Hi I mentioned this document in my previous video on the Philips Fluke Combi scope that I scored on Ebay. I'll link it up here and down below if you haven't seen it and I came across this document while I was searching for information and the service manual and manuals for uh, this Phillips Combi scope that I scored on Ebay and it dates from 2000. And what turned up is the interesting part about this is that the model number of this scope was identical to an oscilloscope that they if Philips sold back, manufactured and sold back in 1970. And this is how I found this document.

Except the new Combi scope I've got which dates from the late 90s early 2000s is A is the B model. It's just got the B on the end, but it's an entirely different combination digital analog scope. But this document just brought back a lot of memories. like they don't make technical documentation like this anymore.

Of course I've mentioned like how companies don't do service manuals anymore. Although you know some big companies like Sony, you can still get service manuals for products and you know absolutely fantastic and theory of operation. But it's so rare to find companies do this sort of thing these days. So I thought we'd have a quick look at this and you know, just talk about why companies don't do stuff like this anymore.

Um, it's incredibly rare. Let us know in the comments down below if you know anyone who does this. But anyway, so this is from 1970. it's the original Pm 3370 is still a Philips Oscilloscope.

Um, it. This is not the manual. This is not the service manual. This is, uh, just a quarterly periodical that they actually, um, had it tells you here.

The Qwerty Quarterly periodical Electronic Measurement Microwave Notes provides information about applications and design of Philips Electronic Measuring and Microwave instruments, and also surveys new instruments which are regularly added to the Phillips Program. The information is intended to assist users and get him in the maximum benefit out of the instruments which they already possess and to help inform choosing new instruments which will best meet their particular measuring or microwave needs. So this is something that they didn't have to put out for this. because they've got the user manual, they've got the full service manual.

They probably would have had brochures at the time there was no internet, but I don't know an ad in the local electronics magazine would have you know been sufficient in that regard or something. But anyway, they go into all this detail of the design of this oscilloscope and what is actually amazing about this is it's not just like a regular theory of operation, uh, type thing. They actually include or like block diagrams and stuff. But not only that, I love the fact that they actually include photos of the people who worked on this sort of stuff.

Look at this. photos like this would just be lost into the dusty archives if they weren't published in documents like this. Look at this. and unfortunately they don't actually tell you who's in these photos and they do this.

Uh, for a reason. They actually tell you this right up front. Let's have a look. We have decided not to give authors names at the head of various articles as both the technical design and develop work and the writing itself have become so much a matter of teamwork that it would be invidious.

Yes, I had to look that word up in videos to pick out any single name or names. However, I would like to mention that the team uh, mainly responsible for making and writing about the Uh 3370 is composed of the following persons and there you go. I won't go through all the names, but hats off. Um, for not only writing this document, but also designing um, these this scope.

So it's a really detailed like theory of operation type stuff for this scope and how it all works and how the circuitry works, block diagrams. but I just love the photos in here. they're just absolutely fantastic. I'll link it in down below, it's well worth, um, having a read from the archives.

It's absolutely fantastic. Check it out and then they've got like photos of like the production line, like making uh, the cables and stuff like that on the production line. There you go assembly of the prototype, there's the final adjustment line and stuff like that. I don't know what that guy is doing like a little caption would have been, uh, good on that, but I guess that's part of the first adjustments or whatever and measurement of electron spin resonance with the aid of the 3370.

So that's like an application, uh, use kind of thing. And here's the calibration equipment they they actually use to test these scopes and that's what they're doing. They're calibrating the test instruments used to test these scopes and I love how he's got the pipe hanging out of the mouth. Absolutely brilliant.

You won't find that anymore. And as part of a recent video I did on vibration testing here, they are pictures of the vibration test, a huge electrodynamic shaker down the bottom here, which I've mentioned in my and demonstrated in my videos here. They are actually shaking the crap out of this thing. Um, to make sure it's good and all these like photos and people and this historical document.

I just think it's absolutely fantastic that these products exist and why don't like? Here's the materials and planning ordering department an essential link in the chain. like I. This is brilliant stuff. Why don't companies do this anymore? Why can't you know? And Apple or somebody designing their latest, you know, Fruity Gadget or any other high-tech company? It doesn't matter.

especially like the smaller startups and stuff like that. and well, it's kind of hard to devote someone to doing like documents like this. If you're a small startup. If you're a larger organization, why can't you have like get somebody to like, just compile a nice document like this with you know, photos of the people working on at the test facilities and the design team, the assembly line, and all that sort of stuff and just publish something like this.

These days, I think it would be fantastic. So why doesn't anyone do this anymore? Well, I guess it's kind of like fallen out of fashion to do this sort of stuff. and certainly companies that I've worked at Um over the years like we just like, only apart from like, internal, um, you know, documentation and stuff like that We would. We took virtually no photos of the production line and the people working.

I was only on. you know, some special need that we actually did that. Now I now that I've left these companies, I actually regret not actually taking more photos and documenting the team and the processes and the assembly lines and the facilities and all that sort of stuff because I all this stuff is just lost. Um, if you don't document this sort of stuff and it's just look great I'm not sure it's you know this would have been posed or whether or not this was you know, just somebody going around taking happy snaps for this.

uh you know someone was uh, charged with like putting compiling this document. So they went around and doing snaps and things like that. But yeah, why can't we have this sort of thing today? So I guess this is kind of like my plea to sort of like, can we see more of this these days? Can we bring it back into fashion? Um, for companies to do this sort of thing If you're working at a company and you know you'd love to do something like this, I don't know it. just maybe just go ahead and do it.

Or you know, ask somebody in charge. hey show them this document. Hey, can we do something like this? This would be really cool. and if you show them something like this so they may not have even known that like people used to do stuff like this, companies did this sort of thing and they took pride in it.

And it's a great historical document. Not only would this make great marketing, I think it it would also be great for the employees. When you know later on you know people have left because there's always turnover in companies like that. People will look back and say hey, yeah, Look, there's me.

I worked on this sort of thing there. There's me on the production line. There's me in the lab doing those sort of thing and I'm not talking about giving companies secrets and stuff like that. That's just all rubbish, right? It's easy to do this without giving away like major details to your competitors.

Some companies just take like confidentiality too seriously. Just go around and take some snaps of your production facilities and stuff like that. Why? And your design teams? Why not? It's going to be great. So this theory of operation kind of stuff, which I call it has all you know.

It's fallen out of favor these days as well. You get your open latest open source hardware product. It might just you know. If you're lucky, you know you get.

Get the github, you get the schematic. Here's your Pcb files. Here's your firmware files. Here's everything else.

And like nobody bothers doing like theory of operation anymore because well, it's kind of like falling out of favor. They don't see other people doing it or they don't know. People used to do like detailed theory of operation and stuff like this. And when I was doing my magazine articles for example, let's go back here.

Here we go. Here's um, the October 1996 a my Pc based logic analyzer article. It's basically got. Here's the Uh design background.

Me talking about the background of it and then going into the circuit description and all of this is like theory of operation. And why did I do this? Because when I was growing up reading these magazines as a kid, this is what was done. and this is what's been done for. Like I don't know, like last since radio, Tv and hobbies back in the 1920s and 1930s.

or something like that. And as I was reading these magazines and I was thinking about submitting my own articles for publication, it's just like, of course, you have a theory of operation. That's what you do. That's what articles have, right? They're not going to publish it.

Here's the Uh article, and here's the schematic. And here's the Pcb And that's that's your no. where's the article? So you had to write this detailed theory of operation type stuff and block diagrams of how everything worked and stuff like that. Yet not many people like think about doing this sort of stuff these days.

Of course, there's still magazines around, there's Diode magazines, Silicon Chip, and others still around, and they still do theory of operations. You know, the tradition is still hung on in the magazines, but in terms of like putting uh, your project on your publishing project on your website, it's just getting quite rare to see. Um, you know, like, detailed theory of operation. And if I could have, I would have included photos.

I would have included my own photo in there. I could, you know, But that wasn't a thing in the magazine. But um, certainly. Why can't you as a company, publish something like this? Just have a, you know, a quarterly publication for example.

You know the old Hp journals and things like that. Absolutely classics, right? And companies used to do these. You know, periodical journals. Why can't modern companies do journals like this And like include like really cool stuff like this: photos of the people, worked on the production lines, testing facilities, and just you know, like in Theory of Operation, I'm just the design of Modern Design of product.

You could have a photo of his Joe average engineer working at the fruity company. Uh, you know, working on the design or the molding of the new product And here we are in a like a brainstorming session, trying to figure out where the freaking buttons should go and all this sort of jazz like why can't we do this anymore please So if you think it's a good idea that we should go back to these sort of stuff, that like make it a bit more personal, make it a bit more human that you know people actually work on this sort of stuff, show us. And if it's certainly, if you're at a big company or even a little company, if you've got your little upstart, hey, be personal. like this.

produce something like this, put it on your website, be proud of it, Market it. It'd be fantastic. Maybe we can start the trend again. Anyway, if you like that, please give it a big thumbs up.

And as always, discuss down below. and if you've got any examples of companies that are still doing something like this, please leave the link in the comments down below. We'd like, oh you can't leave links in bloody comments, can you anyway? figure out a way to tell us all about companies that are doing this sort of stuff and let us know if you're going to go. Hey, this is really cool.

I think I'm going to do something like this at my company, then let us know in the comments because it would be absolutely fantastic. I would just love to see this sort of trend happening again, and if you agree with me, give it a big thumbs up. Catch you next time.