Hi Lyle,

Thanks for the videos. I did come across the Youtube videos on the 1230 and the TLA manual that you posted too. :)

My logic analyzer seems to be working, except that the battery to keep the RTC time is dead (need to replace it soon). For now I am looking for user manual and the PC software to study the possibility of transferring the data to PC.

Hopefully other members will provide more information.

On 12 Jan 2014 20:05:41 -0800
<mdanh2002@...> wrote:

Hi,

I got this Tektronix 1230 logic analyzer for a cheap price from a
Singapore electronics equipment seller. It comes with no probes or
manual, just the unit. After a month of searching, I managed to
purchase the probes from eBay and now I am waiting for its arrival.
However I am still looking for the manual for this unit and the PC
software for remote control via RS232-C. I believe the PC software
for this unit is called as S43R101 by Tektronix. A Google search
reveals very little useful information, apart from this PDF
http://www.mgoodguy.com/specs/TEK1230.pdf
http://www.mgoodguy.com/specs/TEK1230.pdf which contains some basic
description on its features and part numbers, and another post on
the Microchip forum http://www.microchip.com/forums/m81437.aspx
http://www.microchip.com/forums/m81437.aspx from somebody who was
looking for the same. Any help is appreciated! Thanks.

Here's the "Quick Start User Manual" - which won't help service it,
but will help in using it:

http://engineering.unt.edu/electrical/sites/default/files/Tektronix%20Logic%20Analyzer%20TLA%20502.pdf

Hi,

I got this Tektronix 1230 logic analyzer for a cheap price from a
Singapore electronics equipment seller. It comes with no probes or
manual, just the unit. After a month of searching, I managed to
purchase the probes from eBay and now I am waiting for its arrival.
However I am still looking for the manual for this unit and the PC
software for remote control via RS232-C. I believe the PC software
for this unit is called as S43R101 by Tektronix. A Google search
reveals very little useful information, apart from this PDF
http://www.mgoodguy.com/specs/TEK1230.pdf
http://www.mgoodguy.com/specs/TEK1230.pdf which contains some basic
description on its features and part numbers, and another post on the
Microchip forum http://www.microchip.com/forums/m81437.aspx
http://www.microchip.com/forums/m81437.aspx from somebody who was
looking for the same. Any help is appreciated! Thanks.

As a fledgling design engineer dealing with broadcast video, I attempted to purchase a copy of the fabled RS-170-A from the EIA in the late 70s.

The EIA lady who answered the phone said there was no such thing.

However, if you bought EIA Tentative Standard Number 1, you got two nice covers with a single 11x17 drawing in between, which had RS-170-A in the title block.

NTSC was the National Television System Committee.

On topic: I have and still use a 528A.

Aluminum can be easily soldered using regular old leaded solder using the right trick. You don't even need any special flux. Take your soldering iron and dab some fresh solder on so there's a ball of molten solder hanging from the tip and apply it to the aluminum to be soldered. Using the iron's tip lightly abrade the aluminum surface with a scraping motion, and the oxide layer will be wiped right off, allowing the solder to properly adhere.

 

Don Black wrote:
>
> Thanks Craig, interesting comments. Actually I'm in Australia but
> worked on some C1958 Marconi prototype colour equipment. Very useful
> experience. The PAL is rock solid by comparison.
> Our colour service started in March 1975 using PAL. For a few years
> before that a few of us were watching some colour programs from tapes
> from the UK and England. The local signal processors stripped off all
> the colour burst used to lock the chroma circuits but with PAL you can
> recover lock signals from the chroma which wasn't filtered out.
> Philips hawked some prototype sets around the trade in the late
> sixties (trying to push colour introduction I think) and included a
> little chroma lock board to allow users to watch the program. It
> recovered the lock signal and just injected it into the chroma
> oscillator as a trigger but apart from just managing lock on a stable
> signal generator I never saw it successfully lock to an off-air
> program (It might have worked on a properly stabilised program?). I
> thought it would be better with an AFC phase locked loop and built up
> a few boards using it. They worked far better than I hoped and would
> always lock solidly to the weakest chroma. The quality off the tapes
> varied from excellent to colour snow but it always locked right up. So
> for a few years we watched just about anything that moved in colour.
> I've still got a board kicking around somewhere.
> I believe when they were developing what became he NTSC colour system
> in the US it was suggested it would be advantageous to switch one
> colour signal phase on alternative lines (same as PAL) but it wasn't
> considered worth it and didn't happen. The one line delay line really
> makes the PAL system and I guess there wouldn't have been a cheap 64µs
> delay line available. It was the development of the acoustic glass
> delay line that really made it viable. The same delay was later used
> in VCRs for dropout compensation. There is still some advantage of the
> PAL system without a delay line, the eye averages the colour errors
> but gives the Venetian blind effect.
>
> Don Black.
>
> On 13-Jan-14 12:36 AM, Craig Sawyers wrote:
>>
>> =====================
>> Have you ever worked with old NTSC gear Craig. Capable of good
>> results but
>> Never Twice Same Colour oh so true, especially compared to the
>> stability of
>> PAL.
>> Still a great development for its time which served well for over half a
>> Century.
>> Don Black.
>> =====================
>>
>> No Don - but worked quite a bit in the States at one point, and suffered
>> NTSC with arbitrary colours in hotel rooms many a time.
>>
>> That was the big advantage in the UK of being second instead of first in
>> analogue colour television, and PAL was devised to work around the phase
>> distortion colour artefacts of NTSC.
>>
>> There used to be similar acronyms for PAL and SECAM too.
>>
>> Oh yes here we are (google is your friend)
>>
>> SECAM - System Essentially Contrary to the American Method
>> PAL - Perfect At Last
>>
>> I don't know what digital TV is like in the US, but in the UK the only
>> complaint is that the audio level varies over very wide limits from
>> channel
>> to channel. Set it correctly for on channel and you can be near deafened
>> when swapping to another channel. That was never the case with
>> analogue TV,
>> which like FM radio had a dynamic range the led to fairly standard audio
>> levels, with the only exception being adverts which were (and still are)
>> compressed so that the perceived audio level is louder than the
>> programme.
>>
>> Craig
>>

NTSC had nothing to do with color. The 'National Television
Standards Committee' was created to select the monochrome standard, then
years later they worked to add color without abandoning the existing
monochrome televisions and transmitters. There was nothing wrong with
the clor standard. The problem was with network feeds, or stations that
didn't maintain their equipment properly. The networks were fed with
leased bandwidth over the AT&T microwave network, where any Bellcore
tech could screw with the chroma level or phase at any microwave tower.
VIR & VITS were added which eliminated that problem. The US is much
bigger than the UK, with stations scattered all over the nation, unlike
the UK with centralized transmitters.

If you saw a crappy image in a hotel, it was because they bought the
cheapest TVs they could find, and wouldn't have them repaired if they
got any picture at all. I was a TV broadcast engineer, and once
installed the video & RF wiring in a new motel while in the industrial
electronics business.

People would do the same. New color TV on sale for $149 would sell
out in hours, even if the chroma wasn't aligned properly at the Asian
factory. They wuld complain thatthe color wasn't right, after a new CRT
was installed, because they were so used to crap from a dying CRT. One
customer had the chroma wide open, making everything look like a cheap
comic book. He took a swig of cheap beer and said, "If I'm a payin' fer
color, Is gett'n my money's worth". You can't fix stupid.

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Thanks Craig, interesting comments. Actually I'm in Australia but worked on some C1958 Marconi prototype colour equipment. Very useful experience. The PAL is rock solid by comparison.
Our colour service started in March 1975 using PAL. For a few years before that a few of us were watching some colour programs from tapes from the UK and England. The local signal processors stripped off all the colour burst used to lock the chroma circuits but with PAL you can recover lock signals from the chroma which wasn't filtered out. Philips hawked some prototype sets around the trade in the late sixties (trying to push colour introduction I think) and included a little chroma lock board to allow users to watch the program. It recovered the lock signal and just injected it into the chroma oscillator as a trigger but apart from just managing lock on a stable signal generator I never saw it successfully lock to an off-air program (It might have worked on a properly stabilised program?). I thought it would be better with an AFC phase locked loop and built up a few boards using it. They worked far better than I hoped and would always lock solidly to the weakest chroma. The quality off the tapes varied from excellent to colour snow but it always locked right up. So for a few years we watched just about anything that moved in colour. I've still got a board kicking around somewhere.
I believe when they were developing what became he NTSC colour system in the US it was suggested it would be advantageous to switch one colour signal phase on alternative lines (same as PAL) but it wasn't considered worth it and didn't happen. The one line delay line really makes the PAL system and I guess there wouldn't have been a cheap 64�s delay line available. It was the development of the acoustic glass delay line that really made it viable. The same delay was later used in VCRs for dropout compensation. There is still some advantage of the PAL system without a delay line, the eye averages the colour errors but gives the Venetian blind effect.

Don Black.

On 13-Jan-14 12:36 AM, Craig Sawyers wrote:

=====================
Have you ever worked with old NTSC gear Craig. Capable of good results but
Never Twice Same Colour oh so true, especially compared to the stability of
PAL.
Still a great development for its time which served well for over half a
Century.
Don Black.
=====================

No Don - but worked quite a bit in the States at one point, and suffered
NTSC with arbitrary colours in hotel rooms many a time.

That was the big advantage in the UK of being second instead of first in
analogue colour television, and PAL was devised to work around the phase
distortion colour artefacts of NTSC.

There used to be similar acronyms for PAL and SECAM too.

Oh yes here we are (google is your friend)

SECAM - System Essentially Contrary to the American Method
PAL - Perfect At Last

I don't know what digital TV is like in the US, but in the UK the only
complaint is that the audio level varies over very wide limits from channel
to channel. Set it correctly for on channel and you can be near deafened
when swapping to another channel. That was never the case with analogue TV,
which like FM radio had a dynamic range the led to fairly standard audio
levels, with the only exception being adverts which were (and still are)
compressed so that the perceived audio level is louder than the programme.

Craig

 

Difficult to solder metals can often be handled by cleaning and etching with
hydrochloric acid and then depositing copper via electrolysis and an easily
acquired solution of copper sulphate or copper nitrate. I would worry about
strain relief of the wire at the edge of the solder joint though.

12 Jan 2014 09:01:51 -0800, you wrote:

> . . .
>
> BTW, as the center conductor is nichrome, you can't solder it. The connections at the terminations are usually crimped on the wire.
>
> - Steve

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Hi David,

I did see those photos in an earlier message, but I think it was my error in reading your message:

> The more recent board replaces both the
> old ROM board and the old RAM board so

> it also provides the maximum supported
> RAM which is backed up by a battery

> instead of an external power connection.

So, this single board *replaces* the ROM *and* RAM board... ? The ROM and RAM boards in my 7854 could be replaced by this single board? That's pretty cool, if that's what you meant.

P.