Test Equipment Anonymous

Back to the paper tape and card punch sub-thread... This video is of minor interest, but it does contain a demo of someone operating a card punch (at about 7:10). It might be useful to show youngsters about the good old days why they've "never had it so good"[1]. Video seems to be from sh...

I assume by that you're not referring to the largest Wetherspoons in the world? Daughter's first job was behind the bar at a local Wetherspoons. It financed her "Dad I've just bought a plane ticket to Australia for 6 months" trip, and she learned a lot, e.g. how to "control" soz...

Quietly impressed. May have pulled a few strings in her mind. And that is a prime indicator of a good establishment (of whatever kind). The lack is also why I vociferously dislike "my auntie had one but she gave it away" and "I wonder what that is" type places. Contrariwise, if ...

Secondly, my middle one actually had a college trip to TNMoC on Wednesday. She absolutely loved it. Was there anything in particular (an exhibit, general atmosphere/attitude, ...) that she liked? Not a huge amount of comments made as that's just not her but there was a short discussion on the size ...

Edit: add a couple for tggzzz Ooh, you tease, you. I keep trying to buy a Curta, but my offers are rejected. An Otis King is on farcebook. I said I'd buy it at the asking price, but no response. I believe that is par for the course on farcebook. I haven't found a reasonably priced one yet. I suspec...

Wow! I've just looked up Curta (having never previously heard of such a thing). Lovely. I can see why you would want one. It's a jewel. Many years ago, I turned down the offer of a Nagra SN for £250 https://www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/rec/nagra/sn/index.htm . It's a beautiful thing, but £250 was an...

MED6753 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 21, 2026 3:55 pm

bd139 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 21, 2026 2:54 pm
Mine is currently helping a friend get rid of her friend's ex-husband's stuff so I'm good until tomorrow .

Can I send mine over to help? For some reason she's being a grumpy PITA today.

Ha. No

Going through Berlin photos and remembered this one that tickled me. A painting of people debugging a Robotron 300, an IBM 1401 clone. The socialists knew how to do modern art. None of that abstract bollocks. Never did see a 1401 in the flesh. They were built and tested at the Endicott, NY facility...

Going through Berlin photos and remembered this one that tickled me. A painting of people debugging a Robotron 300, an IBM 1401 clone. The socialists knew how to do modern art. None of that abstract bollocks. IMG_4154.JPG Side note, new bd140 on the scene so will be here even less than I already am ...

AVGresponding wrote: ↑Thu Mar 19, 2026 6:21 pm https://uxdesign.cc/the-worst-volume-co ... 713dc86950

That isa horrifying but thoroughly enjoyable.

Oh and a low point. We found this museum...
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Next trip is in 19 days... off to Naples with the youngest two for a couple of days.

Quick holiday report ... quite technology focused this one. That and some GDR weirdness. Spent a week in Berlin and Dresden hitting museums with a friend. Oh and bars. I will avoid talking about those. I can't be arsed to write it all up but it's worth noting a couple of high points: 1. Dresden tech...

A friend's cat. This is an evil bastard. It spent the entire evening nudging people off furniture that it clearly considered itself the owner of. Very cleverly it'd snuggle up behind them and then ratchet its way across the furniture slowly pressuring them into falling off

Couple of actual 10x8" prints from yesterday... (don't ask but it required eBay that puts TEA to shame )


This is like crack

Been a few years but thoroughly enjoying it!

tggzzz wrote: ↑Sun Feb 08, 2026 11:31 pm As you get older everybody really should come to appreciate Cassandra's plight more acutely.

Doing most things for the first time is more interesting than repeating experiences. But by the 10th time...

Oh totally agree there!

Once upon a time, within living memory, "computer" was a job title. The stuff that is tedious has changed, yet again. Yes. I think we built enough layers on top of the interesting stuff and surrounded them with enough bullshit to make them tedious again. On that note despite being a miser...

Showing them TNMoC will be a very useful demonstration of the antithesis of hamdom. Or of why a geek is not a dork nor a nerd. Yes that contrast is needed. There's a lot of romance around the whole radio thing but most of it was boring and writing card indexes. At least the computers took the tedio...

Event report... not worth a separate thread. So I organised a trip to Bletchley Park. Had a not insignificant horde of 26 people in total shovelled around in the site in the pissing rain and return transport issues. I did see some TE but this was Rigol and was during the visit to the NRC which got m...

Bugger colour dev and printing. I have 3 rolls of Kodak Gold 200 turning up tomorrow. I plan to blow one in the next month (after the roll of HP5 in the body) and get it developed locally. Then throw the other two at Berlin in March. I have a place lined up who will process it there already. No prin...

Bit further down the photography rabbit hole. We like rabbit holes here don't we?

Way too much eBay later we have .... a Durst 305 and a pile of chemicals and widgets.


Followed by a back ache and some swearing ....

As for printing, I have a little Canon Selphy printer that does 6x4" prints on dye sub as good as a professional print shop. That's a reasonable option. Laser printer, hmm not sure about that :) But yeah phone / digital cameras are good for documentation and utility. How often do you want a re...

Every single camera is crap, unless it is available and working when you want it. That's a significant advantage of modern digital compact cameras. Decent ones allow focussing down to 1cm, which is great for components and Tek 475 mechanisms :) https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/renovating-an-ear...

I wish 35mm Kodachrome 64 was still available. Then I could continue to take stereo photos with my Stereo Realist camera. They still make 35mm colour reversal film. It is quite frankly bloody expensive though. Stereoscopic needs the fine grain of 64ASA. Larger grain cannot be ignored by the brain, ...

Keep it. Don't lose it. Very handy things. Surprisingly film isn't even not even remotely dead. I didn't realise this until recently. There's a bit of resurgence I've noticed in separating activities from the mobile phone. This is a good thing. Makes people look and think and consider more. I've so...

A couple of years back I was walking down the street and there was a young woman about 20 with a Pentax film camera. I commented on it and she said this was real photography. It conjured up images of Cartier-Bresson, who thought cropping a photo in post capture was disgusting manipulation. He was r...