Here are some clips of our opening of an early Apollo Block I inverter, obviously a prototype. This is one of the three high power supplies that generated the 115V 3-Phase 400 Hz that powered m...
2023-03-02 08:30:38 +0000 UTC View PostYouTube version:
It's spinning good now! You can see how the longitude equation is not simple, it accelerates and decelerates. Also the day/night indicator is nicely visible at the bottom...
2023-02-20 23:46:09 +0000 UTC View PostThanks to Marcel, we finally got our hands on a Globus from the Soyuz capsule. Enjoy this rough cut of the raw video footage (let me know if the Patreon video player works OK on such ...
2023-02-11 08:26:48 +0000 UTC View PostAll in all, the Samtec-sponsored exhibit was a smashing success. We extracted the whole setup - 650 lbs of it! - out of my basement, and set it up in less than a day. After the usual few scares, we eventually got everything working. It's so freaking complicated, I can't imagine how they kept it a...
2023-02-02 09:16:34 +0000 UTC View Post
I totally forgot to advertise this here, but we’ll be exhibiting our working Apollo comms setup at the DesignCon conference reception, tomorrow Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023. If you happen to be near in Silicon Valley near Santa Clara, California, come see us. The 6-8pm reception is sponsored by Samte...
2023-01-31 02:47:01 +0000 UTC View PostFrom viewer Bob:
"Hi Marc,
If you or any of your subscribers would like their very own 8" drives, they can have them. They are a Heathkit with an external enclosure (very heavy) They are Mitsubishi DSDD drives.
I'm in SE Wisconsin and the recipient would need to arra...
2023-01-25 23:01:10 +0000 UTC View PostKen brought some vintage IBM boards from the IBM 360 or 370 era. There is something very special about IBM boards of that period. IBM went its own way with packaging and PCBs, and developed what Fran Blanche calls an alternate electronics universe, where packages are silvery squares, and PCBs hav...
2023-01-23 08:59:52 +0000 UTC View PostThese recently came in through a donation from a viewer (thank you Austin, you rock!). These weird looking gray cylinders are actually lights for the control panels. They are very gray and looking like pushbuttons much more than like indicators, so I had never noticed them before.
As ...
2023-01-18 06:14:42 +0000 UTC View PostI got flack from not having mentioned the hard sectored 8" floppy in my last video, so Eric brought one to straighten things out. But even more interesting, he brought an IBM Demi disk drive, which I didn't even know existed. Even better, that's the prototype unit that his grandfather worked on!<...
2023-01-16 07:19:36 +0000 UTC View PostPeople keep asking me about particular tools or products I use in my videos. For good reason, because it sometimes takes me a while and a few trials to find the right ones.
I just discovered that Amazon has a feature where I can just post links to my favorite things, and, double whamm...
2023-01-03 00:55:24 +0000 UTC View PostThis is a video of Carlos N. at work, while he is post-processing Jennifer's tape recording. I published the resulting sound file in my previous post. Looks like magic and witchcraft to me. Thanks Carlos!
Marc
2022-12-31 06:09:22 +0000 UTC View PostViewer Carlos N. from Portugal is a professional sound editor that specializes in recovery and cleanup of old soundtracks for the film industry. He volunteered to process the recording and correct it for flutter, hum, noise and many other defects. Here is the result. The result is so good that yo...
2022-12-31 06:04:51 +0000 UTC View Post
We practice unboxing for Christmas, with these cool vintage MIL-spec synchros. We are planning to use them with our Bendix mechanical analog computer. Now, that's what I call proper packaging. Wishing you a Merry Christmas unboxing session to you all.
Marc
2022-12-24 00:00:48 +0000 UTC View Post
...and gets more than he bargained for. Watch this Patreon exclusive raw uncut footage of our session, as Mike goes in full Sherlock Holmes mode, and figures out what he actually got, by exploring minute details of his CDU. Which is a way more interesting and noble unit than what he thought he bo...
2022-12-20 08:35:56 +0000 UTC View PostI have recently collected 3 semi-modern (1970s to 1990s) Baudot FSK machines. They are basically teletypes equipped with a frequency shift keying two-tone modem. The idea is to have a pseudo modern RTTY (radio-teletype) test setup before I try to do it the original way with technology from the 19...
2022-12-04 06:34:04 +0000 UTC View PostI'm loving that new quick video upload feature of Patreon! Here are a few raw takes from the recent Sony monitor repair footage I did with TubeTime. It already tells the story. This free donated monitor was completely purple, just unusable. I thought, and hoped, that there was something very wron...
2022-11-21 08:22:46 +0000 UTC View PostYet another HP instrument rescue. It's a Nixie instrument I picked up at the Nevada hamfest for $15, or it was going to be taken apart for parts scavenging. Gave me hard time (some of it being my own doing), but it is back to its own spectacular self. I'm planning to use it in another upcoming pr...
2022-11-15 02:58:55 +0000 UTC View PostViewer Jennifer had an unusual, very wide band tape media. She thought it was recorded in 1965 when she was 4 years old, and may contain her voice. It said IBM on the side of the tape. She wondered if I knew what it was. I did! It's for an IBM 214 Executary dictaphone. She send the magnetic band ...
2022-11-12 21:02:49 +0000 UTC View PostTesting the new Patreon video feature some more. Here is another unedited take, where we look at the inside of the computer for the first time.
Marc
2022-11-09 06:26:28 +0000 UTC View PostWoohoo, Patreon has a new direct video upload capability, which makes it much simpler for me to upload video updates. Let's try it with the unedited footage of our opening of the MG-1 Central Air Data Computer, an electro-mechanical computer with gears and springs and resolvers and mag amplifiers...
2022-11-09 06:21:37 +0000 UTC View Post
This is the USB peripheral you were all waiting for: the Apollo core rope reader, another creation of our AGC restoration hero Mike Stewart.
Not only he made it work, but he made it look cool, with a lightweight metal case mimicking the case design of the AGC.
2022-10-23 05:39:14 +0000 UTC
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Quick update on the Apollo comms setup. We revived one more test box: the Interface Simulator. From what we can tell from the switches, it should generate the subcarriers, both in the up and in the down direction. The up direction is under the STE MOD label (S-band Test Equipment Modulation...
2022-10-16 23:22:34 +0000 UTC View Post
How can one have more fun than with one Cesium clock? With two Cesium clocks of course!
In my HP Cesium clock explanation video, I left out the explanation of the C-field for a future day. Well the day has come.
This C-field adjustment is used to extract even more precisio...
2022-10-12 06:00:33 +0000 UTC View Post
You might have seen LGR's video about the Dictaphone 1680, née Sanyo ICC-0082 calculator, at the time the smallest battery powered calculator:
LGR is a great channel that reviews v...
2022-09-26 06:23:11 +0000 UTC View Post
I was invited to film at the Connections Museum in Seattle. This amazing museum is hard to find, hidden in a still active telephone exchange building, and only open one day a week.
Inside, amazing ...
2022-09-25 08:27:51 +0000 UTC View Post
I have spent a few days in Seattle visiting two vintage tech museums: the Museum of Flight and the Connections Museum, both located close to one of Boeing’s former test runway.
The Museum of Flight has an impressive collection of aircrafts, beautifully displayed, including this unique SR-...
2022-09-10 06:15:55 +0000 UTC View Post
Me and Eric spent some time re-making Apollo connectors so we can connect our Transponder, CTE and PMP and other upcoming comms boxes.
All the audio and IF signals between boxes go through mutli-coax Deutsch connectors. We could not find anywhere, unless we want them re-done for $2,00...
2022-09-06 06:53:02 +0000 UTC View Post
With our HP high voltage supplies all repaired, it's finally time to play with the CRTs in my collection. In the photo above, they are just lit by the UV light in the front. Note that some do light up when illuminated by UV, and some don't - they give nothing at all.
First up is the s...
2022-08-27 05:42:56 +0000 UTC View Post
Our two large boards that Eric designed to reproduce the Apollo control panel section that controls the PMP have arrived, courtesy of our sponsor PCBWay.
Here is the proud dad with his boards. They are large, but that's nothing compared to the original size.
2022-08-26 03:50:01 +0000 UTC
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I did some combined R2-D2 trooping and Apollo discovery on the USS Hornet last month. Two hobbies in one!
The USS Hornet aircraft carrier is moored in the San Francisco bay, off the Alameda island. Besides its many wartime deployments, it is best known to the public for its late career, bei...
2022-08-14 01:24:16 +0000 UTC View Post