Recent Posts

1

Vintage Computing / Re: MC68HC16: Why Motorola’ "In-Between" 16-bit Chip Was an Evolutionary Dead End

« Last post by m k on Today at 05:28:34 pm »

What kind of a time window we are estimating?
From 8080 to AVR is a bit over a decade and learning and selling stuff takes time.

I'd say that 16 bits was just a wrong horse, few exceptions of course, like 68k, if it's accepted.
Many 8 bit things continued just fine and then 32 bits was a reality.

Medium CGA resolution is 64k of only few bits, still rational with SRAM.
Moving VGA resolution is already quite DRAM level and filling it means speed.

For non visible stuff the situation is different, why change the old 8 bit construction if it still functions.
There one new step was security and its calculation needs.

Anybody familiar with 78k/R8C route?
I used V20 replacing 8088 for speed, but that is all.

2

Repair / Re: Vintage CPU emulator : Tektronix 8002 "µProcessor Lab"

« Last post by m k on Today at 05:24:35 pm »

Hard hard sector is where a disk has a hole for all positions.
Hard soft is where drive is doing sectors and a disk with only index hole can be used, or no hole at all, like original hard disks, sort of.

I guess fast clocked 64/round (32+1 holes) timer could do sector pulses without a problem, but Gotek is much easier.

3

Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff / Re: WinPartsFinder & MacPartsFinder App - Electronic Components Search

« Last post by IanJ on Today at 05:23:02 pm »

Windows Version 1.015
See link to my webpage in post #1 for both Windows & MAC OS X version downloads etc.

- Fixed bug where WinPartsFinder would crash sometimes when checking 'In stock only'

MacPartsFinder is unaffected.

Ian.

4

Repair / Re: EU import fees on electronic repair components - Let's discuss a joint petition

« Last post by m k on Today at 05:22:21 pm »

I'm hardly paying less than 10€ for local p&p.

5

Test Equipment / Re: Program that can log from many multimeters.

« Last post by Gertjan on Today at 05:22:17 pm »

Hi  ton4eff,

Glad to hear that your issue is solved.

Various people have added to /changed this definition.
I checked back, and the last version with the correct delay was this one:

Here is the expanded file for the 34401A with either serial or GPIB.

(Click on the header of the quote to get to the original post, with the definition file attached)

People who issued later versions probably only tested with GPIB.

If this was a definition file that I wrote, I would have been pissed!
I spend a lot of time to optimise a definition, testing under all circumstances. Not nice when somebody else makes changes, not having the knowledge of the author of the definition. And apparently without testing the changes...

regards, Gertjan.

6

Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff / Re: Is it worth using a low-noise regulator for analog? And other questions

« Last post by broughley488 on Today at 05:10:49 pm »

Thankyou for the input so far people

I'm now leaning heavily away from a SMPS, and will probably now go with a transformer (Need to research first).
It seems I need to do a fair bit more research on PSSR and noise, especially after AnalogTodd's reply.

When it comes to the layout, I have barely started that but when I begin to make progress I will certainly be asking for you more knowledgeable people to tear it apart
 

7

Test Equipment / Re: TDS3052 with new features

« Last post by tverbeure on Today at 05:06:14 pm »

One more thing I might add to the list of possibilities is communication with the battery. Not the one for the NVRAM, but the optional power pack.

I was wondering about that yesterday, when I noticed a flat cable to the battery charger, while getting the newly arrived TDS3041B to work (it's working, so I can now test on 3000 and 3000B). I don't know how hard it would be to make battery communications work, but even if the communications protocol is known, I'd definitely need the real hardware for testing changes.

What I could do is analyze what the existing firmware has in terms of function calls. Maybe there's stuff hiding in there.

Meanwhile, I'm adding more features: backing up and restoring NVSRAM and calibration data to floppy, support for combined horizontal and vertical cursor (instead of one or the other) etc.

8

Test Equipment / Re: Which is your favorite piece of Test Equipment?

« Last post by metrologist on Today at 04:58:03 pm »

O-silly-scope, an analog one, with dual independent sweep and 4 channels

9

Repair / Re: Vintage CPU emulator : Tektronix 8002 "µProcessor Lab"

« Last post by TERRA Operative on Today at 04:52:04 pm »

If you send me details of sellers in Japan, I can help you out with shipping stuff to you.

10

Test Equipment / Re: R&S MXO3 review and tests

« Last post by SEMICHEK on Today at 04:50:41 pm »

Exactly! There is a massive performance and usability gap between a software-based "Mask Action" and a proper hardware-based "Mask Trigger" tied to Segmented Memory.
Let’s look at the numbers. When the FPGA handles a trigger, the blind time between segments is a mere 220 nanoseconds, allowing the scope to capture at up to 4,500,000 waveforms/second. But when a mask violation triggers a software action like "Save Waveform" or "Save Screenshot," the CPU and Linux OS have to halt the acquisition, format the data, and write to the eMMC or USB drive. This takes anywhere from 10 to 100 milliseconds per file. As a result, the dead time increases by up to 500,000 times, leaving the scope completely blind to millions of subsequent signals while it writes just one file.
*The post-analysis workflow is also completely compromised. With the History/Segmented Memory Player, you can scroll through captured glitches smoothly using the front-panel rotary knobs, play them back like a movie, overlay them, or run automated measurements across all segments. *
Sure, the current Mask Action allows you to leave the scope running overnight, but instead of a clean, timestamped history buffer, you end up with thousands of individual PNG or CSV files scattered across a flash drive. Sifting through those manually would take a month of tedious work. Until Rohde & Schwarz implements a true hardware-based mask trigger inside the FPGA, using masks to capture rare, wandering glitches into history segments remains a major missed opportunity for this powerful hardware platform.