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What Hardware-Testing equipment do you Use ?

Now that I have a POST card my next most desired piece of equipment for over 2 decades was an EPROM burner. Could never afford one. I even need one to be able to burn some chips for a couple of Grid 1520 LTs. Grid in it's wisdom only allowed 3 models of small capacity Conner HDs, and of course they have usually failed in most Grids over the years, as mine has. One of the guys on the Yahoo Grid forum came up with a BIOS code to overcome the problem, but of course that demands an EPROM burner. The Grids also had 2 vacant(in mine) sockets in which you could put a boot OS or sequence which preceded the OS boot-search. Many put the Grid-Dos or MSDOS there, or of course anything else you wanted.

The 1520 was an AT, but had 8 SIPP sockets, allowing 8megs of memory. Up until my HDs failed, I could run Win 3 on them. Another item on a much too overlong "to-do" list. :^(

Lawrence
 
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Micom 2000 said:
Many years ago I removed most of the swivel bases from my monitors, so they would fit in my shelving. So now on my top shelves I have a S--t-load of bases none of which have any markings as to which monitor they belong to. Doh. :^{ It's entirely possible I have it. Identifying it is another problem. Usually when I want a base for a current monitor I haul them down and go thru a process of elimination. Of course some of the monitors never came with a base, and other bases are orphans from a discarded or left behind monitor. Mea Culpa.

Lawrence
Click to expand...

Yes, I can understand that, L, but you're the one that asked me if you had shipped the base with the monitor because you found one where the Taxan used to be sitting LOL
 
ziloo said:
Hello Dwight,

Would you please explain how the delayed trace works and
how you use it to analyze complex events?

Thank you

ziloo
Click to expand...

Hi
Lets say you were trying to decode a new disk format. You
need to gat a sample of the bit stream right at the start
of the header. The problem is there may be several sectors
starting but you really only want to see the first sector on
the track. You need to sync the scope on the index pulse
but the data doesn't start for 200 us after the index and
you want to see only 10 or so 1 us pulses on the screen
at a time.
You can't do this on a scope without delayed trace.
Another example is that you've been watching to
see where in a ROM sequence the code gets lost. You
know it is someplace in the first 1K someplace. You
set your sync on a repeated reset you get from the
scopes self trigger. You scan across, watching the
CE signal to the ROM until you find where it got lost.
Stepping back one CE at a time, you find the instruction
that caused all the troubles.
I've done both of these with my scope.
Dwight
 
Actually I was talking about a rubber inset on the base of the monitor. If you have an idea for identifying the tilt-base I could search thru the ones I have. Embarassingly, as a certified Atari ST freak, with about 5 ST monitors I can't find one that fits. I can't believe that of all these monitors I acquired there isn't one. Similarly for about 7 treasured 17xx/18xx/2000 8-bit Commodores (with a VCR as tuner they make excellent TVs). I just have 2 boxes of these seemingly useless bases which don't appear to fit my most treasured monitors. Yet I don't dare to toss them in case they actually fit on some of my monitors. Argggh !!
I think it's a rip-off that bases were never standardized.

Lawrence

Druid6900 said:
Yes, I can understand that, L, but you're the one that asked me if you had shipped the base with the monitor because you found one where the Taxan used to be sitting LOL
Click to expand...
 
Micom 2000 said:
Actually I was talking about a rubber inset on the base of the monitor. If you have an idea for identifying the tilt-base I could search thru the ones I have. Embarassingly, as a certified Atari ST freak, with about 5 ST monitors I can't find one that fits. I can't believe that of all these monitors I acquired there isn't one. Similarly for about 7 treasured 17xx/18xx/2000 8-bit Commodores (with a VCR as tuner they make excellent TVs). I just have 2 boxes of these seemingly useless bases which don't appear to fit my most treasured monitors. Yet I don't dare to toss them in case they actually fit on some of my monitors. Argggh !!
I think it's a rip-off that bases were never standardized.

Lawrence
Click to expand...

I'll take a look (and picture) of the bottom of the monitor where the T/S base goes and maybe that'll narrow it down a bit.

Some monitors have pretty unique connector patterns and spacing is usually pretty non-standard too, so, if something is close, we'll start measuring.
 
Curve Tracer

Curve Tracer

It's a box I built a long while back that allows testing ICs, transistors and passive components in-circuit when hooked up to a dual trace scope (like the PP one I have) with X/Y capabilities and (after you get used to what the various curves are supposed to look like) allow you to run down the pins of ICs on a board and find open/short/leaky gates/components.
Click to expand...

Is this the as what was called an octopus, used a transformer and some resistors I think, had a charts for differnt states such as shorts and opens?

I think I still have some info around here someplace.

Jim
 
James0555 said:
Is this the as what was called an octopus, used a transformer and some resistors I think, had a charts for differnt states such as shorts and opens?

I think I still have some info around here someplace.

Jim
Click to expand...

Yes, it is the same thing and I have a file on this computer out-lining the contrustion of one. It's not really that difficult to build at all.

Yes, here it is now, complete with directions, theory of operation and samples of the "signatures"
 

Attachments

  • octopus.pdf
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Octopus

Octopus

Yes that is it and I believe I have that same article. Also have one that was given to me a long time ago (early 70s I think) it was photocopied on that paper that is now fading away. Should find it and retype it as well. We had one in the shop I worked at in the AF back then. Worked great maybe time to build one.

Thanks.

Jim
 
Lou,

Do you have more info on how to build the "Floppy Machine with Imagedisk and PUTR", that is one slick piece of equipment.

Kipp
 
What Hardware Testing equipment do you Use

What Hardware Testing equipment do you Use

Im looking to buy a 1979 900 but they seem hard to find. I have my eye on one at the moment that has a older restore done. How much should i plan on spending low and high? What should I look for? Thanks
 
Floppy Machine

Floppy Machine

Kyeakel,

Sorry for taking so long to reply on this... The inspiration for the floppy machine is from Dave Dunfield : http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img/index.htm

On that page, you'll see a link regarding connecting an 8" floppy drive to a PC. You'll also see info on imagedisk.

Twice I've written to him to thank him for the time he put into this, but I never heard back. He must be a busy guy.

All the drives are powered and connected to the PC at the same time. All I did is add toggle switches to switch the drive select lines. There is no magic here (that I can take credit for) whatsoever. But it sure is handy!

Lou
 
I've got an old HP logic analyzer... Very handy for figuring what I miswired on my homebrew cards :lol:

Like this:
HP1631D.jpg


Some versions of it have a few analog (scope) channels, but my model only has the pods ( digital inputs )
 
Yeah, I've got a 1630x - no analog inputs :-/

Couldn't remember the model number when I was looking for a picture; I did know that 1631 was close though :lol:
 
analog said:
Yeah, I've got a 1630x - no analog inputs :-/

Couldn't remember the model number when I was looking for a picture; I did know that 1631 was close though :lol:
Click to expand...

OK, I see. I have an HP1630G which I like very much. But it has only 8 timing channels and up to 48 state channels for microprocessor bus monitoring. The 1631D in your picture has up to 16 timing channels plus two digitized analog scope channels. Super machine for vintage troubleshooting.

I have used the HP1630 in Industry back in the 80's and have aways enjoyed its simplicity of use. Although the Tektronix and Gould Biomation analyzers were always more popular at my company.
 
channelmaniac said:
By far and away I use the DMMs and Logic Probes the most.

Beyond that I have:

Dual Trace Oscilloscope
ESR cap meter
Function Generator
Logic pulser
CRT tester/rejuvenator
Frequency Counter
Computer Monitor Signal Generator (TTL/Analog, standard through XVGA resolutions)
Crystal tester
3 different EPROM programmers (one REAL old one for doing ancient chips)
Soldering/desoldering stations

And, The Internet. Useful for finding schematics or chip data sheets. (http://www.datasheetarchive.com)

RJ
Click to expand...

Made a change! Traded off the Gould dual trace digital storage scope w/GPIB bus & integrated plotter.... and picked up a nice TDS-210 LCD scope from Tektronics.

WOW! That's one NICE scope!

Grabbed it last month off a guy on Craigslist while I was in Denver on our annual father/son road trip.
 
dave_m said:
OK, I see. I have an HP1630G which I like very much. But it has only 8 timing channels and up to 48 state channels for microprocessor bus monitoring. The 1631D in your picture has up to 16 timing channels plus two digitized analog scope channels. Super machine for vintage troubleshooting.
Click to expand...

I believe mine has 16 timing channels, I'll have to double check. I only have two pods though, I should get some more.
 
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