Hi. This is going to be the first in a series of videos looking at my collection of electronics Australia Magazines I Have the complete Collection going back from Uh April 1965 This is the first ever edition of Electronics Australa and I've got the complete collection right up until Uh when they folded in Uh 2000 or so. So I thought it'd be interesting to take a look at some chronological history of various Uh Technologies through the eyes of electronics Australia Magazine. So this video will focus on Uh test equipment.

So what I'll go through I'll do is I'll go through the Uh magazines won't go through every year I'll go through like I'll jump in uh, two or five year steps or something like that and then look as technology look at Uh. in this case test equipment. As the technology improves over 40 years or so, it should be really interesting. Let's go and just as an historical footnote: this first ever edition of Electronics Australia Uh came about because they changed their name from Radio, Television and Hobbies.

They had several name changes. Um, this magazine goes way back uh to the 1920s believe it or not and here it is: April 1965 Volume 27 Number one and it cost 2 and six. Love it! And here's a blast from the past: AWA modular solid state test sets because uh, radio and uh, uh, other stuff was big back then. So we've got an audio and ultrasonic Uh test set, the Um MF HF Radio Equipment test set and VHF UHF Test Equipment test sets from AWA Classic Australian Company.

And here's some test equipment from University Graham A Real blast from the past Uh, here's a 3in Uh Oscilloscope priced 0 cuz Australia Hadn't switched to Uh decimal currency back in 1965. So there it is: Um Vertical Amplifier Response Plus or minus 1 DB from 15 Cycles to 150 K Cycles None of this Kilohertz rubbish. Uh, they were using Uh case cycles per second back then and down 16 DB at one Mega Cycles or one Meg So there you go: a 150 KZ 3in CRT oscilloscope for 60 lb. Beautiful! And then they have a valve circuit tester because well, this ain't the solar State Uh era yet like predominantly still a valve and circuit tester.

Oh sure, some people still have one of those. And on the very next page here, check out this classic Phillips PM 3230 0 to 10 MHz Uh dual Channel Scope classic round CRT on it. but this is 10 MHz uh Bandwidth and high sensitivity. Check it out.

20 m per per Division and with times 10 gain down to 2 mols per division. So this is you know this is 1965 and this wouldn't you know? These sort of specs weren't out of place still well into the 1980s, but they're still using Meg cycles per second there. The new HF Double Beam Oscilloscope not single beam. It's actually a true dual beam oscilloscope.

H Lab work accuracy, field work portability only 24b and 238. Dudy paid bargain and from Werton Frankie We've got5 for a Uh Leader lsg1 uh 120 khz to 130 MHz Signal RF Signal generator and it's multimeter Time5 bought you a whopping 4K ohm perv analog multi tester, multimeter tester as they called him back then. So there you go it. Uh, this one.

Wooho! Real expensive. 15 pounds would get you a whopping 30k Ohms per volt. and from Taylor we have a high sensitivity uh, multitester for a whopping 31 15 but this one 100K Ohms per volt. That's what the Opv stands for ohms per volt and uh, it went at 0 to 250 microamps in three ranges.

It had a 7 microamp, uh uh, Center pole movement and 0 to 10 microamps full scale and on the back page here thought I'd throw this one in even though it's not test equipment, you can earn big money in television. Yeah, check it out. Ask yourself these three questions. Am I in a dead-end job Could I earn more by learning more? Could I use my spare time to get ahead If the answer is yes, there is room for you in Radio and Television.

Fantastic! The Australian Radio and Television College and now let's Jump Ahead 5 years to January 197 Cost of whopping 40 cents decimal currency has um come into effect here in Australia and check this out. They're um still of course. uh saying uh you know, playing on the radio, television and hobbies. uh, logo and sales now an excess of 50,000 So there you go.

They show that Electronics Australia had net paid sales of 50616 an increase of 3600 over 1969. Woohoo! Huge circulation and with a national population of around 12.6 million in 1970, that means about one in every 250 people in the country. Red Electronics Australia Brilliant! And here's an ad for a Tele Equipment d51 portable dual beam aill scope. Now you notice that 5 years before we had uh dual channel on that.

but now all you get for your money is uh 0 to 6 mahz 10 molts per Vision sensitivity. They're still specifying per centimeter there. we have moved to the square CRT type but there's no uh BNC inputs. they're still using banana Jacks there.

go figure. And it cost a whooping 250 Australian dollar back in the day. But look at this. Distributed by Tetronics Tetronics Australia were Distributing tele equipment oscilloscopes? Huh? And once again we have another Philip scope.

This this is the PM 3200 10 MHz 2 mols per division for 304 bucks. And yeah, they're still selling the Uh 3230 we saw 5 years ago for $497 Now here's an interesting Allinone lab. If you want a career in electronics, go technique pack. look at this Allinone Lab.

It's got uh, it allows you to conduct over 400 experiments Uh, which contains a power supply, oscilloscope, vacuum tube, voltmeter, and audio generator and an RF generator all in one. Beautiful! Doesn't tell you the price though. Please send me the free brochure Electronics Technip Pac and you I Understand, no salesman will call. Yeah, you don't want to get spammed back in the day when you actually had to pick up a telephone and say hello and then hi I'm from Technipac and I just thought I'd show you the pornographic Center fold Oh look at that and we still got these tailor an log multimeters.

they're still around. no prices on them, but uh, they're still going. And Radio House Proprietary Limited are added. again with their analog multitesters and here we have Lafayette with their EMC transistor analyzer kit.

Hook it up! You can analyze your transistors because well, transistors were bloody expensive back then. So you, uh, not only salvaged them from gear, but you know you'd pay a lot of money just for one or two transistors. and if you could Salvage them from anywhere, well, you had to test them. And we've got aay luux 100K ohm per Vol Lab tester vom Volt om meter 2% accuracy, half a% multiplier resistors for a whopping 54 Australian bucks.

Actually, this one's hilarious. It looks like it's just been chopped in half. Where's the bottom of it? It only has the two dials. This is the Ohms and just here and this looks like the selector and there's all your ranges.

It looks like they're like little LEDs in there, but they wouldn't be uh LEDs around uh, this age 1970 and it looks like you. It's like like a digital range selector or something like that. So you turn the knob and it chooses and indicates which range. Fascinating! I've never seen that before and here we have some Australian made stuff.

Classic Bwd. They famously made Um test gear, particularly oscilloscopes back in the day. and there's some. Look at the huge screen on that monster.

Absolute Whopper And here's their new release: Uh, the Uh Bwd 506 DC to 15 MHz Uh 5 Mills per division to 20 volts per division uh one Meg input impedance standard BNC input connector but it's got a 5in square CRT and time 5 mag nice from 200 nond Division to 2 seconds per division. Beautiful and it's all solid state. none of that valve rubbish protected fed inputs isolated ground to 400 volts um TV and line frame uh, sync 5% calibration, 10% line change, 500 khz horizontal amp and it's only $298 What a bargain! And by the way we have skip forward to the end of 1970. This is the December issue.

That's what we saw the Bwd add in and here is a uh Uh Advantage digital Multimeter. He one of the first digital multimeters. Of course no lead display lay on that low price I Don't tell you what it is, but it's 17 ranges and uh, we're talking 0.1% It's pretty darn good. standard you know? um 3 and a half digit 200 molts uh, range up to 1,000 volts, 200 microamp range.

The current range is. 3% Uh, it's pretty good. so it's uh plus minus you know best DC volts .1% plus .1% full scale as well with standard 10 Meg input impedance I Love it! No cat ratings back then didn't matter and the resistance from 200k up to 2 Meg at. 3% Not bad specs at all.

And here's a brand that you still recognize today. Sena They are still going. Look lowc cost, high quality multimeter is proven in over 90 countries. Brilliant! 25 bucks for a uh, you know, a basic uh tester you know, little one with a fixed uh input Jacks Uh, hopeless.

You spring for the Uh range selection switch for your 25 bucks. but there you go. Distributed by Wton Frankie and it's Christmas Special time at Mcgr Melbourne's Electronics Hobby Center 66 bucks. So this is like the Uh one hung low uh, cheapy of its day I Suspect the Tt1 oscilloscope and it looks pretty crusty folks.

they don't really give you anything in the way of uh specs on this thing or anything it's look at you know, like can't even see labels on there. but maybe it's just the fail I'm sure there are at just I think it's the worn out picture here, but oh, look at the tiny little CRT in there. what do you want for your 66 bucks complete with handsome vinyl carry case? Oh and I just came across an article by Leo Simpson As you know, the editor of Silicon Chip Magazine Still going strong today. One of the best electronics magazines in the world.

Good on your Leo And here we have Edn in: Melbourne Selling uh, various kits, you can get a 1970s communic receiver, solid State, a full kit, or individual parts. Now, although this is a test equipment video I Can't help but notice during these uh, 5 years that we've only looked at so far. it's all the ads. There's very few test equipment ads.

Well, there's some trimmer resistors, but basically they're all audio. Audio just, um, dominates this magazine. It's absolutely everywhere. Audio amps, receivers, all sorts of stuff.

just ah. And we've got some new instruments from HP here. a radiant flux meter. Check it out.

I like it. look at the sensor there doing the Uh, measuring the Um candle flame there and uh, we've got a frequency multiplier as well. Not very exciting stuff, but there you go. And for the tectronics offici AOS out there and announcement for the 2600 series uh, add-ons for the 7,000 series oscilloscope, the 2600 Mame frame with all the plugins.

Oh beautiful and it's a Christmas sellout of Heath kit gear or your Heath kit afficionados. Here are some prices from the end of 1970 from Wton. frankly for various Heath kit kits and I couldn't pass this one up January 1973 Check out the outfit. Beautiful hat.

but look at this. it is probably a Uh world first. although I think we believe it's a world first anyway. Jim Row: you'll be familiar with the name.

it's the first construction project the E EA digital Voltmeter. it's a digital Vom or a digital multimeter. so look, it does Ohms, DC and AC Wo and it use state-of-the-art lead displays and the Fairchild 3814 LSI which is equivalent to 3,000 transistors I wonder how much this thing costs back in its day? To uh, buy this kit. but check out the specs Here we go: 4 and2 half digigit readout.

Um three DC voltage ranges only went from 20 volt minimum 200 volt to 2K You can tell what their Target in there really uh, high voltage Stuff AC volts is the same and only three Ohms ranges from 200 ohms uh 20K and 2 Meg but it was 4 and 1/2 digits and here's the schematic for it: Used Fnd 70 displays which are state-of-the-art at the time. uses a 9602, 500 khz clock generator 9307 decoder for the displays and uh LM 740s 741s opamps Bunch whole bunch of discreet uh transistors and Bob's your uncle and we'll jump 5 years forward I Was going to go to 75 but I Just saw this classic uh cover from December 1974. It's not test equipment, but here's a very young uh Jim row uh showing the Uck 8 computer to a very excited young girl I Like it I'm probably going to um do another video covering the um early computers that were in electronics Australia So give me a thumbs up if you want to see that one. And here we are.

January 1975 the pleasy remote cop a unit I.E a fax machine basically build your own Hi-Fi speakers and save musical doorbell Breakdown Test: Tester The price has gone up to a whopping 80 cents now and here's our friend s again still going taking out a full page ad in EA to uh tell us that they're changing their logo from Sanir with a little curly stuff there to well, Sanir. So yes, folks, marketing was full swing back in 1975. Why the change? besides being more attractive, we think the new style presents a sharper image of precision and precision is what SAA is all about. 70% of all multi testers sold in Japan carry the Sanir brand, which isn't really surprising since Sanir multimeters have exceptional built-in capabilities.

Woohoo! And here's the Australian made Bwd oscilloscopes again, the Model 530a fantastic unit uh, dual Channel goes uh, triggers uh DC to 40 MHz bandwidth DC to 20 MHz There you go. No prices on them though, unfortunately. and here you go folks. here's why we call them Crows here in Australia or cathod Ray Oscilloscopes Well, because there's a crow.

this is an ad classic ad for Kik Aoui Um, my first oscilloscope was a Kiui 20 MHz dual Channel Saved up a crap load of money and bought it and here you go. They've got a 5 in 7 MHz Model 558 or a 3in 5 MHz cheapy Look at that. No prices on them though. Sold by Jacobe.

and Mitchell and just as an as side here: I've come across a little article on one thin film flat panel viewing screens. Check it out. contains 36,000 individual discreet electronic components. one per pixel.

Is this the world's first flat panel monitor? Fusion Power energy for the future? We're still waiting for it more than 35 years later. It'll get there and I Can't help myself I'm a calculator nerd. Here's an article on the calculator: Wars Back in 1975 H Packard SEO Fantastic Yes. Heath Kit still going strong.

The Quatron micro computerized watch? no moving Parts Wow. And if you're a service tech or design engineer, youd better get ready for the color. TV Revolution Folks Woohoo! Grundy Color Patn generator Fantastic. Only weighs 4.3 kilos and a power signal generator as well.

Well, Radio House was still going, but apart from that, uh January 1975 a bit devoid of test gear. What a bummer. more Audio Oh We have some high drama here folks. Dick Smith's staff in City Street demo accusing Tandy of unfair business practices.

You got to be kidding. This had be in the famous um Electronics alley here in Sydney or uh York Street here in Sydney where there are a whole bunch of electronic shops side by side and Tandy were right next so right next next door to Dick Smith Back then got to read this article. Well here you go. The employees of DC claim that Tandy is engaging in unfair business practice in order to squeeze out the specialist Australian retailers and gain Market domination to achieve this, they say: Tandy is prepared to suffer considerable losses during initial operations and then use Market domination to regain lost profits.

It's called front loading threatened to uh present Australia Free Enterprise Tandy have invested $10 million into the Australian Electronics uh business making a half million loss in their first 6 months. The Bastards. Well look at this Gem of an article we've stumbled across. test equipment related Andrew Kay Have you ever heard of him? I haven't Apparently he invented the digital Voltmeter.

There is happy smiling dude founder and president of Non Linear Systems. The article by Greg Swain you'll know the Uh name. he's still a current SAA at Silicon Chip Magazine. go figure.

And there it is, folks. The world's first digital Voltmeter developed by Andrew K in 1952 by Nonlinear Systems. Beautiful Brings a tear to the eye and we'll take a look at Nonlinear Systems Uh Current models as in December 1975. The Lm3 and Lm4 are truly impressive instruments.

the more so when size is taken into consideration. Hand solded fiberglass boards hold state-ofthe-art Moss LSi circuits in units less than 2 in high. Both models share the same case, which can be dropped without ruining either case or calibration. Ah, fluke, eat your heart out December 1975 You can drop these suckers.

In fact, there's no zero adjustment on either instrument, this function being completely automatic, as is the polarity indication. that was a big deal back then polarity indication. And here it is. Isn't that a cute multimeter? The Lm4 5dc 5 AC Vol and 5 resistance Rangers Ah I Want one? The things are only Uh 1% accurate.

but gee, there you go. 180 bucks Australian bucks plus tax. bargain I'd love to get my hands on one of those suckers and do a tear down. Does anyone have an old classic nonlinear systems multimeter? Someone must somewhere.

Ah, yet more. Sena There we go. The N501 moldester with look at that looks like wood paneling on the sides. Beautiful.

two micro amps, full scale deflection. And here we have University Brand Instruments Audio uh generator for 60 bucks, a 3-in oscilloscope for a whopping 170 bucks. that's a 1.5 Meg uh, bandwidth 100 molts uh per division best sensitivity some professional and Deluxe and popular multimeters along with an RS signal Gen for 60 bucks. And here we have a classic Dick Smith ad There's the classic Dick Head I like it, it's Christmas time because it's December issue and Woohoo! We have a Dsse Illos scope for 159 bucks state-ofthe-art and here's a classic Trio the Cs 1560, uh 15 MHz dual Trace not dual beam.

by the way, this is dual Trace It's only got a single beam where they alternate between the two beams and 10 MTS per division they're still using per CM there and uh, free probes. beautiful or for a whopping 399 bucks complete with the two probes worth $70 Two exclamation marks and here's a 0.3% accuracy. DMM The Uh DL 703 I mean these things were actually pretty darn accurate for the day. You know we've seen like uh .1% even.

uh, more than 5 years before this. it just terrific stuff. And yes, folks, you can use your bank card to buy it. None of this.

Visa MasterCard Rubbish. Watch out folks! latest technology coming out. MTL It's going to replace all your TTL stuff. It's a I2l standing for Integrated Injection logic or MTL standing for merged transistor logic H Did it ever take off and we're heading into the best decade of all the 1980s.

Bring It On and Here we are at January 1980 gone up to $140 and Star Trek Tre Fans! Woohoo! Star Trek The Motion Pcture $20 million science fantasy. What test equipment fantasy can we find in here? We have another ad for Trio. Check it out, it's the Cs 1560 Mark 2 improved IC circuitry no prices. Bummer.

Which features do I really need in my cassette deck? Oh goodness, it's just audio audio. Bloody audio consum Electronics Jeez you'd think was this was 2. you know, the 2000s and the era of electronics Australia today and its final demise. but nope was rampant back then.

Senir still going wber and Frankie still going walm Electronics Hardware now available in Australia x stock. These girls look happy I Love the marketing battles that went on with uh, these ads back in the day. Leader: he's one for leader test instruments. We've made a name for being a head in reliability, user design, features, and economy.

But that's just the start folks. Woohoo! Leader Oscilloscopes. They don't tell you Jack all about it, really, they just, uh, you know, they just plug in their brand and here we have a Hyok 3205 digital Multimeter. It's uh, a Fi effect liquid crystal display oh ensures good contrast.

Approximately 40 hours continuous use with alkaline battery. Features include automatic and fuse overload protection and semi-automatic range selection 3% DC volts it's got amps voltage resistance is uh half a percent as well. Uh, plusus .1% full scale plus one digit as well. Beautiful! that's available from H Rowan Co And here's an ad for S brand multimeters the Me501 7 from 78 bucks tax paid and uh, that one is uh 0.8% So we're getting.

You know, increasing this is more of your you know. today's sort of uh El Cheo multimeter and I have a bit of a soft spot for S because here is my sore Me: 53 Digital multimeter. unfortunately. Uh, the LCD is ruined on it.

But this is my first ever digital multimeter that I owned and there is a classic ad of comparing this to uh, fluke. Uh, we're comparing their meter to this one and I hope I find it. But there you go. Bit of History will robots take your job I Don't know.

it could be the end of the world. Oh my goodness folks, check this one out. Why don't they make one of these anymore? A combined multimeter and calculator from Hyoki? Oh man, if you've got one of those, hold on to it rare as hen's teeth I'm sure the Model 3208 electronic function calculator with DMM capacity oneand one key operation gives you accurate answers. I Love it.

Oh, that's just terrific I Want one of these things? Look at this. The DMM figure is redisplayed in the form shown in the following: when 100 when you read 190 molts, it's uh, keyed in as 190. Um, time 10us 3 is displayed. Oh man I Want one and check out this little sexy Model 3207 pocket mold meter isn't that lovely.

A 600 MHz digital frequency meter for under 200 bucks? Yes, only at Tricky Dicks and for the same price you can get a crow as well I Think Dicks Head's getting a little bit big now a the AC M Voltmeter project from Ian Pogson I Remember building this thing back in the 80s? don't know what ever happened to it though. There's the schematic piece of cake low cost portable oscilloscopes that don't compromise on performance because, well, you don't want a scope that compromises on performance that wouldn't be good enough. Here we go. It's the TTM 303, 15 MHz Mains and battery powered operation 15 Meg bandwidth Beauty Then we've got a we've got another model, the BS Uh 310s with a whopping 2 Mt sensitivity and an ad ad subtract feature with a 95 whopping large 95 5 mm rectangular tube.

And then woohoo the BS 610 with no Parallax display. Well, there was one good thing about the 1980s. All that audio stuff was, uh, starting to get displaced by all the uh micro computer stuff. The Dream 6800, a Tricky Dick ads for printers, the Super Brain I Love it.

What do we got? at last? A real kit computer? No idea what that one is, The Compy Kit 101 Beautiful. oh look at that, The Commodor CBM and the Rollsroyce of personal computers, The Sorcerer from Tricky Dicks. Then we've got discounted Apple products, the Apple 2 Rod Irving man, he went bust and uh, selling the Sinclair Zx80. It's all happened.

Oh, finally, some test gear and we've got Leader signal generators. You can still buy this uh style signal generator today, audio generator, a dip meter, and uh, a high voltage probe. all from Vicom. And there's the Lfg 1300, a real high performance uh 0 to2 mahz function generator that would have been stateof the-art back in 1980, that's for sure.

And we got some Hatachi oscilloscopes. Check it out. The classic V5500 50 MHz for $795 That was a lot of money back in 1980. Let me tell you, even the 15 MHz unit at 595, it's pretty PR Pricey.

but uh, Hatashi made some great analog Scopes that's for sure. and this one's hard to miss. Two new Thar LCD multimeters Tada But look at the battery life. 3,000 hours? Bloody.

Beauty Why can't anyone do that these days? The best you can get on the market these days is 1,000 hours. Look 3,000 hours back in 1980. Give me a break. Nice little form factor too, but they go even better for 4,000 hours for the top of the line meter.

0.1% for the TM model TM 351. Brilliant! They've got matching little uh, compact same case frequency meters and pulse generators aren't they? A beautiful set of instruments from Thar I really like those I want them and they also offer a model DM 450, 4 and2 digit meter at 05% That was kicking ass back in 1980. And here we have a 9 1980s vintage non- cont voltage tester. There you go from University Graham instruments Dead or Alive The model's probably dead now that's for sure.

and as you can see analog meters still hanging in there in 1980. But if you're well healed, you'd pick yourself up a digital dual range switches just for fun. And I do love companies that would handdraw their ads. Look at that on this computer designed ad.

Rubbish. You'd hand draw it, you'd send it in and they'd uh, tape that in onto the artwork, send it directly to the printer, and in a sea of black and white, we've got Trio springing for a full page color AD That would have cost him a bit because that is physically different. Uh, better quality paper printed separately than this one. And of course they matched it with this AGA uh one over here.

So and this Sony one so they would be printed on color. They would print that that as a full color page insert like that would have charged them a lot extra. But there you go. Trio Once again, no details at all, just spooking their what looks like their complete range of instruments.

And let's Jump Ahead to January 1985 I Who in $230 and I Remember these because this is the era when I was, uh, saving up my pocket money, riding my bike down to the news agent to try and eagly pick up the latest copy of electronics Australia every month and I would memorize. You know I would know every front cover off the top of my head and be able to. Oh yeah, that project was in that one. Oh man, these were the days and there's a young and Spunky looking Leo Simpson folks and I couldn't resist.

Check out this Playm series 200 design from Leo Simpson classic Amplified design look out, look at the star grounding system coming out of that thing of beauty and we have Altronics on the scene. Folks, you'll still, uh, recognize the name Altronics here in Australia They're still going strong. They've got a Precision electronic Fet analog multimeter for a whopping $49 and here's the equivalent one hung low. Uh, cheapy.

It's still a micron, but it's a technician's 10K Ohm Perv cheapy for 10 bucks. Beautiful! So as you can see, analog multimeters still pretty uh predominant in this uh Dick Smith Electronics ad in 1985. If you want to go to digital, try this one for 5950 I had this one I actually had the Q140 that was their topof the range 100K ohm per Vol analog meter I had that puppy um I don't think I still had it anymore I think I sold it a long time ago. but there you go.

Um for Less cost, you could step up to a didn't the Q14 44 digital multimeter complete with the classic uh s you know the Fluke pioneered side buttons like that everyone was trying to emulate Fluke back in those days. And for 150 bucks? Oh, get the very latest with transistor tester and capacitance? Check. Yep, it's got that too. Up to 20 microfarads.

got to be kidding me. And get yourself a crow if you don't have one for 700 bucks, probes are 30 bucks. thank you very much. And here's an ad from Active Electronics in Melbourne once again, 700 Buck Hatachi they were big in the day.

The V212 Absolute Classic um I can remember using uh that sucker was my main scope at my first Uh job back in 1980. Oh, hang on 88 Yeah! I think that's right 1988 I started work There you go. that's what I used and in an ad from Uh Jeff Wood Electronics Oh Rip I bought my first soldering iron Heo 926 from Jeff Wood They've got the Kik Aoui 20 MHz Duel Chase for Uh 600 25 including tax Compact And easy to operate for hobbyists and professionals. And here's a full page color: AD from Fluke.

look at that displaying their entire range of handheld Uh multimeters and accessories. And this is from Elesco. They were the Elesco instruments, they were the local distributor back then and we're talking about. you know, the 8050a, the 806a, which is their 4 and a half digit top of the range one, the 8024, the 8020b.

it's all there. Free vinyl pouch and Rodov in Electronics have done it again. A new multimeter at unbeatable value for under 40 bucks. This is a digital multimeter, folks.

Unbelievable! Price It's a Yuong Brand a YF 1030c as might as well be called one H low, large, 3 and a half digit display auto polarity overload indication: 20 M Power consumption. It's got it all and we jump ahead a little to December 1985 and a Jcar ad uh, the $129 digital multimeter I can remember these I can remember them being pretty crusty if memory serves me correctly. There you go at least At Last a lowc cost 10 amp digital multimeter with transistor test capability all for a whopping 90 bucks. And we have an ad from David Reed Electronics from uh as I said silicon Aly um in York Street there in Sydney and they're the ones who I purchased my first oscilloscope from and here it is.

Here's the first scope I had which was the 20 MHz Kikui Cosos 5020 um I'm not sure how much I paid I thought I paid a bit more than that 629 at the time, but jeez, that was state-of-the-art and they also sold some Uh Escort brand up multimeters the EDM 1105 through to the 13 46 from 75 bucks up to 225 bucks up to 05% once again in that familiar fluke style. they're just emulating. uh, fluke, they were the Pioneers everyone else copied, but for price and performance, nothing beats Trio Kenwood for $599 Asteris It's so sad, but we have to leave the 1980s for the 1990s and we have Jeff Wood Electronics back again. Wood for chips.

He's selling the Uh Luke 80 series of course was uh Around this time it uh, appeared magically appeared. uh from 1985 to 1990. There's a little weird sort of rectangular format. Uh Auto Ranging bar graph Digital multimeter there? eh, doesn't compete with the 87.

Now if you're going to try and attract Electronics hobbyists to join the Royal Australian Navy You don't do it by having a couple of good-looking young blond-haired fit musle guys run in. No, you show the technology, show, the test gear, show all the tech stuff useless. I Don't want to join the Bloody Australian Navy and look like those guys. Ah, there we go.

That's more like it. Some bodge wires. That's what we want to see. You want to join the Navy to bodge up some 74 HC 74s.

That's the ticket. There's Rod Irving in his cheap ass ads. Again, look, you can't even see the bloody scope and no, that's not age doing that. I Remember these ads from back in the day, they were hopeless.

You couldn't even see anything, didn't even tell you what brand. it was useless. And here's a tricky dick ad for one of the best Casio calculators ever made the FX 61f. Why? Because it could do electronics.

It had Electronics keys and as it so happens, I've got one. Tada Oh dear folks, you're going to recognize this even today 20 years later. Look at the form factor. Look, you can still buy these $5 heap of crap multimeters.

It was their bestselling digital multimeter. 10 amp in resistance to 200 Megs whoop dooo but didn't cost five bucks. Back then, you got five bucks off and it cost $79.95 Tricky Dicks and we have an ad for Obiit. Uh, and they're selling a whole bunch of Fluke meters: the Fluke 20 series, the 70 Series, the 80 series, and the British Made Black Star range of digital multimeters and patent generators and counter timers.

And here we have the Uh introduction of the prob type multimeter for 60 bucks from jar and check out this Kikui Com 3101 actual size oscilloscope. This is its real size. This is an A4 size page. Absolutely tiny 100 mahz digital storage scope.

Fantastic! DC to 100 mahz real time. Can't beat it. Well they claim it's real time, but Uh doesn't tell you the sample rate. Aha single shot bandwidth? there it is 8 mahz.

So yeah, the sample rate's not that huge. so H real time didn't mean real time. Back then. check it out.

A full article review of Hp's new E 2377 a handheld DMM 3% Pretty darn basic, but it was a HP Very similar look and feel to the Fluke 70 series. of course trying to copy it. Not a huge article, but there you go, it was a review. Finally, we have something decent on the back cover.

Metrix. Here we go: The Metrix 50 Series I Always lusted after one of those babies from 275 bucks, couldn't afford it. Metrix 40 series as well and uh, Europe's favorite mimers. And check out Combined Analog and Digital for 595 bucks.

Unbelievable! And December 1990 and with ETI Electronics today International they uh, folded Merg with electronics Australia and well, yeah, they just kept the Uh title there on the front cover, but that was about uh, it. They kept it there for a long time if memory serves me correctly. But look at the inside front cover. Tada Marone Instruments high-end signal generator Beautiful.

Not this audio rubbish anymore. Least we' got some decent SE Gen. And of course they've got a review in there as well. And we have Hp's complete range of handheld digital multimeters from $162 up to $311 Yes, in Fluke yellow you got to match the flukes and HP We literally giving them away 10 of them each month and my German viewers will be pleased to know that Hmeg are advertis in In Electronics Australia back in 1990 from Kenel.

of course the local Distributors but you know the full range of the H EG instruments, the Scopes and how they all stack and all modular. Very nice. Ah, Rod Irving Still at it folks. Blacked out multimeters hopeless and you know, three and a half digit mold.

Look, you can't even see the bloody thing. it's just a black blob. And here we have Gold Star folks. And for those who don't know, Gold Star is the original name for LG Yes, LG Who make consumer electronics? They also made oscilloscopes back then before they changed their named as silly LG I Liked Gold Star better, but anyway, they didn't make a bad analog scope back then.

1 M volt per division Sensitivity: 650 odd There it is 650 odd bucks for the Uh 20 MHz version. And how much did the Fluke 80 series cost in 1990? anywhere from 466 including uding tax up to 676. So pretty much the same cost as it does these days. But why pay up to 150 bucks for a label asks? Jeff Wood Wood for chips? Here you go.

These are Apper brand multimeters, which you'll know today as well. There you go. They had the Model 93 back then for 142 bucks. We're talking .5% Uh, DC volts right down 240 $240 for the Model 98 Ah I did love reading Moffett's MAD house.

sadly Tom Moffett's no longer with us and here's tricky Dick back at it with his 6.5 Meg budget priced scope and I still see a few of these roll up on eBay even today. Woo! And here's Al Tronics there's Jack O Donnell It's not quite the uh dick head, but eh, it'll do. And as you can see by uh, 1990, pretty much uh, digital multimeters. Uh, dominated.

If you didn't own a digital multim meter, eh, you know you weren't keeping up with the time. So yeah, they still sold. You know, 100 bucks for a analog uh multimeter? Once again, you know it' be fet input. uh something like that.

But then they sold. this uh fluke ripoff one down here for 199 bucks. And or if you couldn't make up your mind, you get the combined uh, analog and digital one for 200 bucks. Jeez, You may as well buy an analog and a digital and there's a Labtech brand.

uh, analog scope? you know? 20 MHz dual Trace Pretty basic for 799 bucks. but yeah, they were. There were so many rebadged oscilloscopes back in the day I Have no idea who originally uh made that? it could be a hung Chang or anything. and yes, Gold Star/ LG also made multimeters.

go figure. Would you like a free multimeter with your new LCD TV And yes, they had some porn on the back cover. There it is in glorious full color. Oh, you just lust after that Fluke 80 series.

Oh and the Bendy hook? uh, tilting, bail on that thing. Jump forward another 5 years to January 1995. Price has gone up to $4.95 Let's check it out. inside the front cover.

straight into it I Like it big full color uh fluke ad for the scope meter Series 2 and a Jeff W add for the Hoo 926 for9 9995 I think I Got it for about 180 bucks. And here's an ad for Imona. They're one of my current advertisers on the website hey John and this is for a 50 MHz uh analog scope dual channel for 1,076 bucks. Asteris price quoted includes Pro Oh, it does include probe, but it excludes sales tax.

There you go, it's a GW Instruments are made in Taiwan 50 MHz two channel 1 Molt per division Beauty And then we have tricky Dick selling a dual Channel DSC branded scope I Believe for 729 including two probes. And of course, all the generic brand multimeters were in full swing back there. and there's our Labtech Scope again H and HP is still trying to compete in the handheld multimeter market and there's some uh, souped up multimeters big beefy 4 and 1 half digigit true RMS ones there you go. 50,000 count oh, 40 Molt ranges.

It's all happening. But whatever happened to the HP multimeter? Division I wonder And we'll just briefly Jump Ahead to July 1996 and look with professional electronics and ETI Woohoo contains everything but $550 Let's have a look at the back here because it's the new Techronics. multimeters are a generation ahead of Fluke Measure for yourself. Woohoo! 30-day money back guarantee.

Great stuff. The DMM 8, 30, the 850, and the 870 recommended retail price from 400 bucks up to 500 bucks for a 40,000 count. 0.06% meter not bad and August 96 here. Let's take a look at the back.

What if a Scopes real ability to solve problems could be found in a spec sheet? Eight hints for making better scope measurements. Please call for your free copy. Um, because? well, you know. Yeah, the web was just around then, but Manufactur really didn't have stuff on there.

so they would, uh, send you the article by snail mail or they send you an app note. or they'd send you a data sheet for the product or whatever. And here's the HP Uh, 54615 B series. 1 gig sample per second real time, you know? 500 Meg bandwidth.

terrific stuff. and December 96 was Dick Smith's last hurrah. Um, for the electronics hobbyist, They set up these new Dicksmith Powerhouse stores and you could go in there and you could could use soldering irons. and you could talk to a dude who knew what he's you know, who knew what he was doing cuz he wore an Electronics tie.

And here's a young fella coming in. how do I use this multimeter to fix this amplifier? Oh, let me show you son. And yes folks, another 5 years later January 2000 it had all gone to Electronics Australia had, uh, basically gone down the toilet. We got an apple eye book on the front cover.

Nice and glossy thin as anything. Absolutely hopeless and just all consumer. Ah, the sound craps back gram Cadley There you go. Want someone to blame? Ah, there was just nothing left.

Look, oh it's a nice article on a Polo1 33 years on but $10 wonders. Woohoo! And then in March 2000 they warned us it was coming. new look issue next month. So from Uh April 196 5 had that fantastic Electronics Australian name and then boom that was the end of it folks.

because this May 2000 it just gets oh, space mapper something relatively into the X Factor Xbox Woohoo! let's whack some Xbox in there. Who's the bows? size does matter folks. Oh digital music. oh it's getting all better.

Look at the mobile phones. Can you believe it? Gear up your life a And this phone folks this absolute turd was the last ever edition of electronics Australia that even dropped the name. It was just EA But the December January 2001. What What What It was all over.

There was a uh 3 or 4 month wait until uh, the next um incarnation of electronics Australia came out and that was called Electronics Australia Today they added the tea. on the end it was called eat and we just said eat and die And there you have it folks, that's a uh first in hopefully a series of videos on my electronics Australia collection. Let me know what you want if this format was good where I Just went through and looked at some test equipment. Eh, let me know the format you want Anyway, found some good use for some data books here I Knew they'd come in handy one day.

Beauty And if you're curious, what was probably my opinion was the Heyday of electronics Australia Well, a good guess just based on the sheer thickness of it. Um, yeah, I Reckon probably the late 80s. yeah, you know they had a chick on the front, but H late 80s just based on you know, sheer number of projects and just the big weightiness of the magazine. There you go.

Hope you enjoyed it. Catch you next time.