Since it’s hard to search Twitter, I’ve put together a compilation of some of my best Twitter threads.<\/p>\n
Welcome thread #1<\/a> Dipped tantalum capacitor (my first cross section)<\/a> Zenith Minisport<\/a> 35 years ago today, the Amiga 1000 was born!<\/a> IBM PS\/2 Model 95 computer experiments<\/a> ISA bus IO_READY signal<\/a> The Intersil IM6100 is a PDP-8 on a CMOS chip! What should I do with it?<\/a> MOnSter 6502<\/a> Fixing my Fluke 8400A digital voltmeter.<\/a> This is the 26 x 72 foot (8 x 22m) crater resulting from the gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno in 2010.<\/a> Why does the schematic symbol of a bipolar transistor look the way it does?<\/a> Reverse engineering the IR3E02 chip “DMG-REG” from several Game Boy variants.<\/a> Sep 14, 2019<\/a> An off-brand capacitor failed on me, so I made a TV commercial<\/a> Prototype 4″ floppy disk drive<\/a> The WeirdStuff sign has turned off for the last time. \ud83d\ude41<\/a> The orientation makes a difference when 3D printing something!<\/a> Since it’s hard to search Twitter, I’ve put together a compilation of some of my best Twitter threads. Welcome thread #1 Welcome thread #2 Micropodcast Episode 1 Cross Sections Dipped tantalum capacitor (my first cross section) LMR-195 cable Fiber optic cable Undersea cable Ethernet plug and jack VGA cable Type N connector Type N connector […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p80Z1r-8L","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tubetime.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tubetime.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tubetime.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tubetime.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tubetime.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tubetime.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":547,"href":"https:\/\/tubetime.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions\/547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tubetime.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tubetime.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tubetime.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWelcome thread #2<\/a>
\nMicropodcast Episode 1<\/a><\/p>\nCross Sections<\/h1>\n
\nLMR-195 cable<\/a>
\nFiber optic cable<\/a>
\nUndersea cable<\/a>
\nEthernet plug and jack<\/a>
\nVGA cable<\/a>
\nType N connector<\/a>
\nType N connector (annotated)<\/a>
\nApple Magsafe connector<\/a>
\nDVI single-link cable<\/a>
\nTantalum capacitor from Fluke 8400<\/a>
\nBNC plug and jack<\/a>
\nFlat phone cable<\/a>
\nRIFA paper capacitor<\/a>
\nSFP DAC cable<\/a>
\nBGA package<\/a>
\nUSB-C connector<\/a>
\nAC power cable<\/a>
\nMAX233 chip<\/a>
\nAnother USB-C cable<\/a>
\nMicro SD card<\/a>
\nMagsafe 2 connector<\/a>
\nDIP socket<\/a>
\nGlass thermistor<\/a>
\nDIP socket (machine pin)<\/a>
\nCarbon composition resistor<\/a>
\nBlown LED<\/a>
\nMicro-D connector<\/a>
\nModern BGA SoC<\/a>
\nMacBook power cable<\/a>
\nHDBNC connector<\/a>
\nAxial aluminum electrolytic capacitor<\/a>
\n12AX7 vacuum tube<\/a>
\nSlowly rotating and dramatically lit cutaway view of a 12AX7<\/a>
\n12AX7 vacuum tube (behind the scenes)<\/a>
\n2N2222 in a TO-18 metal can<\/a>
\nBi-color red\/green LED<\/a>
\n2N3904 transistor (TO-92)<\/a>
\n1N914 diode<\/a>
\nDE-9 plug and socket<\/a>
\nHeadphone plug and jack<\/a>
\nElectrolytic capacitor<\/a>
\n15-turn potentiometer<\/a>
\nAudio transformer<\/a>
\nBGA chip<\/a>
\nQuartz crystal (HC-49)<\/a>
\nElectret microphone element<\/a>
\nLR44 alkaline button cell<\/a>
\nVibrator motor<\/a>
\nDIP switch<\/a>
\nFilm capacitor<\/a>
\nInductor<\/a>
\nTact switch<\/a>
\nMagnetic speaker<\/a>
\nSlide switch<\/a>
\nCeramic chip capacitor<\/a>
\nReed relay<\/a>
\nPolymer electrolytic capacitor<\/a>
\nSMA connector<\/a>
\nEthernet transformer<\/a>
\nLED<\/a>
\nPrototype XL741 Kit<\/a>
\nFencing scoring machine<\/a><\/p>\nRetrocomputing<\/h1>\n
\nHP125 keyboard reverse engineering<\/a>
\n1982 DisplayPhone video call<\/a>
\nNorthern Telecom NT6K00AN DisplayPhone from 1982<\/a>
\nMOS 6581 sound chip — aka the Commodore SID chip — slowly rotating and dramatically lit<\/a>
\nslowly-rotating, dramatically lit Yamaha YM3812 OPL2 synthesizer chip<\/a>
\nThe KIM-1 lives!<\/a>
\nJust wrote my first blink-an-LED program for this microcontroller, which is quite special…<\/a>
\nToday i dug up my first mobile computing device. i bought this over 20 years ago. i wonder if it still works…<\/a>
\nTwo identical-looking Commodore mouses aren’t compatible. Why?<\/a>
\nEpson HX-20 repair<\/a>
\nEpson HX-20 thread<\/a>
\nNew Apple laptop this weekend. New to me anyway.<\/a>
\nFischertechnik robotics kit.<\/a>
\nPrototype Connor IDE hard drive.<\/a>
\nAtari 800 connected to modern PC<\/a>
\nRockwell AIM-65 computer with the MOnSter 6502!<\/a>
\nGEOS on the C64.<\/a>
\nRebuilding a C64 power supply.<\/a>
\nUNIX computer that uses audio cassettes for storage.<\/a>
\nThe Xerox Notetaker from 1978, the first computer to ever be used by a passenger on a commercial flight.<\/a>
\nSay hello to the Intel SDK-86, the first computer to use the 8086 microprocessor!<\/a>
\nAIM65 keyboard repair<\/a>
\nUnusual keyboard keyswitch<\/a>
\nThere’s nothing quite like the ear piercing screech of a dot matrix printer generating a line full of ‘#’ symbols.<\/a>
\nAIM-65 says hi<\/a>
\nCursed 3mm audio plug. Yes, it’s an Apple product.<\/a><\/p>\nAmiga<\/h2>\n
\nAmiga 1000 secret RAM<\/a>
\nResurrection of an Amiga 2000 motherboard.<\/a>
\nCommodore CDTV<\/a>
\nAmiga 1200 RAM expansion<\/a>
\nSwapping out 200-pin Amiga CPU connectors<\/a>
\nNew Amiga 3000<\/a>
\nSOIC pin repair.<\/a>
\nAmiga 4000 with Toaster Flyer<\/a>
\nGVP RAM for Amiga 2000<\/a>
\nExperiments with Toaster Flyer 4000<\/a>
\nAmiga ROM adapters for 27C4096 EPROMs to 27C400-style ROM pinouts<\/a>
\nAmiga 1000 ROM easter egg<\/a>
\nAmiga 500 with a PC hidden inside<\/a>
\nExtreme Amiga 4000 repair<\/a>
\nAmiga Brataccas with unusual copy protected disk<\/a>
\nAmiga ticking floppy drives<\/a><\/p>\nPS\/2<\/h2>\n
\nIBM 7496 executive workstation video review<\/a>
\nPCI versus microchannel slot<\/a>
\nPS\/2 floppy adapter thread<\/a>
\nInstalling OS\/2 2.1 on the PS\/2 model 50Z<\/a>
\nOS\/2 2.1 thread<\/a>
\nReplacement plastic fasteners for IBM PS\/2 systems<\/a>
\nField stripping my PS\/2 Model 50Z<\/a>
\nPS\/2 model 50Z drive sled (3D print)<\/a>
\nMCA bus experiments<\/a>
\nExpanded memory card experiments<\/a><\/p>\nPC<\/h2>\n
\nExploring the light pen<\/a>
\nExperiments with 90MB Iomega Bernoulli cartridges<\/a>
\nRev A IBM 5150<\/a>
\nPresenting a Targa video card from the mid 1980s<\/a>
\nExperiments with the Targa 16 video card<\/a>
\nThree monitors on an ISA bus computer<\/a>
\nGraphics demos for the IBM EGA<\/a>
\nNumber Nine Revolution 512×8 graphics card from 1984. It was one of the first hardware accelerated cards available for the IBM PC!<\/a>
\nWindows 95 UI book is *glorious*<\/a>
\nIomega’s Bernoulli box of 1982 was *not* the first floppy disk to use the Bernoulli principle.<\/a>
\nImaging Bernoulli cartridges.<\/a>
\nThe official IBM game control adapter has several unusual features.<\/a>
\nExtreme 486 motherboard hacking.<\/a>
\nEarly MDA graphics cards could actually do color!<\/a>
\nThe original IBM PC had a cassette port<\/a>
\nFound something strange on an 8″ floppy disk.<\/a>
\nMetheus Ultra Graphics Accelerator 1104 has only two video modes: 1024×768 and emulated CGA at 960×600!<\/a>
\nExtreme Sound Blaster 16 repair.<\/a>
\nUnusual Okidata gm3315b 5 1\/4″ floppy drive. It’s thin!<\/a><\/p>\nHomebrew Hardware<\/h2>\n
\nScopetrex build thread<\/a>
\nAnnouncing the SCOPETREX — the vector gaming console for your oscilloscope or XY monitor!<\/a>
\nPlaid Bib build thread<\/a>
\nPlaid Bib announcement<\/a>
\nPlaid Bib CPLD announcement<\/a>
\nSnark Barker MCA engineering thread<\/a>
\nRoland MPU-IMC card<\/a>
\nOpen-source clone of the IBM extender and receiver cards for the IBM 5161 expansion chassis!<\/a>
\nIBM extender board thread<\/a>
\nAnnouncing the Snark Barker MCA!<\/a>
\nWanted: your *broken* old Sound Blaster 1.0, 1.5, or 2.0 cards. That DSP needs to get dumped!<\/a>
\nSnark Barker build thread<\/a>
\nClones of my Snark Barker SB 1.0 clone are apparently now available in Hong Kong.<\/a>
\nA CDP1802 breadboard computer that starts simple and gets complicated<\/a>
\nI made a controller for my Vectrex clone today!<\/a>
\nOwn an IBM PS\/2 model 50, 50Z, or 70 with a broken proprietary floppy drive? Here’s a way you can make your own replacement out of some 3D printed parts and a standard PC floppy drive!<\/a><\/p>\nMOnSter 6502<\/h2>\n
\nMOnSter 6502 running validation program.<\/a><\/p>\nTube Stuff<\/h1>\n
\nA look at my private stash of Nixie tubes!<\/a>
\nOne of the first digital voltmeters, the Fairchild 7100.<\/a>
\nThe bad tantalum cap in my frequency counter that started the cross section project<\/a>
\nPower your Nixie tube with a coin cell!<\/a>
\nOne of my Nixie clocks that I built almost 13 years ago.<\/a>
\nOne of the world’s first electronic calculators, the Friden EC-130.<\/a>
\nTesting vacuum tubes<\/a>
\nSome unusual vacuum tubes<\/a>
\nUsing a VFD display as a triode<\/a>
\nIn 1959, GE tried to convince the world that vacuum tubes were better than transistors.<\/a>
\nOh look, it’s a vacuum tube module from a 1950’s IBM computer!<\/a>
\nIt’s tube time! well, time to sort and test some vacuum tubes.<\/a>
\nA 120 year-old light bulb!<\/a>
\nThe Sony Watchman has a very weird “flat” CRT<\/a>
\nFired up my Sony Watchman today, and I actually found an analog TV broadcast<\/a>
\nCheck out this neat CRT display!<\/a>
\nPlaying with CRTs today. I can almost hear the sound effect this visualization pairs up with.<\/a>
\n3D vector clock with three CRTs<\/a>
\nA CRT with P7 long persistence blue\/yellow phosphor<\/a>
\nMy friend’s TV pattern generator uses a tube called a Monoscope<\/a>
\nFirst image from the Raytheon CK1414F10C Symbolray character generating tube.<\/a>
\nGot a package dated June 28th, 1944.<\/a>
\nTidying up this tabletop Battlezone arcade machine I built<\/a>
\nThis cool 7-segment display uses neon instead of LEDs<\/a>
\nCheck out the archives of the Journal of the Society for Information Display.<\/a>
\nImagine it is 1935, and you’re trying to troubleshoot a circuit. How would you look at a voltage waveform?<\/a>
\nCome to California Extreme! Come play my vector tabletop arcade games!<\/a>
\nDon’t have a proper vacuum tube socket for a 7 or 8 pin miniature tube? Tear apart a solder cup DE-9 socket!<\/a>
\nThis is weird, someone is still broadcasting in UHF!<\/a>
\nDo you remember that high-pitched whining sound that old school tube TVs used to make?<\/a>
\nLet’s take apart this old TV camera!<\/a><\/p>\nInvestigations<\/h1>\n
\nThis Tesla SUV ran into a traffic barrier at 70mph while on Autopilot. How could this happen?<\/a>
\nThis electrical transmission tower has a little problem. Can you spot it?<\/a>
\nA tiny company nobody had heard of, Cadtrak, sued Commodore for patent infringement and won<\/a>
\nAll right, this is a new one. A EULA on…fruit?!<\/a>
\nThis happened to a Boeing 787 while it was parked at Boston Logan back in 2013<\/a>
\nCelebrate Beethoven’s birthday by listening to this *remarkable* recording from 1944<\/a><\/p>\nElectronics Learnings<\/h1>\n
\nPerforming computations with DRAM<\/a>
\nSome neat IC die photos<\/a>
\nA very clever radio transmitter circuit<\/a>
\nInvestigating a tunnel diode<\/a>
\nI once made a transistor out of a germanium diode and a guitar string<\/a>
\nWhen the first IC chips came out, General Electric fired back, introducing the Compactron in 1961.<\/a>
\nHow did people simulate heat transfer, fluid flow, and electric fields before we had fast computers?<\/a>
\nRepairing a vintage analog oscilloscope<\/a>
\nWeird diodes<\/a>
\nWanna see an old telephone stepping relay in action?<\/a>
\nTroubleshooting the pulse dialer on my Automatic Electric type 80.<\/a>
\nFixing my other logic analyzer, the HP1661A.<\/a>
\nAn incredibly rare transparent SOIC chip package.<\/a>
\nLet’s talk about multipliers!<\/a>
\nHere’s the Intel 1702, the first erasable, programmable read-only memory (EPROM) from 1971.<\/a>
\nYou’ve never seen this D-sub connector before!<\/a>
\nD-sub connectors were invented in 1952 at Cannon by Sam Arson!<\/a>
\nThis neon lamp should never light up!<\/a>
\nParts inside parts<\/a>
\nHere is part of the payload electronics from the Explorer 8 satellite (1960)!<\/a>
\nI went to the first Bay Area Maker Faire back in 2006. Here are some of the photos<\/a>
\nToday i finished building an AM radio for the @hackadayio circuit sculpture contest.<\/a>
\nI decapped this LH0070 precision 10V reference, and found something unbelievable inside.<\/a>
\nSome IC chips come in clear plastic. I picked up a tube today.<\/a>
\nLet’s look at old school LED displays under a microscope.<\/a>
\nTroubleshooting the STM32F407 USB bootloader<\/a>
\nLet’s take apart this old chart recorder!<\/a>
\nThis is the uA702, the first commercial analog chip (an op-amp).<\/a>
\nHere’s a fun little mystery! See this 2N2222A transistor…<\/a>
\nHere’s an interesting part, the LM399H voltage reference.<\/a>
\nThis desk fan is 85 years old and still running strong. How would YOU design an electronics gadget to last 100 years?<\/a>
\nHey look it’s an ultra-rare transparent IC chip!<\/a>
\nTIL about stakeless earth ground measurement.<\/a>
\nIt’s not always a software problem. It’s not always a hardware design problem.<\/a>
\nMeasuring propagation delays through buffers from different logic families.<\/a>
\nFixing a 1960s Japanese transistor radio.<\/a>
\nHere’s a fun little cascaded Peltier cooler. Let’s see how cold it gets!<\/a>
\nTime to visit the giant 2N696 in person!<\/a>
\nYou may have heard of an IC named after someone, but have you ever heard of a chip *pin* named after a dog?<\/a>
\nLet’s read this @digikey catalog from 1987!<\/a>
\nIllegal RC car!<\/a>
\nCheck out this cool prototype LED!<\/a>
\nDiscrete breadboard version of 555 timer<\/a>
\nAround 1994 I built this voice recorder box with my grandfather. I wonder if it still works…<\/a>
\nThis is an EMP-20 device programmer from the early ’90s. it supports a huge variety of devices. The thing in the side that looks like a SIMM socket? It’s not…<\/a>
\nSurprising facts about electrolytic capacitors<\/a>
\nAltered chips<\/a>
\nThe first commercial product I ever designed<\/a>
\nHere’s a nuclear battery in a DIP package.<\/a>
\nPSA – Don’t store your chips in that black ESD foam!<\/a>
\nBuilt a phono preamp<\/a>
\nWhy are chips often so expensive?<\/a><\/p>\nReverse Engineering<\/h1>\n
\nHere’s the Snappy Video Snapshot. It is a video digitizer.<\/a>
\nThis computer has a really neat VGA BIOS screen with a shimmering rainbow<\/a>
\nThis is an LM168 voltage reference.<\/a>
\nTime to extract some bits from this ROM image.<\/a>
\nThis is the chip layout of the famed Intel 80C51 showing all of the basic functional blocks.<\/a>
\nToday I confirmed that I have a bit-accurate dump of the Sound Blaster CT-1351V202 DSP 2.02 firmware!<\/a><\/p>\nFlea Market Threads<\/h1>\n
\nAug 10, 2019<\/a>
\nJul 13, 2019<\/a>
\nJun 8, 2019<\/a>
\nMay 11, 2019<\/a>
\nApr 13, 2019<\/a>
\nMar 9, 2019<\/a>
\nSep 8, 2018<\/a>
\nJuly 14, 2018<\/a>
\nApr 14, 2018<\/a><\/p>\nMemes<\/h1>\n
\nHere’s the new proposed USB-C connector.<\/a>
\nI didn’t have a terminator for a 1\/4″ audio jack, so I had to improvise…<\/a>
\nSalesman: *slaps roof of 7805* this bad boy can fit so much magic smoke in it<\/a>
\nWhat kind of sadist makes a breadboard that is 3 rows too short to fit a 40-pin DIP?<\/a>
\nSince everyone’s reviewing emojis, let’s look at the light bulb emoji.<\/a>
\nAren’t D-sub connectors neat? Here is a DA-15 (bottom) along with a… hmm… hipster D-sub.<\/a>
\nSaw the Jameco truck at Excess Solutions today.<\/a>
\nLet’s order strange things from NIST! First up is this jar of reference peanut butter.<\/a>
\n7 segment LED? Nixie tube?<\/a><\/p>\nPrototypes<\/h1>\n
\nPrototype BART ticket card with magnetic stripe<\/a>
\nWorld’s first hard disk head<\/a>
\nFirst prototype of the Hercules graphics card<\/a>
\nI see your bit and byte, and I raise you a prototype head for the world’s first hard drive, the RAMAC.<\/a>
\nThis is a module from the IBM 4 Pi series aerospace computer. Not bad for 1972!<\/a>
\nHere’s the wire-wrapped prototype of the original IBM PC (5150) motherboard!<\/a><\/p>\nSurplus<\/h1>\n
\nWeirdStuff megathread: What’s your best memory of the place?<\/a>
\nVintage laptops at WeirdStuff!<\/a>
\nSuper clean IBM PC convertible at WeirdStuff<\/a>
\nYep, HSC is closing.<\/a>
\nHSC electronics is up for sale.<\/a>
\nHSC electronics sure was expensive back in the day.<\/a>
\nThe photo is HSC Electronics (their old building). The coffee machine was just to the left out of the frame.<\/a>
\nHSC electronics has been sold to Excess Solutions!<\/a>
\nHSC\/Halted electronics featured in Newsweek, March 21, 1983<\/a>
\nHSC Electronics sale today!<\/a>
\nLast day for Halted<\/a>
\nIt looks like Amazon is buying a bunch of buildings, including the one occupied by Excess Solutions<\/a>
\nAt Excess solutions. Check out this wave solder machine!<\/a>
\nMy visit to Excess Solutions.<\/a><\/p>\n3d printing<\/h1>\n
\n2020 Retrospective Thread<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"