I worked for Datentechnik in Vienna around 2000. At that time they produced equipment for wire bound communication technology (copper and fiber optics). The company went out of business several years later, so it's probably the one you mention in the video. It has quite a long history, and I think they once also made modems and other low speed serial communication equipment. Your instrument may be one of the very small series built for the big customers like ÖPT or Deutsche Bundespost, it may be even a one of a kind product. These instruments sometimes were "professionalized" editions of test equipment built in the R&D department for their own use or by master EE students for their diploma thesis.
I was somehow expecting someone to come forward that has worked for the company. TH-cam really is a very cool place to connect people like this. Thanks for the insight.
You always do a fantastic job, you could be restoring an old Cat litter box and I would still watch. Thanks for sharing and have a great Christmas. See you in 2025.
This thing has a strong "super specific gear for a single use case made for the state or military" vibe. Respect for reassembling that toggle switch I would have botched in whatever switch I could find before going through that.
5 วันที่ผ่านมา +2
your channel is really relaxing to listen to, keep up the good work
it indeed measures serial clock jitter and drift. modern uarts can care about it as much (or as little) as you tell them to, but back it the day they could be picky about it. And stuff like dumb modem over a less then good phone line can mess it up real bad.
I presume phone company could have some sort of data service and this would be useful to verify quality of data stream that"s actually gets into computer before checking the line quality or telling the user that the problem is on their side.
Nice, thx! Looks very typical baud rate tester, to check async lines timing - rs232, rs485 etc. Sync and async (isochronous) modes, databits size, baud rates. Try to test it with cheap USB-to-RS232 adapters and you should immidiately see why it was (and still is) important :)
Nice restro. I had no hope for that switch, but here we are. And it works great! On - Off - Mom switches shouldn't be that hard to find. The paddle would be the worst thing to match up. Used for tuning teletypes maybe? And lots of fun with those Tants! Are those "bubble" seven segment displays the TI variant? I recently bought an "Advantest Floppy Disk Digital Data Recorder Tr98102/ Signal Generator Tr98201" set for no logical reason. It happens. And if anyone should come across an English version of the manual... :)
Cool. Is so...artisanal, as you opened I imagined it is small scale made, no automation. Probably a very small company. And it is so niche, so specific that I can't find an use case for it. I understood the basic principle and what measures, but when you need it? I loved the clamper with a bridge rectifier and a Zener, so old school because the real serial in RS232 used +12V and -12V rarely seem today. Loved the bar graph display a way to make it cheap. It an old-modern device, all discrete digital components, no microcontroller, no FPGA or CPLD or custom chips. I am fancying a resine printer to fix things like that switch now. Some are good and RELATIVELLY inexpensive...but the resin, ohh the resin is not.
It is absolutely a small scale specialized thing; You might see a hand written "Serial Number 013" on the back panel. There is one currently on e-bay with the serial number 174...
revell 39608 glue used for miniatures has been working quite well with old broken plastics for me. Might be easier to apply than the toothpaste tube stuff
It feels like some sort of teletype calibration device ... as thats the only thing I know ever used 5 bit encoding. And with data being generated mechanically in older devices It would make sense to have a measuring device to dial in the correct speed by hand.
I was trained on these in my 1995 military time actually - they were still using them! First thing to do after powering on: tuning fork based motor rpm adjustment. 😆 They even came with punch tape. Although we used them with radio transmitters.
A switch with a "maybe" option! An SPMT switch? Single pole maybe throw? You probably know better than I, but I would suspect that this device is one half of a pair used to test old phone systems.
hmm, still do not understand the engineering reasoning why you tear down to that level, at least you did not disconnect the ribbon cables from their headers ;) Do not see the efficacy of it but I can see the enjoyment of doing it ;). I think you got lucky with that switch ;)
My main reason for the complete teardowns is cleanup potential, as well as making it easier to do possible paint job touch ups. Usually grime gets left in "hard to reach" or "blind" corners if the cases are left assembled. Of course, me having fun with it is also a main factor. As for potentiometers and similar things that I occasionally take apart: here I want to avoid trapping the gunk on the inside. If you just flush away old grease with WD40 or similar, it ends up in a puddle on the inside and might cause issues later.
I worked for Datentechnik in Vienna around 2000. At that time they produced equipment for wire bound communication technology (copper and fiber optics). The company went out of business several years later, so it's probably the one you mention in the video. It has quite a long history, and I think they once also made modems and other low speed serial communication equipment. Your instrument may be one of the very small series built for the big customers like ÖPT or Deutsche Bundespost, it may be even a one of a kind product. These instruments sometimes were "professionalized" editions of test equipment built in the R&D department for their own use or by master EE students for their diploma thesis.
I was somehow expecting someone to come forward that has worked for the company.
TH-cam really is a very cool place to connect people like this.
Thanks for the insight.
You are definitely hooked now... you are even buying test equipment you don't need, welcome to the TEA group :-)
Your work is amazing! 😻
Lovely unit! '80s professional electronics FTW. Fixing that broken switch was going above and beyond.
You always do a fantastic job, you could be restoring an old Cat litter box and I would still watch. Thanks for sharing and have a great Christmas. See you in 2025.
This thing has a strong "super specific gear for a single use case made for the state or military" vibe.
Respect for reassembling that toggle switch I would have botched in whatever switch I could find before going through that.
your channel is really relaxing to listen to, keep up the good work
it indeed measures serial clock jitter and drift. modern uarts can care about it as much (or as little) as you tell them to, but back it the day they could be picky about it.
And stuff like dumb modem over a less then good phone line can mess it up real bad.
I presume phone company could have some sort of data service and this would be useful to verify quality of data stream that"s actually gets into computer before checking the line quality or telling the user that the problem is on their side.
Professor Kitten is always a good watch.
The puppet master is tinkering with his gadgets again :D
Nice, thx! Looks very typical baud rate tester, to check async lines timing - rs232, rs485 etc. Sync and async (isochronous) modes, databits size, baud rates. Try to test it with cheap USB-to-RS232 adapters and you should immidiately see why it was (and still is) important :)
Btw, with external clock you can test MIDI and DMX512 :)
The pinnacle of test equipment acquisition syndrome
Makes “Going out for TEA” hit differently. 😂
Nice restro. I had no hope for that switch, but here we are. And it works great! On - Off - Mom switches shouldn't be that hard to find. The paddle would be the worst thing to match up.
Used for tuning teletypes maybe? And lots of fun with those Tants! Are those "bubble" seven segment displays the TI variant?
I recently bought an "Advantest Floppy Disk Digital Data Recorder Tr98102/ Signal Generator Tr98201" set for no logical reason. It happens. And if anyone should come across an English version of the manual... :)
When I first saw it I thought it was a 1960's FM tuner.
Cool. Is so...artisanal, as you opened I imagined it is small scale made, no automation. Probably a very small company. And it is so niche, so specific that I can't find an use case for it. I understood the basic principle and what measures, but when you need it?
I loved the clamper with a bridge rectifier and a Zener, so old school because the real serial in RS232 used +12V and -12V rarely seem today.
Loved the bar graph display a way to make it cheap.
It an old-modern device, all discrete digital components, no microcontroller, no FPGA or CPLD or custom chips.
I am fancying a resine printer to fix things like that switch now. Some are good and RELATIVELLY inexpensive...but the resin, ohh the resin is not.
It is absolutely a small scale specialized thing; You might see a hand written "Serial Number 013" on the back panel. There is one currently on e-bay with the serial number 174...
The 5 bit setting "botch" could be because 5 bit serial data is usually followed by 1.5 stop bits (Baudot code, Fernschreiber).
Nice restoration and reverse engineering, great work.
You can actually still get compatible LED displays to those, but they are very expensive, and don't typically have the bubbles.
this is quite an obscure niche of lab equipment.
I wonder if the Austrian approvals board has any information in their archive?
revell 39608 glue used for miniatures has been working quite well with old broken plastics for me. Might be easier to apply than the toothpaste tube stuff
Looking at the labeling on the front panel, this would appear to be some sort of Teletype signal quality monitor.
Full restauration though no idea what to use it for…
Sometimes, you got to listen to your heart 😁
@@atkelar Oscar Wilde said in The Portrait of Dorian Gray: "The best way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it."
But it has many pretty blinking leds. So its useful at least to impress the ladies.
Too bad about the toggle switch after you spent all that time during the reassmbly!
Cool device though.
It feels like some sort of teletype calibration device ... as thats the only thing I know ever used 5 bit encoding. And with data being generated mechanically in older devices It would make sense to have a measuring device to dial in the correct speed by hand.
I was trained on these in my 1995 military time actually - they were still using them! First thing to do after powering on: tuning fork based motor rpm adjustment. 😆 They even came with punch tape. Although we used them with radio transmitters.
A switch with a "maybe" option! An SPMT switch? Single pole maybe throw? You probably know better than I, but I would suspect that this device is one half of a pair used to test old phone systems.
hmm, still do not understand the engineering reasoning why you tear down to that level, at least you did not disconnect the ribbon cables from their headers ;)
Do not see the efficacy of it but I can see the enjoyment of doing it ;).
I think you got lucky with that switch ;)
My main reason for the complete teardowns is cleanup potential, as well as making it easier to do possible paint job touch ups. Usually grime gets left in "hard to reach" or "blind" corners if the cases are left assembled. Of course, me having fun with it is also a main factor. As for potentiometers and similar things that I occasionally take apart: here I want to avoid trapping the gunk on the inside. If you just flush away old grease with WD40 or similar, it ends up in a puddle on the inside and might cause issues later.
Those look like single wipe sockets… I was expecting you to have to change every one of them
I was a bit worried too; but other than being a bit hard to get some of the ICs back in, I had no issues with them.
i love you