Funniest thing you saw in electronic design/manual/etc - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Agurri
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 08, 2012, 01:50:01 pm
content: Good morning/afternoon/night,I didn't see a thread talking about funny things you guys have encountered while reading manuals, doing teardowns, etc. They could be classified mostly as Easter egg, but if it's funny ... then it deserves to be here !I'll start, so here's my story :Back in college, I needed to charge a pack of Ni-Cd batteries, and I had a Hitec CG-340 charger on hand. It was getting late, and to make sure I wasn't making any error, I decided to read the manual.http://www.hitecrcd.com/files/ManualCG340.pdfI read the paper, and I came to read the User Caution and it says this :If the battery to be charged is attached to the charger "backwards" or in reverse polarity, the entire structure of the Universe as we know it will be substantially altered as time will then run backwards and it will be your fault.I just couldn't stop laughing ... really. I was with some guys and we couldn't believe what was written in there. It was, and still is, one of the most memorable night of college.So, if you have any funny story to share, go for it. Pictures or documents are always a plus !

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 08, 2012, 02:01:21 pm
content: Not an electronic thing, but when writing the logging system for an application a few years back i needed to choose a name for an event so it could appear in the log.The task that the event performed was all math and picking a meaningful name for it wasn't really possible.So i thought, screw it, and named the log text as "Spinning up FTL drive"It was around the time battlestar galactica was on TV, as you can probably imagine

author: JuKu
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 08, 2012, 02:31:17 pm
content: Form a license agreement (by memory): "Should you make illegal copies of the software, we will send two ugly trolls after you and your firstborn child."A delay line IC had a winding route on silicon with a picture of the die on the data sheet. Look closely, and you could see a picture of a steam locomotive engine on the tracks.I once designed an audio DSP module. I needed to route an 5 track control bus from the control connector to the chips. If you looked the module against light, you saw a few notes on the inner layers, so that the five tracks and the note pictures formed a short music piece.

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 08, 2012, 02:48:01 pm
content: Quote from: JuKu on August 08, 2012, 02:31:17 pmThat's pretty cool!

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 08, 2012, 03:53:47 pm
content: Old national semiconductor databook ... (see pdf file )stuff found on dies ...http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/index.html

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 08, 2012, 03:59:23 pm
content: Hey, I have a dozen of those................Been wondering what to do with them.

author: Agurri
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 08, 2012, 04:22:37 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on August 08, 2012, 03:53:47 pmTook me a while to see the old datasheet. But ... now if I need a buffer, I'll ask "Do you have a damn fast one ?"

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 08, 2012, 05:28:20 pm
content: Quote from: ErikTheNorwegian on August 08, 2012, 04:01:34 pmMy chest is hurting with laughter ... it was like reading the first manual that came with my 936 clone (the earlier one)

author: Agurri
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 08, 2012, 06:16:22 pm
content: Quote from: T4P on August 08, 2012, 05:28:20 pmIs it possible to tell me why the hell is there Olympics rings in there ?!

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 08, 2012, 06:52:55 pm
content: National Semiconductor: Polish Op Amp data sheet

author: codeboy2k
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 08, 2012, 07:34:24 pm
content: We had developed a mainframe communications hardware for multibus unix platforms, and written device drivers and hardware, etc.we had a developed a bunch of PAL devices on board that cleaned the memory window (it wasn't CPLD or FPGA back then)..We called it the windex chipset.

author: PA0PBZ
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 08, 2012, 07:54:26 pm
content: I'm still puzzled by the PC P.O.S.T. telling me "Keyboard error, press F1 to continue"

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 08, 2012, 08:07:31 pm
content: I received a computer box from the front line with the terse description of the fault - "First bomb fell on target".Pretty good considering the worst............I just had to phone and ask why the pilot was complaining.

author: Agurri
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 09, 2012, 01:16:26 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on August 08, 2012, 06:52:55 pmNow... I will definitely look more into datasheets. That is hilarious !

author: artag
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2015, 11:19:36 am
content: Impressive device. Even more impressive name.http://www.vishay.com/docs/53058/mepic.pdf

author: Yansi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2015, 11:59:51 am
content: Thats like the ST's off-line switchers named VIPER12 and VIPER16.

author: BillyD
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2015, 12:32:04 pm
content: Again this is not electronics but a favourite of mine.A few years ago I was testing a beta of our product and got an error message like 'Server not available'.Being human I tried again and got the same message.I tried a third time and got the message 'I thought I told you to fuck off'.

author: deephaven
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2015, 03:32:43 pm
content: In those long ago years when the BBC Micro was all the rage, guys at work were having a go at hacking it to release normally paid-for options. They were making good progress, but halfway through they noticed some embedded ASCII which read "Does your mother know you're doing this?"

author: KSP
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2015, 03:59:53 pm
content: A couple of mildly amusing ones that come to mind are:I was running a calibration program and one of the instructions was "connect the UUT to CH1 of the sillyscope".And the most helpful of error messages - "ERROR: Something Happened"

author: Neilm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2015, 06:51:49 pm
content: Quote from: Agurri on August 09, 2012, 01:16:26 pmWrite only memoryhttp://www.interstellar.com/photos/Write_Only_Memory.pdf

author: rx8pilot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2015, 06:59:26 pm
content: This is classic. I was in the pro audio biz in the 90's, and this got my attention.http://www.crownaudio.com/media/pdf/legacy/belchfire_datasheet.pdf

author: chicken
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2015, 08:24:41 pm
content: Besides those nasty liquid crystals (if liquid crystal is swallowed: flash your mouth thoroughly with water), I was amused about the places to avoid section describing all the places where there are interesting pictures to be had.

author: Excavatoree
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2015, 08:34:20 pm
content: J. Gordon Letwin, before he worked for Microsoft, worked for Heathkit, where he wrote HDOS - The Heath Disk Operating System. He also worked on the Heathkit version of the popular text game "adventure." One of the HDOS error messages was taken from adventure: It is now pitch dark. If you proceed, you will likely fall into a pit." This message appeared when one activated an undocumented feature "HDOS stand alone" that loaded the entire OS into memory.

author: MatthewEveritt
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 09, 2015, 09:02:17 pm
content: Required reading in our lab :Heisenberg's dog

author: jc101
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2015, 09:36:50 pm
content: Quote from: deephaven on April 09, 2015, 03:32:43 pmAnother BBC favourite was in v1.2 of the BBC ROMCode:D0D0 JSR &D1EDAh, the memories...

author: Ryano
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2015, 01:11:59 am
content: Timely.... I just received this wonderfully helpfully/hopeful popup notification that did noting to stop me from hitting "Ok" and closing the program.You go plucky little tester, but try harder next time!

author: calexanian
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2015, 06:05:43 am
content: Quote from: artag on April 09, 2015, 11:19:36 amIs that a serious product? Sounds like an surface mount electric match. I cant imagine what you would use it for other than air bags, pyrotechnics, or weapons.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2015, 07:57:58 am
content: Quote from: calexanian on April 10, 2015, 06:05:43 amSounds like exactly what it is -- not the kind of thing you'd ordinarily trawl Digikey looking for, but for those certain special purpose or military applications? Sure, why not? Kind of neat.Now I'm kind of curious why ignition rate isn't less than 250us. Surely it can be fired in a EBW mode in <1us, and used to ignite secondaries* directly?*Secondary (insensitive) explosives. Primaries are the sensitive, ridiculously dangerous kind that transition from deflagration (burning) to detonation very quickly (often within the space of a single particle or a few). Secondaries include TNT, RDX, dynamite (nitroglycerin (a primary) made insensitive with absorbents) and so on, which can usually be handled roughly, melted, pressed, etc.Explosive shock waves travel on the order of 10km/s, or ~1cm/us, so it takes a pretty fast kick to get things going.Tim

author: kayvee
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2015, 08:13:33 am
content: Back in the old EPROM days we used to add the following ASCII at some arb location to help fill it up:QuoteNo positive feedback on anyone reading it, but I am sure they did somewhere.