That's really a fantastic device. It has a spot permanently on my workbench as well and I find myself often reaching for it. Glad you liked it! Great video too. I never saw the C64 cartridge dumping before, so that was neat 👍
Yeah I watched your video on this thing and was pretty envious of how cool it is! I really recommend building up the #4 DC-DC and then powering it with a USB power bank. Then you can carry it around the house to do testing while watching TV!
@Mr Guru likely, but it would have still been interesting (to me and apparently a few other people) to actually see it detect a fault in one of the known broken chips. I know nothing about actual hardware. In a game where you build CPUs from NAND gates I've designed plenty of components that passed all the tests and still contained bugs :-)
Really enjoyed the time lapse, it's crazy how much content you have to strip to make it digestible, it's super appreciated though, I'm thrilled you have some awesome fans.
That was a good point on benefiting from a serial interface. Most "real" test equipment supports control and automation though a standard inteface but I haven't seen that kind of feature in "homebrew" stuff.
You almost sounded like a kid in a candy store! It's a really good feeling when you can confirm all the parts you've been storing for years, are either good or bad, and reorganize your inventory accordingly! Nice job...
I built this device recently and Stephan was amazingly helpful when I had some trouble getting it working. Once it was working it has solved mysterious problems for two of my C64's already! Thank you again Stephan!
I love your videos. I won't pretend to understand everything going on and no doubt will never have the depth of knowledge you do. However you present these in a way I always learn something and fill in gaps of my knowledge. Your videos have a calming effect and I'm always glued to what your presenting. You don't show off, just show what's happening. Looking forward to your next video. You must inspire lots of people to start new projects or pick up where they left off with an old one. I dont watch TV anymore, but if it had content like this I would be square eyed. Thsnkyou for making these videos with the passion you do.
I first saw these featured on Noel's Retro Lab. I think it's an amazing concept. I was legit surprised that I hadn't seen them here first, given the number of ICs you work with in your videos. That said, I have a feeling you're going to get quite a bit of use out of this device.
the video thumbnail perfectly represents my reaction when I realized he hasn't given up on the Model II yet - great work, Mr. Black! I hope you'll get it up and running again
Hi Adrian, I have been using this tester for about half a year now, and all I can say it's awesome. Use it a lot with arcade pcb repair and have only found 1 sram ic that wasn't supported. After mailing Stephan, I immediately got a reply and the same day I could test this ic, how is that for support! Can highly recommend this to everyone and I did not even come close to the $200 when building it, maybe slightly over $100. Regarding the C64 cartridge read, I saw you had both low and high jumpered, this should be EITHER low or high, not both this is why you were getting the different checksums all the time.
@@retro_online6927 It's a kit, you can buy the pcb with arduino chip soldered on from the maker, and then you have to order the parts and build it yourself.
@@patzik1910 I already send email to stephan and replyed to me Very cheap maybe in total cost for all parts and adaptors with shipping like 150£ but unfortunately the customs in Egypt very high that maybe come to with 400$ fees
I don't see the speed as a real issue actually, maybe when you constantly have to use it, which seems unlikely. The support it has is simply amazing. The serial interface would definitely be great to have.
To properly test RAM takes a lot of time no matter what, shortening the test would just cause false positives and leave you with an unstable system when you put it to use in a computer. I wish he'd tested with a few known bad chips too...
The chip/testing, analysis, programming, etc was interesting but WAY above my current needs. However the tricks and tips on assembly . . that I can use immediately. A very informative video. Also I am convinced you have never thrown away an IC in your life :)
this thing was a pleasure to build, as I had most of the parts in my various bins, and it works really well. the designer does very frequent updates to the software, adding support to more and more parts. it found that a bunch of my suspect DRAM parts were toast.
I saw you using it in one of your other videos, I was so excited that I looked for it, and ended up buying the PCBs. The developer is really a nice guy and responded very quickly. I'm looking forward to put it together, probably as a Christmas holiday activity.
Adrian!! As soon as I saw this video, I ordered all the parts and the board. Yesterday, Dec 29th, I finished putting mine together and tested it. Boom! I tested 25 8Kx8 SRAMs and they all worked. I got board 1.2k with the 5 switches. Also I read programming the Atmel controller. You had mentioned that it seemed slow, but mine is rocket ship fast. I wonder if you might need to check the fuse programming. There’s info in the documentation that mentions that the controller might run at 1 MHz instead of 16 MHz if the fuses are wrong. And I like firmware version 20 very much. Just do a check of the fuse programming and make sure it’s right. Thanks for a great video and now I’ve got a fantastic tester. Thanks!!
Tauntek makes an excellent tester for logic ICs which will catch problems most others won't. It also has a very nice user interface which is accessed via a serial console.
Not sure where to post this so I'm doing it here, but your videos have reactivated my inner retro geek. Have been so far just playing with old OS's from my past career in VM. Hoping to start collecting older components and systems so I can play with the real thing.
Although I've seen you use this before, I'm just now watching this video. The fact that this is a privately run project by a hobbyist is amazing. That's an invaluable took and you'd never find anything like it in the manistream.
Your and Noel's video about the RCT convinced me to build it, too. Now I was able to test some RAM chips, just to find out, I've bought some defective ones... :/ ... But the build was a pleasure and great fun. Thanks for giving some insights about the EPROMs, too...
Your opening is too good. It's like a tasty Halt + Catch Fire episode is about to launch, but on the budget of an 80's highschool AV club. I'm in it now.
OK this is awesome and your video really took me over the edge to pull the trigger on this. Been looking at this for a while now and know it is a mature project. Just put in my order for boards and parts. !! Thanks for your excellent presentation.
My fav tech channel strikes again. I really love your videos, even me will never use these PCs and gadgets I like to watch to learn aomething more about it.
Bravo! I don't know where to start. I love this project and what it can do. I loved watching the build part of the video. It can serve as inspiration for project folks to commit to a build like this (knowing it can be done with careful planning).
I was hoping you'd take a RAM chip from the dead parts bin to scare us, like you test it, it fails and only after that you'd admit you actually deliberately tried a known bad RAM chip :) At the part where you dumped the 1540 chip I was 100% sold on this. Such a cood device!
Something I found with the magnet trays; put it into a sandwich bag. The magnet will be strong enough to hold it through the plastic, but when you're done, flip the bag around and you can remove all the tiny parts in 1 go
What a brilliant tester. I was hoping you were going to check one or two chips that were bad just to confirm what you already knew. The serial interface would definitely be great
Just a quick note about those little USBasp devices you were trying to use. Many of them are actually cheap Chinese clones of the real USBasp project and run a junk firmware that only works with a sketchy Chinese program called PROGisp. Hardware wise, they are identical and it is possible to reflash their firmware with the proper USBasp one, but it requires an Atmel programmer to do so in the first place. A USBasp is perfectly capable of flashing a mega2560 chip, as far as I am aware, there is no such limitation on any Atmel programmer.
This tester seems to be evolving quite nicely. I still think the user interface would have been much nicer if they’d based it on a rotary encoder instead. I also think it’s a pity they didn’t push it out to a full 40pin ZIF interface. Just in terms of future possibility of testing PIA / CIA etc, and also support for bigger Retro EPROM’s (eg. Amiga ROM / 27C400 etc.). Perhaps there was a limitation on I/O pins on their chosen MCU? Finally, it would be good to see a smaller SMD based PCB design, eventually. But, certainly an outstanding effort creating this awesome retro tester so far! Keen to see how it evolves further.
@@johndododoe1411 40pin ZIF would cover the vast majority of retro chips. The only 64 pin DIP devices that immediately come to my mind are the TMS9900, as you mentioned, and the Motorola MC68000. Both being CPU’s, which you also wouldn’t typically be trying to test on a device like this.
Here’s (really) is a helpful hint: group your ICs by part #, then you can batch test all the parts with that part # without having to go back-and-forth through the RCTP’s menu system! 😍
I saw Noels review of this thing too a while back. Looks like around $200 + for everything , not including any adapters, and locating some parts can be a pain. I may wait a bit. Also Adrian, this video alone may cause them to completely sell out of stock of the main board lol. You're going to turn into a Mr. Carlson's lab, where every device you show on video sells out immediately online afterward or the used ebay price goes into orbit... lol
9:15 I have often seen this behaviour with switching regulators; for whatever reason they fail to bootstrap their startup without a much larger than expected current available in the first few micro/milliseconds (and get stuck drawing a lot of current), but once the converter is running they drop down to the expected load. It does make it a bit difficult to test newly built designs like this because you end up needing to provide a lot more current limit on your lab power supply than you'd like, but once you know the cause it's easy to work around it.
There are two sided pc board holders that has a foam lined lid you can clamp over the board then flip the holder upside down while the parts are being soldered.
Rich... That's the 7473. I repair B&k tube rejuvenators and they run a 7400 and 7473. The 7473 is positive triggered where as the 74LS73 is a negative trigger.
Using those tactile switches like that will eventually break them. The plastic white top to the switch with the 4 black dots will eventually snap off. There are other tactile twitches with metal tops that are a bit stronger, but I still don't suggest using the switches that way. I replace dozens of these a week at my job due to people trying to use the switches this way. Also the tall tactile switches snap off easily if they are bumped, I suggest trading the tall ones for all short tactile switches, as it would two bird one stone the issues I've listed. This is not a complaint, I enjoyed the video. I'm now looking at buying one of these testers myself for my job :D As this would be very helpful ! Just wanted to help with issues you may face using those switches from my experience :)
@Lassi Kinnunen 81 depending on the speed of response from the device, maybe it would be viable to make a small module that would take care of the rotary encoder and program it to work dependent on rotation speeds by sending fast series of signals the faster you rotate it, like some oscilloscopes/hardware doo-daas do it. If it's not fast enough with responding, then that falls apart.
Just had a 25 year flashback while looking at the soldering of this PCB. I am tempted to give you some heat for your order of assembly and handling of some components, but who cares as long as it works in the end.
@11:50 for the backlight you should totally do what I do with all of my backlights and convert it into a 1 transistor constant current circuit. That way you have full control over the backlight brightness, the only way it will change in brightness is if the 5v rail changes higher or lower. I made a video over on my channel. You just put a resistor so it has a current shunt with a value of 5v - (voltage drop of led)v = (voltage across resistor calculated for the allowable max current through led)v Then you put the Collector of an NPN transistor on the Cathode of the LED (Anode going directly to 5v) Then the Emitter going to the current shunt resistor to Ground Lastly you make up a voltage divider with a potentiaometer with each side to 5v and Ground, then the wiper goes to a 1k ohm resistor to limit the current through the base of the transistor which the resistor is then connected to. Changing the voltage on the potentiometer changes the voltage on the base of the transistor, which in turn turns the transistor on, letting current flow through the led via the emitter until the voltage across the current shunt equals the voltage across the base minus the base-emitter voltage drop. Link to my video showing the circuit: ruclips.net/video/yakHtqsBNrE/видео.html
What?!? All this time, I thought one was SUPPOSED to lose some parts on the floor (rug). 😆🤣 I thought they’re supposed to be sacrifices to the gods of electronic kits, and that failure to follow this unwritten rule would result in bad things happening to your test equipment; the battery in your DMM would conk out right when you need it most, or your frequency counter will freq out, or channel 1 of your scope will suddenly pickup bucketloads of noise, or your spectrum analyzer will receive malware from a Petscii robot. You get the idea.
I'm thinking about buying this and that would be an immediate mod to make. Still, viability depends on the firmware, probably. If I can send really short, fast series of pulses to make a software acceleration depending on the speed the encoder is rotated in, then that's a mod I'm willing to try out. Otherwise, if it comes out slower in practice than zooming through options by holding the switch, then... well.
I think the best version of that device would include a connection for a raspberry pi as a daughter board that could run a web server which would host the big chip database, the documentation, the sd card contents, and a streamlined control page to operate it from.
Awsome. But i'm just little dissapointed... I was sure - we will see some testing based on "dead parts bin" chips. Waited until last seconds and... there was none :( Working parts are cool - but for real there wasn't any proof that it can detect invalid chips...
Really neat tester! I have the TL866-II Minipro which (when last I looked) is still supported. It also has a fair bit of testing functionality, and can be used from the computer. Not explored it very far though. Probably should fire it up and have another look! 👍
That's really a fantastic device. It has a spot permanently on my workbench as well and I find myself often reaching for it. Glad you liked it! Great video too. I never saw the C64 cartridge dumping before, so that was neat 👍
Yeah I watched your video on this thing and was pretty envious of how cool it is! I really recommend building up the #4 DC-DC and then powering it with a USB power bank. Then you can carry it around the house to do testing while watching TV!
Can it test a DIP28 2 channel floppy drive controller?
It'd be interesting to see how chips fail tests on that tester, as I recall, you do have a fairly hefty bucket of bad chips.
Had the same thought .. especially since I'm seriously considering getting one of these testers.
Yep I was hoping he'd get out the dead parts box and test a few, especially some junk MOS chips :D
Same here. I kept thinking "grab the bad ROM from xxxxx video". Maybe in the next video.
@Mr Guru It would have been interesting just to confirm that it doesn't always report 'ok'.
@Mr Guru likely, but it would have still been interesting (to me and apparently a few other people) to actually see it detect a fault in one of the known broken chips. I know nothing about actual hardware. In a game where you build CPUs from NAND gates I've designed plenty of components that passed all the tests and still contained bugs :-)
Really enjoyed the time lapse, it's crazy how much content you have to strip to make it digestible, it's super appreciated though, I'm thrilled you have some awesome fans.
That was a good point on benefiting from a serial interface. Most "real" test equipment supports control and automation though a standard inteface but I haven't seen that kind of feature in "homebrew" stuff.
You almost sounded like a kid in a candy store! It's a really good feeling when you can confirm all the parts you've been storing for years, are either good or bad, and reorganize your inventory accordingly! Nice job...
Pretty cool device. It would have been nice to see some ICs pulled from dead parts bin to show the results of testing a known bad part.
I built this device recently and Stephan was amazingly helpful when I had some trouble getting it working. Once it was working it has solved mysterious problems for two of my C64's already! Thank you again Stephan!
I love your videos. I won't pretend to understand everything going on and no doubt will never have the depth of knowledge you do. However you present these in a way I always learn something and fill in gaps of my knowledge. Your videos have a calming effect and I'm always glued to what your presenting. You don't show off, just show what's happening. Looking forward to your next video. You must inspire lots of people to start new projects or pick up where they left off with an old one. I dont watch TV anymore, but if it had content like this I would be square eyed. Thsnkyou for making these videos with the passion you do.
I first saw these featured on Noel's Retro Lab. I think it's an amazing concept. I was legit surprised that I hadn't seen them here first, given the number of ICs you work with in your videos. That said, I have a feeling you're going to get quite a bit of use out of this device.
the video thumbnail perfectly represents my reaction when I realized he hasn't given up on the Model II yet - great work, Mr. Black! I hope you'll get it up and running again
You beat me to it Adrian! I have the parts to build one right here!
Thanks Adrian. Reading up on this, it supports a good range of logic chips, I'm going to look into getting one of these.
Hi Adrian, I have been using this tester for about half a year now, and all I can say it's awesome. Use it a lot with arcade pcb repair and have only found 1 sram ic that wasn't supported. After mailing Stephan, I immediately got a reply and the same day I could test this ic, how is that for support! Can highly recommend this to everyone and I did not even come close to the $200 when building it, maybe slightly over $100.
Regarding the C64 cartridge read, I saw you had both low and high jumpered, this should be EITHER low or high, not both this is why you were getting the different checksums all the time.
Where can I get it ?
@@retro_online6927 It's a kit, you can buy the pcb with arduino chip soldered on from the maker, and then you have to order the parts and build it yourself.
@@patzik1910 I already send email to stephan and replyed to me
Very cheap maybe in total cost for all parts and adaptors with shipping like 150£ but unfortunately the customs in Egypt very high that maybe come to with 400$ fees
I don't see the speed as a real issue actually, maybe when you constantly have to use it, which seems unlikely. The support it has is simply amazing. The serial interface would definitely be great to have.
Yeah not many people have 100s of chips to test, yet alone in a row.
To properly test RAM takes a lot of time no matter what, shortening the test would just cause false positives and leave you with an unstable system when you put it to use in a computer.
I wish he'd tested with a few known bad chips too...
The chip/testing, analysis, programming, etc was interesting but WAY above my current needs. However the tricks and tips on assembly . . that I can use immediately. A very informative video. Also I am convinced you have never thrown away an IC in your life :)
I just built my own, thanks to you covering the versatility of this little gadget! Quite a useful project!
this thing was a pleasure to build, as I had most of the parts in my various bins, and it works really well. the designer does very frequent updates to the software, adding support to more and more parts. it found that a bunch of my suspect DRAM parts were toast.
I saw you using it in one of your other videos, I was so excited that I looked for it, and ended up buying the PCBs. The developer is really a nice guy and responded very quickly. I'm looking forward to put it together, probably as a Christmas holiday activity.
Adrian!! As soon as I saw this video, I ordered all the parts and the board. Yesterday, Dec 29th, I finished putting mine together and tested it. Boom! I tested 25 8Kx8 SRAMs and they all worked.
I got board 1.2k with the 5 switches. Also I read programming the Atmel controller. You had mentioned that it seemed slow, but mine is rocket ship fast. I wonder if you might need to check the fuse programming. There’s info in the documentation that mentions that the controller might run at 1 MHz instead of 16 MHz if the fuses are wrong. And I like firmware version 20 very much. Just do a check of the fuse programming and make sure it’s right.
Thanks for a great video and now I’ve got a fantastic tester. Thanks!!
Tauntek makes an excellent tester for logic ICs which will catch problems most others won't. It also has a very nice user interface which is accessed via a serial console.
Well done Adrian! Amazing work on this project, and now you have a tool you can both admire your handy work making it and something you can use.
Not sure where to post this so I'm doing it here, but your videos have reactivated my inner retro geek. Have been so far just playing with old OS's from my past career in VM. Hoping to start collecting older components and systems so I can play with the real thing.
Although I've seen you use this before, I'm just now watching this video. The fact that this is a privately run project by a hobbyist is amazing. That's an invaluable took and you'd never find anything like it in the manistream.
Love my RCT pro. I haven't even explored all the features yet. I have tested several boxes full of chips for friends.
Your and Noel's video about the RCT convinced me to build it, too. Now I was able to test some RAM chips, just to find out, I've bought some defective ones... :/ ... But the build was a pleasure and great fun. Thanks for giving some insights about the EPROMs, too...
I want one of these for my bench! Thanks for letting us know that it exists!
Top tip for the board handler ... Don't use tape to stop parts dropping out. Use a piece of soft (antistatic?) foam sheet instead. Works WAY BETTER.
Yes, the tester is really neat. I built mine a few month ago and was also really impressed how good it is :-)
Your opening is too good. It's like a tasty Halt + Catch Fire episode is about to launch, but on the budget of an 80's highschool AV club. I'm in it now.
OK this is awesome and your video really took me over the edge to pull the trigger on this. Been looking at this for a while now and know it is a mature project. Just put in my order for boards and parts. !! Thanks for your excellent presentation.
My fav tech channel strikes again. I really love your videos, even me will never use these PCs and gadgets I like to watch to learn aomething more about it.
What a beautiful tool. Like you, I really had no way to test dRAM except for putting them into a functioning device.
This is so cool - thanks for reviewing. For reference the UK reseller no longer sells or supports the device.
I LOVE IT. THE BEGINNING, 8 BIT VIDEO IN 4K. HAHAHAHA. LOVE THE 1980'S. WHAT'S SAD, I STILL MAINTAIN SOME OF THIS STUFF. BUT WELL BUILT STUFF.
Dang, what a fun channel you have! Love longer format videos and very well edited and explained.
Bravo! I don't know where to start. I love this project and what it can do. I loved watching the build part of the video. It can serve as inspiration for project folks to commit to a build like this (knowing it can be done with careful planning).
Awesome! Saved to my "Interesting Tech" playlist.
I was hoping you'd take a RAM chip from the dead parts bin to scare us, like you test it, it fails and only after that you'd admit you actually deliberately tried a known bad RAM chip :)
At the part where you dumped the 1540 chip I was 100% sold on this. Such a cood device!
Watch for an upcoming video of this -- I did end up raiding the dead parts bin.
Something I found with the magnet trays; put it into a sandwich bag. The magnet will be strong enough to hold it through the plastic, but when you're done, flip the bag around and you can remove all the tiny parts in 1 go
Skip the assembly? NO WAY! :)
What a brilliant tester. I was hoping you were going to check one or two chips that were bad just to confirm what you already knew. The serial interface would definitely be great
I have absolutely no need for this whatsoever, yet I really what one. Testament to your video. Really enjoyed this, thanks 👍
Such a great tool. Kudos to the designer! What a ton of work.
What an amazing piece of kit!!!
You've got a dead parts bin, don't you? Let's see what happens with some of those!
Just a quick note about those little USBasp devices you were trying to use.
Many of them are actually cheap Chinese clones of the real USBasp project and run a junk firmware that only works with a sketchy Chinese program called PROGisp. Hardware wise, they are identical and it is possible to reflash their firmware with the proper USBasp one, but it requires an Atmel programmer to do so in the first place.
A USBasp is perfectly capable of flashing a mega2560 chip, as far as I am aware, there is no such limitation on any Atmel programmer.
This tester seems to be evolving quite nicely. I still think the user interface would have been much nicer if they’d based it on a rotary encoder instead. I also think it’s a pity they didn’t push it out to a full 40pin ZIF interface. Just in terms of future possibility of testing PIA / CIA etc, and also support for bigger Retro EPROM’s (eg. Amiga ROM / 27C400 etc.). Perhaps there was a limitation on I/O pins on their chosen MCU? Finally, it would be good to see a smaller SMD based PCB design, eventually. But, certainly an outstanding effort creating this awesome retro tester so far! Keen to see how it evolves further.
Imagine testing a 64 pin CPU chip, like TMS9900.
@@johndododoe1411 40pin ZIF would cover the vast majority of retro chips. The only 64 pin DIP devices that immediately come to my mind are the TMS9900, as you mentioned, and the Motorola MC68000. Both being CPU’s, which you also wouldn’t typically be trying to test on a device like this.
Seriously useful bit of kit, lot of excellent features for retro computing
Great video. Been looking for a new project since I finished building my IMSAI 8080 front panel replica and this sounds right up my street.
Thanks for sharing the build, it was very interesting to watch.
very great device!! Thanks for reviewing it so intensive. Specially the 1702 part I liked a lot 😉. Cheers, Peter
Here’s (really) is a helpful hint: group your ICs by part #, then you can batch test all the parts with that part # without having to go back-and-forth through the RCTP’s menu system! 😍
I saw Noels review of this thing too a while back. Looks like around $200 + for everything , not including any adapters, and locating some parts can be a pain. I may wait a bit. Also Adrian, this video alone may cause them to completely sell out of stock of the main board lol. You're going to turn into a Mr. Carlson's lab, where every device you show on video sells out immediately online afterward or the used ebay price goes into orbit... lol
Okay. Wow. Simply WOW. Test chips, dump binaries ... Amazing. I looked a long time for something like this in the price range < 200£
I'm so excited to see this used for the TRS-80!
What a great device! But Adrian, you totally triggered my OCD by not orienting all of the resistors the same way :)
9:15 I have often seen this behaviour with switching regulators; for whatever reason they fail to bootstrap their startup without a much larger than expected current available in the first few micro/milliseconds (and get stuck drawing a lot of current), but once the converter is running they drop down to the expected load. It does make it a bit difficult to test newly built designs like this because you end up needing to provide a lot more current limit on your lab power supply than you'd like, but once you know the cause it's easy to work around it.
Were I used to work we bought a chip tester that can find the function of an IC. it worked great. this is similar.
There are two sided pc board holders that has a foam lined lid you can clamp over the board then flip the holder upside down while the parts are being soldered.
What a great bit of kit. Got caught out years ago with a 7473 or might of been a 7474 when the LS version had a different function to the basic chip.
Rich... That's the 7473. I repair B&k tube rejuvenators and they run a 7400 and 7473. The 7473 is positive triggered where as the 74LS73 is a negative trigger.
Using those tactile switches like that will eventually break them. The plastic white top to the switch with the 4 black dots will eventually snap off. There are other tactile twitches with metal tops that are a bit stronger, but I still don't suggest using the switches that way. I replace dozens of these a week at my job due to people trying to use the switches this way. Also the tall tactile switches snap off easily if they are bumped, I suggest trading the tall ones for all short tactile switches, as it would two bird one stone the issues I've listed.
This is not a complaint, I enjoyed the video. I'm now looking at buying one of these testers myself for my job :D As this would be very helpful !
Just wanted to help with issues you may face using those switches from my experience :)
A rotary encoder would be a nice addition for chip selection.
@Lassi Kinnunen 81 depending on the speed of response from the device, maybe it would be viable to make a small module that would take care of the rotary encoder and program it to work dependent on rotation speeds by sending fast series of signals the faster you rotate it, like some oscilloscopes/hardware doo-daas do it. If it's not fast enough with responding, then that falls apart.
Please don’t use the wide eyed thumbnail gimmick. This channel is credible (and incredible) and above such trickery.
gotta love the GERMAN OS Setting in the Document at 18:29 :D :D
1:30 - Wow, you soldered in that surface-mount processor SUPER FAST! :)
Just had a 25 year flashback while looking at the soldering of this PCB. I am tempted to give you some heat for your order of assembly and handling of some components, but who cares as long as it works in the end.
Serial interface was my immediate thought too. There are too many options for just 4 buttons.
> This has to be the ultimate retro chip tester
> It's pretty cool
uhh...
You are right about it needing a serial connection to a PC.
Great device Adrian! Very cool!
i hope that a lot of good things come to the man who did all the effort and ship you this :D
@11:50 for the backlight you should totally do what I do with all of my backlights and convert it into a 1 transistor constant current circuit. That way you have full control over the backlight brightness, the only way it will change in brightness is if the 5v rail changes higher or lower. I made a video over on my channel. You just put a resistor so it has a current shunt with a value of 5v - (voltage drop of led)v = (voltage across resistor calculated for the allowable max current through led)v
Then you put the Collector of an NPN transistor on the Cathode of the LED (Anode going directly to 5v)
Then the Emitter going to the current shunt resistor to Ground
Lastly you make up a voltage divider with a potentiaometer with each side to 5v and Ground, then the wiper goes to a 1k ohm resistor to limit the current through the base of the transistor which the resistor is then connected to.
Changing the voltage on the potentiometer changes the voltage on the base of the transistor, which in turn turns the transistor on, letting current flow through the led via the emitter until the voltage across the current shunt equals the voltage across the base minus the base-emitter voltage drop.
Link to my video showing the circuit: ruclips.net/video/yakHtqsBNrE/видео.html
great video. I am going to get one to try out.
Saw this on NRL a while back. Great device
When searching for part numbers, unchecking the "start of text" checkbox helps you to find partial matches. like with your W24257
Wish I had this back in the 1980s repairing Lowrey Organs!!
Great video. World have loved to see you test some of you bad chips from your bad parts box
It was like watching a time-lapse Heathkit build!
What?!? All this time, I thought one was SUPPOSED to lose some parts on the floor (rug). 😆🤣 I thought they’re supposed to be sacrifices to the gods of electronic kits, and that failure to follow this unwritten rule would result in bad things happening to your test equipment; the battery in your DMM would conk out right when you need it most, or your frequency counter will freq out, or channel 1 of your scope will suddenly pickup bucketloads of noise, or your spectrum analyzer will receive malware from a Petscii robot. You get the idea.
I have no need for this, but it seems really cool!
Tank you. I have been looking for something like this for a year 😊
Btw your videos are great 🤓
I might have to get my hands on one of these.
Great video of a very impressive piece of kit.
Great video
Awesome content dude
A very very very cool device and video. 👍
Kinda wish they'd put a rotary encoder in there. Going through the list with that would be a lot simpler.
I'm thinking about buying this and that would be an immediate mod to make. Still, viability depends on the firmware, probably. If I can send really short, fast series of pulses to make a software acceleration depending on the speed the encoder is rotated in, then that's a mod I'm willing to try out.
Otherwise, if it comes out slower in practice than zooming through options by holding the switch, then... well.
Very nice; I've already sent a request to purchase one.
Those Hitachi RAM chips are used in the ZX 48 Spider Spectrum PCB.
That is a FANTASTIC tool. I feel like the interface could benefit from a rotary encoder though. 🤔
I think the best version of that device would include a connection for a raspberry pi as a daughter board that could run a web server which would host the big chip database, the documentation, the sd card contents, and a streamlined control page to operate it from.
@3:42 Those trays can also be purchased at Harbor Freight. I bought my for 69 cents.
Great episode!
Yay at last a tube tester for ICs👍
Awsome. But i'm just little dissapointed... I was sure - we will see some testing based on "dead parts bin" chips. Waited until last seconds and... there was none :( Working parts are cool - but for real there wasn't any proof that it can detect invalid chips...
We used something akin to this in the RCAF starting back in the early 90s. The SI-635 Factron, made by Schlumberger.
That AVR ISP device is a good choice.I've been using one for years.
Really neat tester! I have the TL866-II Minipro which (when last I looked) is still supported. It also has a fair bit of testing functionality, and can be used from the computer. Not explored it very far though. Probably should fire it up and have another look! 👍
(late) TL866* does indeed test 74xx TTL, 4xxx CMOS, various RAM and other non-writable ICs
Thank you! lovely video, very interesting. Thanks for giving me some vicarious geeking on my lunch break. :) (liked and subscribed!)
You have the ICSP header already, you could use two of those pins for a serial interface.