistors. They were used for finding matching pairs of transistors for building A-class amplifiers.
Also used to find bad parts. Some transistors will work a low voltages but not where they need to.
This guy nails it.
Could this be simular to a huntron tracker?
The modern term for something like the ESAM kit is AAC (not the audio codec, but augmentative and alternative communication). Very cool that it was done on a computer as affordable as the C64.
I saw something similar done on the Amstrad CPC range, using the DK Tronics Speech Synth. I'm also getting a vague memory of something custom too..
Win32s was a 32-bit subsystem for Windows 3.1 and 3.11. It basically allows some 32-bit applications to be run on 16-bit versions of Windows.
And you can install original 95 to use program manager instead of explorer
For instance, there was a Win32S version of WinZip. It was faster than the regular version. That was basically the whole reason I used to have Win32S installed. 😄
win32s was also supported by os/2
@@aliencray7269 That's because Windows 95 and 98 included Program Manager but it was not the default interface.
@@terminusaquo1980 I was going to say that, I remember as a kid just going to system folder and clicking on all executables. That's how I became a programmer, I wanted to know what those DLLs did.
The enhanced learning on the C64 was fascinating... bringing the technology into peripherals that allowed so much more accessibility; my hats off to the creators.
The ESAM kit is interesting, as i have a 6 yo who is currently learning how to use the modern equivalent. He is nonverbal. As soon as I seen the cartridge boot, i knew what it was. I wonder if Robin @ 8 bit show and tell can modify the rom dump to work without the voice synth, maybe using the SAM (software automated mouth) as this would be a neat way to introduce my kid to The C64.
Props to you for supporting your kid.
I was diagnosed autistic at a young age but wasn’t “allowed” to be nonverbal. (It was intermittent, so of course “but you were happily talking half an hour ago/yesterday!” and no real understanding.) Sometimes writing on paper sufficed, but I had no idea how much stress that all caused until I’d finally left school and could go days (or weeks) between speaking as I needed, consequence-free.
Longer Episodes the Better! We never know what we will find with this random boxes of equipment! 😀
I concur.
I had some of those Intel ISA memory boards back in high school, and at one point I was using one in a 486 for reasons I no longer remember. Normal DOS stuff ran fine, but anything that used XMS (including games like Doom or Descent) slideshowed like crazy.
I actually wrote most of that Wikipedia article on ESDI many years ago, and the thing about the bridge boards was based on how Maxtor and Control Data designed their early SCSI drives...there was a servo processor that handled the ESDI-ish stuff, and a command processor that translated the SCSI commands to something the rest of the drive could understand, similar to the actual bridge boards companies like Adaptec were making around the same time.
In the future, you can use fishing line or a guitar string to saw that heatsink off.
I do love your long form videos. I love having them running in the background even while I'm at work. I prefer them to the mindless scrolling of the TH-cam shorts. I'm sure I don't speak for everyone but the occasional super long video is always welcome to see in my opinion. Especially when digging through seemingly lost tech. Keep of the great work. Always look forward to your videos! Stay healthy stay safe, and we'll see you next time 😅!
I am mystified why TH-cam pushes the "shorts" so relentlessly. I have absolutely zero interest. Half an hour or longer is typical of videos I watch.
Yeah I click on them from time to time, and then am immediately annoyed by them. Even if it's mildly interesting, I want to know MORE! There's just not enough useful info in them for me.....
@@adriansdigitalbasement ... Adrian At 27:22.. apply some Acetone with a syringe all around in the gap between the CPU and the Heatsink.. and let it get in... my work ??... for get the Heatsink loose??🤔
@@Starchfacepurely a business decision based on view time losses to TikTok. But just as with politics, trying to become a clone of a competitor doesn’t work - people usually prefer the original over the imitator.
ESAM -> edge of my seat content. My mother was an educator with a lower budget district in the state north of yours. Unless the students parents could afford the device or it was provided by a charity it would have been the OT (occupational therapist) domain only and Apple.
I won't speak for everyone but I love these mystery-box videos. Do as many as you want!
*RCA WG-206 High Voltage Probe:*
According to the instructions you showed on screen, that model probe has an internal 1090-megohm resistor, and is designed to be used with an RCA multimeter with an 11-megohm input resistance. It basically acts as a voltage divider, with the high voltage across the entire resistance of 1101-megohms (1090+11 in series) with the meter measuring across just the 11-meg internal to itself. It sees only 1/100th of the high voltage, so you need to multiply the reading by 100 to determine the actual high voltage. Displaying 350 volts times 100 would mean you're measuring 35,000 volts (35 KV).
You can picture the voltage divider resistances like a potentiometer, the wiper contact tapping off a percentage of the voltage across the full resistance. If the wiper is tapping off 1/4 of the pot, you need to multiply the measured voltage by 4 to get the full value.
Modern meters have high input impedances, so you'd need to know that specification for your own meter to figure out the conversion factor for the HV probe.
In the 1970s, I used a similar transistor curve tracer to find complementary transistors for audio amplifier. It was a handy tool and used it often. That way I always had a very well designed amplifier.
"Use my house for its intended purpose." I felt that.
A room supposed to be cozy doesn't work without a computer for me. ;-)
For the Pentium Overdrive, one of the reasons why there was an overdrive for socket 5 is because socket 7 has a split voltage rail so that the core voltage can run at a separate voltage than the I/O CPU voltage, which runs at 3.3v. (There were also some early socket 7 motherboards that did not implement the split-voltage rail.) Because of the extra voltage rail, the socket 5 has one less pin than socket 7. A socket 7 CPU cannot fit in a socket 5. As you surmised, the other reason is the multiplier. They could set the multiplier on their own in case the motherboard couldn't (if the fan is not detected or failed, it will drop to a 1x multiplier).
That is correct. There were some IBM PS Series machines that would use that Pentium Overdrive but there was a specific pin that had to be omitted, otherwise the BIOS would clock the multiplier down and no boost in performance. It was called an "interposer mod board" that had to be ordered. I deployed some of these at Freightliner in Portland, OR. Soon after that, the Pentium II machines were being deployed and I really couldn't get the interposer from IBM any more as it was discontinued as a FRU part. After looking at the rare mod socket on socket minus a pin, I would just clip off the pin not needed and install them into the IBMs and left it that way on the machines that got their last upgrade before being upgraded in the food chain. Mind you even a Pentium overdrive was better than the 3270 terminals it replaced. :} Thanks for the flashback seeing the things. They were Tandy Tough to overheat at the time.
Back in the early 90's I was doing a project at work replacing 486's in Compaq Prosignia servers with Pentium Overdrive chips. These were running Netware or Lotus Notes Server on Windows and OS/2. The upgrade helped quite a bit. These were EISA machines, and the Compaq Netflex cards were amazing, they were Ethernet, but you could add a token ring daughter card to turn them into Tokenring, using the same physical ports in the slot cover. Good machines, I recycled the ones I had in the mid aughts when I moved as they were like 50lbs each and had the loudest hard drives (upside down with these little green rails). 🙂
I love it when the CBM 64 does stuff ( other than play games ) - great video Adrian
Full ACK! The bad reputation of the C64 as a pure toy/gaming computer is totally unjustified, given the endless possibilities through its various ports.
I am very happy that another hitherto forgotten application has been salvaged here!
That speech cartridge is AMAZING! This is what makes treasure hunting _so_ much fun!
That Votrax SC-01 is probably worth more than everything else you looked at today (except maybe the curve tracer). They are super rare now.
Agreed, I have collected a few speech synths for the C64 and it definitely is a rarity.
Thanks for sharing the Adaptative Goodies for the 64. That was truly amazing, I had no idea they had that level of technology setup. My wife is a special education teacher and was amazed. I've helped her setup several LAMP boards (the symbol based screens) and they really have not changed a ton. In "modern" tech those extra inputs on the panel would be to connect an item like a wheelchair mounted head button for a student who could move their head over to tap it. It's not often I get her to watch any of these tech videos but this was really great to share with her. Thanks again!
You need to make a dedicated video on the last assistive technology device, that was off the chain!
Adrian's Digital Towel features in this video. This makes me strangely happy. You can NEVER replace that towel!
You could hitchhike the length and breadth of the galaxy with that towel!
I hope he always knows where his towel is.
Adrian is one hoopy frood.
The Curve Tracer is a key piece of gear for repairman and builders of Stereo Amplifiers.
Just randomly replacing failed transistors on one channel results in an imbalance. It "works" after but the customer would notice it's slightly different one side vs the other.
This device coupled with a scope allows you to track down an exact match to the other channels pre amp transistors or for frequency control.
I believe the SAM in ESAM refers to the "Software Automatic Mouth" which was a very efficiently written speech generator that originally came out in 1982.
I absolutely love that Star Industries mouse. 🤣 I think you're being too hard an that awesome '80s era mascot.
agreed! I'd love to have a mouse like that.
I'm on Adrian's side here - the 80s can't be blamed for every occurance of bad taste. ;-) (I actually like some of the edged 80's designs, like on cars.)
PC Power & Cooling is a manufacturer of power supply units out of Bonsall, CA. For a long time, they were the premier manufacturer of personal computer and other power supplies. They were my go-to back in the day for nearly silent and nearly bulletproof PSUs. In 2014, apparently, they were acquired by OCZ.
In their day, there were very few manufacturers who could hold a candle to them. Lambda and Delta were two other American concerns during that time who could hang with them, but all things for a price. I see where Lambda was acquired by TDK, so I would expect them to still have standards of high quality, and Delta primarily concerns itself with industrial and medical power systems now. When they were making PC PSUs they were absolutely formidable. (There is a Delta unit in a computer for a test rig where I used to work that has been in service for over fifty years and is still going strong.)
EXACTLY. I remember seeing them winning reviews in boot (then Maximum PC) magazine. Power Supplies in the 90's were JUNK. So many people just used whatever came with their case. I've personally seen the green flash of death at least a couple times.
I still have a Turbo 400 from one of my first builds.
Thankfully Super Flower and Seasonic started selling to the aftermarket around the same time that PC P&C went away.
Seasonic is still my go-to to this day.
fifty years? Since 1974? Doubtful since the first IBM PC was 1981... Maybe you mean 40 years? Which would still be impressive...
I remember selling servers in a PC Power & Cooling case that went for $1200. Held two motherboards, redundant hot swappable power supplies, and I think 17 drive bays. I also remember them as one of the first to sell reliable replacement fans.
@@michaelcatchpole7230 WOW. That's a beast.
I don't remember them selling fans but I do remember the the first 'good' quiet fans were Panasonic Panaflo L1A fans. I used them in everything. Still have a bunch.
That digital to analog card is fantastic! You can control things that need analog voltages! For instance a test bed for circuit boards, or a sun tracker for solar panels, a light show, nearly limitless!
Please do make more of these types of videos
The curve tracer is right up your alley. It’s usually built in on many oscilloscopes, and shows patterns on screen to see if an electronic part works or not. Most have 2 probes that injects a tiny AC signal, and shows results on screen. If it’s a short, will show up down, if it’s open, shows left-right, if it’s a diode will show a ‘L’ pattern, a resistor will show diagonal. Capacitor will show circle/oval. Cool stuff.
I loved the memory card! in 1990 I was leading a team designing the first fully automated package sorting hub for RPS, now FedEx Ground. Each hub used three 80386 IBM PCs with a custom RTOS, each with three of these cards for 24 MB of ram in each PC. We paid ~$24,000 for the three PCs in 1989 money, worth ~$60k today. Good times!
Adrian - are you going to tell us about the lucky guy/gal? Package is in the making btw.
My Dad had that probe. It was designed to be plugged into a VTVM with a standard 10 meg input resistance so for current meters you need to shunt it with a 10 meg resistor.
Most modern multimeters have 10MegOhm input resistance... but this probe expects a 100MOhm one.
40 Best Games... Minutes of fun for the whole family. 😊
Honestly I think most of us binge your videos, so the long-format stuff just caters to that more. I love these long vids where you're just exploring old tech and trying to make it work, and I look forward to the next video like this one!
PC Power and Cooling was legendary in their time. They made cases, coolers and some of the best power supplies you could get. They got bought out by OCZ and was utterly brand-name exploited and ruined shortly afterward.
They were smart to sell out when they did. PCP&C PSUs were the best of the PSU OEMs because they used higher quality components, and a unique highly-clamped single-rail design that resulted in a more reliable and stable output than anyone else. About the time PCP&C sold out, other players in the PSU scene (seagate, enermax (RIP), corsair etc) stepped up to produce PSUs of the same quality that PCP&C had been making - This was mostly driven by need, tolerances of the motherboard & components suddenly became much tighter around this time, and for them to continue to make the 'loose' but cheaper PSUs they had been doing would have resulted in way too high a return rate and reputation damage. Within a year of PCP&C selling, the high-end PSU market vanished, because all the major OEMs were forced to step up and what was the old 'high-end' PSU market suddenly became the new normal. If PCP&C had stayed they'd have changed from being a big fish in a small pond to being a small fish in a big pond.
Agree, I have a lot of nostalgia for PC Power & Cooling. I still have an ATX case that I got in the late 90’s, that was head and shoulders above the competition for its time.
I still have one of those fans on my 486. Ball bearing fan and still running silent.
I love these box dives. Really interesting to see what people were up to back in the day. So don't worry about the length, I enjoy every minute of it.
Regarding the Windows 95 Shareware games: "Win32s" is the "Windows 32 Subsystem" for Windows 3.1. Before Windows 95 was released, Microsoft released Win32s for Win 3.1, so developers could get a, "head start" on writing Windows 95 programs. So, yes, those shareware games in theory can run on Windows 3.1, if you can find and install the Win32s package for it.
A transistor tester can be used for many purposes:
1) Matching transistors. This is the reason why there are two sockets. You can switch back and forth and watch the curves jump. The less they jump, the closer the transistors match.
2) Checking the linearity of a transistor. Transistors are not perfect, they vary in linearity quite a lot. Using a tester, you can select transistors which are more linear than average. Also transistors vary a lot. That’s why there is such a huge range in the datasheet (min/average/max). Nowadays they are mostly very close to the average but back then you were very lucky to be close to the average.
3) Checking for bad transistors. Sometimes they do weird stuff at certain currents. On the tester you can see bumps and dips in the curve if the transistor is bad. A static test won’t reveal those faults if the transistor is working in general.
4) Checking the frequency behaviour of a transistor. By plotting the curve faster and slower, you can measure the speed the transistor reacts to the base current which is very important for high frequency applications.
I once had an old CCTV monitor on one of my C64. Suddenly there was a bright vertical bar on the screen. Moving the mouse arrow through the bar from left to right made it move to the left again and then back to the right. The horizontal video line “looped” and painted the area three times! On a transistor tester, there was a prominet dip in the curve so increasing the base current after a certain value made the transistor conduct less. This was the transistor generating the sawtooth signal for the horizontal deflection.
The tape eraser brought back some fun memories. I used to work for radioshack from 2002-2006. Us employees had a blast playing with some of the old equipment that the stores hung on to for YEARS. It's a real shame that radioshack went the way of the Dodo. I worked there towards the end of the era of being able to buy electrical components. There was just something enjoyable about going through the component bins when looking for a part.
I worked for TE Electronics that serviced the Radio Shack service plans for Tandy as a separate division from 1994-1997. Housed in Computer City, at Hayden Island, Portland Oregon. It was hella fun having access to all the microfiche and service manuals for anything Tandy related that I could order. I refurbished many devices for my own personal use from my collection of "It's dead and not worth fixing" pile on my own time and the tape eraser was common to find several in each shop. At the time there were 3-4 surplus shops that you could pick components from and sometimes whole machines that were being scrapped from the Silicon Forest industry. I had no shortage of electromechanical goodies to chose from in that era. One way to deeply immerse one self into the trailing but
leading edge of technology was to pick up the dumpster tossed stuff and look into how it worked.
Yes, I was the kid who took everything apart at an early age, and that is why I watch Adrian's channel.
Good find on the curve tracer,, Mr. Carlson has videos on how they work and also how to convert an old tube type oscilloscope to operate as a curve tracer,, :-)
I believe that Kraftwerk used the Votrax synthesized speech on quite a few of their mid 70s LPs like Radioactivity... also on Electric Cafe from 1986. Would love for you to a deep dive on that as I love early speech synthesis.... the "Voder" from 1930s still blows my mind.
I actually enjoy the long form videos. The content is interesting, & I enjoy the little discoveries along the way. I also enjoy listening to both of your channels while driving. It beats the normal content on the radio. Keep up the good work.
The curve tracer is like a super-powered version of the simple component tester you often show. It can tell you a lot more about the characteristics of a transistor or diode (gain, breakdown voltage, threshold voltage, etc), and can be used for matching parts to specific purposes (less relevant in the digital realm) or for identifying parts that test good at the very low probing voltages used by either multimeters or modern component testers (a transistor that tests fine at 3V might fail to operate correctly at 20V).
That one does require an oscilloscope with an X/Y mode, as you discovered reading the documentation. It's designed for use with old-school analog oscilloscopes, although a digital or software scope with an X/Y mode could likely be made to work with it as well.
As soon as I read the SC-01 chip, I realized it was one of those speech chips which was also featured in one of your older videos.
When I used to work in a small electronics firm called Semitronics in the Philippines owned by Earl Henry Hornbostel, he had people using curve tracers to spec out unmarked transistors which he purchased in bulk and will then be sold as replacements for known but difficult to find semiconductors.
24:20 This PCMCIA - CF adapter works with Amiga 600 and 1200. You can easily transfer a file from PC to Amiga.
I use one similar to bulk transfer software to my Amiga 600 when playing with WHDLoad
Oh, the old towel returns!!
and it is rough but glorious!
It was only a matter of time until its glorious return
That Votrax SC-01 is not only rare and expensive, but it is the early Mockingboard speech chip if you have a Mockingboard for your Apple II!
I had an AT&T 7300/3B1, so I recognized the mouse immediately. Amazing computer, especially with the PC compatibility board!
Adrian, really enjoyed it. It's similar to what I enjoy about the Super Mini Mail Calls, bit of the joy of discovering.
One thing I'd like to see you do is a follow up video. You ask viewers for information and I think it would be great if you can highlight it. One video with quick fire, minute long segments going over answers you receive (like why Intel made that Pentium chip or the ESAM for C64 at the end).
That sc-01 is a jackpot chip. It was used in the mockingboard speech1 board before the a-d models that used the sc-02 aka ssi-263a. Nice find!
Have to say that ESAM stuff was pretty intriguing, nice to see there was some development going on to help people with communication back then (granted we all know that Stephen Hawking had his setup, but that probably cost millions to develop!), and the fact it still works is pretty amazing too... :D
CuriousMarc uses his HP curve tracer to check marginal transistors. Great for hunting down "odd" faults.
Had to use one in college. The thing was i gigantic vacuum tube oscilloscope with a plug in module for doing transistor curves. Basically you'd set it up, clip on a land camera system, and take a photograph of the traces. Then you could actually drawn some lines on the photograph to determine your Q point and min/max inputs for that specific transistor.
Back in the old days, a lot of "hand made" premium audio amps used hand matched transistors in the power stages for maximum fidelity of class AB and B amps, because "matched" transistors gave you the best fidelity (each transistor was doing one half of the waveform, so it was important both transistors had comparable characteristics).
Luckily these days, transistor manufacturing has gotten so good, people typically don't bother anymore. But back in the early days, transistors were highly variable, even within transistor types. You could pull two transistors with the same part number, and they'd be fairly close, but not that close to each other. For most uses, it really didn't matter. But HiFi nuts will be HiFi nuts... ^-^
He mentions the exact model Marc has. So it's pretty safe to say he's seen the videos.
Great video! I really appreciate the deep dive style videos like this
The Votrax SC-01 is a great find! I played with it back in the 70's and interfaced it to a Z-80 computer as my first speech synthesizer. Now they are highly sought after for repairing certain arcade games that used them, easily fetching $200 on eBay (if they work).
Def enjoyed this type of content, it's like finding and going through cool stuff yourself!
Adrian seems like the type of guy who says technical thing without knowing what it actually means but because hes done it so much now he actually does know what hes saying
Modern equivalents (vastly superiour, obviously) include "Clicker IV" and "Speaking for Myself", both used here in the UK in the very late 90's to mid 2000's. Used at special needs schools, the teacher would make a "grid" of common words and maybe some specific words designed for that particular pupil using clipart or small pictograms to represent them. The pupil would point to the pictures to build a sentence. Now what you have there seems to be a very early version on an 8 bit machine. More research perhaps?
Yes please! Looks like Treasure hunt as well as Mail Call at the same time. And I like it a lot.
That was delightful, and so incredible the ESAM stuff works. You are awesome and I love your videos 😊
That VOTRAX chip's worth a fortune!
Another interesting video, thank you! Yes, I would be happy to see more of this type.
"Back in the Day" I set up an Amiga 500 with a printer and speakers. My friend's sister used it to do medical billing and transcription for local doctors. She worked from a command line (shell) that directed all output to the narrator device that was included with those early Amigas.
She was amazing. But whenever I went over to assist her, I needed to bring a monitor so I could see what was going on.
Pretty amazing "enabling technology" from a floppy based system.
Both of those logitech mices were common in schools in the UK and were branded as Research Machines (now RM Education) - who competed with Acorn etc for UK schools networks. They were all quadrature output when sold by RM, however the lugs were different design than the ones on yours however they were still 9 pin din.
Love this format of episode. The longer the better for me :) Thanks for the great content!
more boxes! haha kinda cool old stuff you don't see today
This video really has some LGR vibes and I'm loving it! Your amazing troubleshooting and repair videos are really what makes this channel unique for me, but I would love to see some more thrift/grab-box/retro-demo type videos as well.
Love the length of this video
Your knowledge and expertise is breathtaking...... very cool video
yes---please do! You are so solid in what you do. Thanks for your time and energy. I'm grateful.
Hi, Adrian. I do enjoy these longer video content where you are talking about random items. I can watch these types of videos while doing my own projects around the ham shack. Love all your videos, keep them coming.
If you took an XT or AT and plugged that D/A board into it, you could motorize an old Kenmore vacuum cleaner and attach some sensors, and voila! Your very own Retro Roomba!
I love this content, you go through the treasures and actually test them!! Plus obscure stuff gets documented, it’s just great
Chipped chip.
Awesome episode.
It’s still common for Intel (and other IC manufacturers) to bin their parts. It depends on how many transistors are successfully formed on the die. Generally speaking, chips that come from near the center of the wafer tend to be more successful and will generally be installed on more expensive products (for example, an i9), whereas the chips towards the outside of the wafer have less functioning transistors and will be installed on less expensive products (like an i3). There are often differences in the package as well (like cache) but the chips themselves are often the same, just depends on how successful the manufacturing was.
That UNIX PC mouse is absolutely cherry. :)
Adrian this was great! Please keep doing this, and I loved learning about the speech synthesis/accessibility board system.
Love the long ones, and playing about. 😊 Lookokg forward to the othrs too
Love these PC Parts Hunts and also the longer videos
I don't know why some complain about long videos. You can stop and return to it later!
About binning parts and selling lower bins: there were 4 core AMD chips which supported disabling any core and they would sell 3 core versions with one core disabled to increase yeild. And, like frequency binning, as production quality improved with subsequent runs they didn't have enough chips with a bad core so they would disable a working core to have something to sell in the lower price slot. Some people were able to reenable the 4 core on the nominally 3 core chip. Some things never change. As far as i know frequency binning of this kind still happens for CPUs and GPUs.
This happened with early Ryzens as well. “6-core” chips were 8-core dual-die chips with one core disabled on each die.
was that the chip models you could enable cores with a sufficiently graphite filled pencil trace?
@@jeffymooch no, the graphite pencil thing was to unlock the multiplier on early socket A athlon chips - that was way before multi core CPUs - for the later 64bit multi core chips, you had to have a setting in the bios to unlock cores and multiplier
@@KenjiUminothanks.
I find this really interesting, it's really like a SMMC but just things you have sitting around! I found that speech tool really touching, I can imagine for someone who had difficulty communicating this might've just made all the difference to feel heard, very cool. Roll on box 2!
The D/A card is interesting. It might be possible to turn it into a crude audio card or synthesizer, depending on how fast those chips can switch. Another option is to work with other synthesizers that take an analog control voltage, like patch-cable style synths (think Moog). All of that would take some very custom programming to pull off.
I installed a few servers fitted with ESDI drives during the early 1990s. As well as being faster than a standard ST-506 drive they also had a greater capacity. I recall waiting something like 16 hours for one 1GB ESDI drive to complete its surface scan during installation. We switched to SCSI or RAID arrays after that.
Hi there Adrian, my first time to comment on a video of yours. That last bit of ESAM was amazing, seeing an affordable computer combined with good engineering help other people living a better life or at least better help.
I last used a curve tracer in college, but we used then to find the Beta of the transistor so we could build the power supply circuit around it.
The beta (β) of a transistor, or transistor current gain, is the ratio of the transistor's collector current (Ic) to its base current (Ib), as shown in Equation 1. The β value is fixed for a given transistor and operating condition.
PC Power & Cooling was a brand that prided themselves on quality-first power supplies. They were very much in the camp of "PSUs are the most underrated part in your computer." They bragged about how reliable and stable their supplies were, and even eschewed the new (at the time) trend of modular cabling, as it just added in-line resistance and a failure point -- anathema to the goal of delivering better, more stable power.
They were a bit pricey, and no-frills, in an era of cold-cathode lighting and water-cooled, overclocked Pentium 4s and Athlon XPs. Based on their fixation with quality, I figured it might be worth paying a premium vs. the sea of unknown-origin boutique-branded supplies with blue LEDs behind the fans. I special-ordered one at the local computer store, used it for a few months, and then it died. I replaced it with one branded by Cooler Master, that had blue LEDs behind the fan. It worked fine until it was replaced during an upgrade.
So that's my PCP&C story.
This is my favorite format you do. Looking forward to the other boxes.
Hi, Adrian. Thank you for a nice video. I liked it. And the voice form the bread bin 64 was great. Keep up the great work. Stay safe to you and your loved ones.
I used one of that bulk tape easer to degauss two CRT monitors and a tv after lightning struck my house and ran down the lightning rod cable on the outside of the corner of the room they were in. They were really twisted up and it fixed them right up.
Awesome video again yet again. Love Adrian's work.
WOW!!! That Jud Williams Transistor Curve Tracer is fascinating!!! Love to see a vid on that!
Honestly i love this "oddware" content. The ESAM project is pretty interesting to see. It almost looks "homemade" and i personally enjoy seeing stuff like that in action. Keep up the great content Adrian!!