I Am Back In Business!!!

Discussion in 'Discmans, Minidisc, DCC and other players' started by Jorge, Nov 3, 2019.

  1. Jorge

    Jorge Well-Known Member

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    P1030570b.jpg

    As some of you guys probably know, my favorite pastime is in reviving Baby-Discmans. Because I Love these little babies... Walkmans and boomboxes are Great for what they are, Nak cassette decks, R2R and hi-end TTs caress you with the ultimate "sound forever", but lowly Discmans had been providing a background for my everyday living for the last few decades,... I just Love 'em!!! This week, FINALLY, on the Fourth attempted eBay buy(!) I had finally acquired an oscilloscope which allows me to test these little buggers!!! My other crazy fixation is with Black Gate capacitors for the final "coupling" onto the headphones: and I managed to get a few of these also... My Life Is getting back to what it was "before the Woolsey Fire" :)
     
  2. Mister X

    Mister X Moderator Staff Member

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    Nice, it looks on the smaller size for an o-scope?
     
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  3. Longman

    Longman Well-Known Member S2G Supporter

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    That looks to be pretty much the same as the oscilloscope you had before Jorge.
    You obviously like them. Did you consider anything more modern ?
    Were the previous attempts just a case of being outbid ?

    Mister X. We have a couple of these at work. although they use a CRT they are digital with raster scan display.
    More recent Agilent / Keysight oscilloscopes use LCDs. However, the cheapest are around £500.
    You can get similar Chinese ones for as low as £200 hence my question.
    Whether any of them will still be working in twenty years time like this HP obviously is remains to be seen.
     
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  4. Jorge

    Jorge Well-Known Member

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    I had three failed buys. First HP was defective: seller had a few of those and sent me the wrong/dead one. Another HP was just thrown in a soft box for shipping and arrived in pieces. Then I bought digital 400MHz Tectronix and had a pleasure of confirming that in order to get the "eye-pattern" you need an analog oscilloscope. Tectronix has to be set into "accumulation mode" to get something resembling an eye-pattern.
    HP54600A is the last "analog" oscilloscope made by HP. 54600B (the one I had before) says that it is "digital" but if released from its default vector mode it is able to show the eye-pattern. Evidently, it is not "digital enough". Another reason I decided to hunt down 54600A is what @Mister X noticed, it is half the size of Tectronix
     
  5. Longman

    Longman Well-Known Member S2G Supporter

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    Thanks for the explanation Jorge. I have read (maybe in a Sony Service Manual) that an Analogue Scope is best for doing an eye pattern.
    I am sure a modern Keysight Digital one like the 6000 series one we mainly use at work could do it, but as noted those aren't at all cheap.
     
  6. Mister X

    Mister X Moderator Staff Member

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    I had to look it up, in case anybody is wondering, here's HP's Internal Magazine with some insight, this is almost a saleman's brochure for this model, kind of interesting. Hopefully I'll be playing with a scope soon when I have some free time this winter and trying to relearn what I forgot years ago.
    https://www.hpl.hp.com/hpjournal/pdfs/IssuePDFs/1992-02.pdf
     
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