EEVblog #749 - Mailbag - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 02, 2015, 11:30:35 pm
content: Another Mailbag, Dave opens his mail. What have people sent in this week?SPOILERS:Tekbox self powered active load:http://www.tekbox.net/test-equipment/tboh02-self-powered-active-loadOriginal Sony TPS-L2 Walkman from 1979Sony DAT WalkmanSony Video WalkmanMatrix SR4000 autochromatic tunerSunStar 1:18 scale Delorean Time MachineSoviet Union Elecktronika MK52 Calculatorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elektronika_MK-52

author: richfiles
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2015, 01:10:36 am
content: Those Soviet calculators... They ALL had HORRIBLE keyboards. My collection covers the years 1976-1992... NOT ONE GOOD KEYBOARD between the lot of 'em!I have an Elektronika 4-71b (a 1976 desktop 4 banger), An Elektronika B3-05 (another desktop 4 banger), Mky-1 (A 1989 desktop scientific), mk-61 (a handheld scientific), and a pair of MC 1103... Which is a desktop RPN programmable calculator made for controlling and monitoring external processes. It contains internal ADCs for measuring voltages of +/-9.99V (8 channels).My 4-71b is pretty beat up, but it still works. I can pop off the left side of the top cover, cause it's all cracked. It's okay... I like my calculators topless!The Elektronika Mky is the black calculator to the left of the 4-71b and next to the Fallout 3 "Vault-Tec" lunch box and the ANITA Mk-7 nixie/thyratron all tube decade counter boards.Links to pages with very good descriptions and photos of many Soviet calculators. These are the models I own.http://www.leningrad.su/museum/show_calc.php?n=12Elektronika 4-71bhttp://www.leningrad.su/museum/show_calc.php?n=27Elektronika B3-05http://www.leningrad.su/museum/show_calc.php?n=165Elektronika MK-61http://www.leningrad.su/museum/show_calc.php?n=181Elektronika MKU-1 (Cyrillic makes it look like Mky-1)http://www.leningrad.su/museum/show_calc.php?n=132Elektronika MC 1103

author: dr.diesel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2015, 01:12:36 am
content: What, no zombie stabbin k-nife?

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2015, 03:15:32 am
content: i suspect russion calaulcators automatically subtract a percentage of the outcome to go to the polit party treasury chest ...

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 03, 2015, 03:40:57 am
content: Quote from: dr.diesel on June 03, 2015, 01:12:36 amOh, damn, did I completely forget that?

author: richfiles
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2015, 05:12:32 am
content: What I always found intriguing, whenever I added a Soviet device into my collection, is how ALIEN they appeared inside. Dave pretty much pointed out the oddities in his mk-52. Strange chip packages, odd ways of doing things, etc. My Mky-1 has a metal can chip, a staggered lead chip, and a "wrongly sized" DIP, that is just scaled too big for it's pin count. It uses a VFD in a cylindrical tube, like an elongated radio style tube... and it was made in 1989 (or maybe 1990). Inside my 4-71b, I had initially thought a fuse holder was a choke or inductor at one point, early on. It was just different. The sizing and overall configuration seemed off...What it was, was the effect of the cold war. While The US and Europe had open standards between one another, imported and exported, and embraced low cost asian manufacturing, effectively unifying the design styles for electronic component standards across the US, Europe and Asia, the USSR was always the odd one out. The US and Europe and Asia played "Keep away" with the USSR. They had to get products across the border and reverse engineer things. We point our fingers at China today, when it comes to knockoff products, but you ought to look up some of Russia's knockoff calculator (and more) designs! Some knockoffs are simply beyond blatant (http://www.leningrad.su/museum/show_calc.php?n=26Elektronika B3-04). They learned a lot by taking apart US, european, and asian calculators. They even had a functional knockoff of the HP 9100 (http://www.leningrad.su/museum/show_calc.php?n=211Elektronika T3-16)!Hey, at least the documentation in Soviet Russia was good...In Soviet Russia, tech support provide by you, worker.

author: JBaughb
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2015, 05:53:00 am
content: Glad the calculator arrived safely. Old Soviet tech is so interesting to me...mainly for the reasons people have already mentioned.

author: tchicago
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2015, 06:53:31 am
content: That programmable calculator, along with MK-54 and MK-61 were the only programmable devices accessible for education in 80s and early 90s. The real computers, even 8-bit ones were very rare.Here is what programs looked like:http://www.patlah.ru/etm/etm-10/tv-anten/tv%20spytnik/mikrokalkylator/mk-5.jpgAnd also attached is the schematic diagram. Someone took time to redraw it from the original manual. That large plastic chip KP1601PP1 is actually the 1K x 4 EEPROM. The rest of them are ASICs, besides some jellybeans like CMOS variant of 7400 and shift registers.

author: McBryce
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2015, 08:44:55 am
content: Hi Dave,relax, the German T-Shirt just says "You shouldn't lie".McBryce.

author: Solberg
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2015, 09:56:56 am
content: At 6:32 China export logo. Didn't know Romania was part of china.

author: Deathwish
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 03, 2015, 10:47:29 am
content: Quote from: dr.diesel on June 03, 2015, 01:12:36 amI am waiting for him to upgrade to a Katana.

author: halexa
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2015, 02:31:02 pm
content: Hi Dave!I have a fully working Sony Walkman MD player (http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MZ-E25.html) collection dust in the basement if you want it for your sony walkman episode.I will take some time to ship it from Sweden though.

author: 8086
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2015, 03:49:34 pm
content: Interestingly there is a GV-9E on ebay with the same faults dave described...must be common issues.http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sony-GV-9E-Video-Walkman-8mm-TV-UHF-VHF-/191589524752

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2015, 05:29:01 pm
content: Just looked today, and still have some DAt data cassettes, though I did toss the full box of NIB ones that are no longer used. Still have to look for the few later generation ones if Dave is interested to add them to his collection.

author: Grapsus
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2015, 08:23:31 pm
content: When we see the back of the calculator, there is a date code: 90 10. This turd was being manufactured when I was already bornDid you notice the small bright orange components ? those are transistors, I've never seen this package outside soviet equipment.

author: lewis
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2015, 08:52:37 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on June 03, 2015, 06:13:12 pmIt's a thing:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking#/media/File:Comparison_of_two_used_CE_marks.svg

author: bitwelder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2015, 03:43:07 pm
content: The smallest type of Parrot clip seems to be 72mm long.Is there something similar, i.e. some kind of a mini-grabber but with the tip normally exposed, of a smaller size (30-40mm) ?I'd like to replace some mini-alligators with something that has a finer gripping tip.

author: hikariuk
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 07, 2015, 04:44:18 pm
content: Quote from: richfiles on June 03, 2015, 01:10:36 amI love the fact that you have a Vault-Tec lunchbox in there

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2015, 04:59:22 pm
content: Still have an HP DAT data drive, though it is both SCSI and dead from wear. Still the mechanism inside ( and the tapes) looks identical to the Sony unit, probably was made by Sony for HP, when I take it apart it will probably be full of Sony part numbers inside. Even still have the DAT cleaning tape, and a few of the archives data sets, on the massive 2G tapes........I did a restore years ago, and it all is still sitting on my local hard drive after a few migrations, only a small bit of used space there......

author: Wytnucls
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2015, 06:43:52 pm
content: Quote from: 8086 on June 03, 2015, 03:49:34 pmPulled mine out of the cobwebs and it's still working fine.

author: AccountRemovedPerUsersRequest
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 12:24:08 pm
content: Nice DC load design. Built one.