Hi welcome to everyone's favorite segment Mailbag where I opened my mail that people just randomly send me Why? I don't know, they just send me stuff. So let's get straight to it. This one comes from Chris Matthews from Chris Matthews Photography in the UK thank you very much Chris So let's up leads in the UK by the way. so how do I view any leads? Ah yes I have been to Leeds it's been long there I go again, try to three or something.

just stop the lunch or something like that. I'm kind of quite remember. um let's open this damn thing. and yes I know I'm cutting towards myself.

but I'm Australian I know what I'm doing. It's alright. thank you for the concern about my safety. but um yeah.

anyway let's have a look. um the description on the box was scrap electronics. so here we go. Until Christmas sent in.

ok hit something Joe there bloody bubble-wrap stasis. This is rather interesting. We're going to note: check it out. it is a we view.

It looks like we're it's some other from an AV receiver. like it like a audio vitiligo stereo system. sing wind Uuf, sing Ianto Limited. Alright, two minutes here down.

So as it turns out, I was completely confused by what this thing actually is. It's obviously like a vacuum fluorescent display in there and there's that scene. one too many hours of operation. I Think perhaps.

But what this is is it's a like a a game counter. It's a Japanese r4 Japanese Pachinko if I'm pronouncing that correctly pinball machines and it's something that actually goes up on the it's not from the machine itself but apparently goes up on the wall in the game in you know I don't know the pub or wherever they've got these pinball machines and it it has like total stats and payouts and things like that. So it's you know, some sort of like gaming and type system and jackpot lights flash. that's what these are.

these would be like. Jackpot Jackpot You know you've won something um so well you know I guess it's a battle counter. So yeah I don't know Japanese Pubs maybe I don't know is anyone been to one? So that's what this thing is for. So that's um, that's a first that's rather interesting.

So was the plug. Um yeah you would think that's one of those are weird are say Yankee 120 volt plugs. but it's actually 24 volts Ac and why? it has look a snippet of ground wire coming out of the earth wire so that obviously doesn't make any sense if it's a you know for mains use but obviously they use it for 24 volts. AC That's happen off it's obviously hooked onto one of these terminals most likely this one here and then they ground it off to the chassis somewhere and when this thing's been decommissioned, they've just snipped it off.

But yeah, that's interesting. but check it out. That's actually a lot of Vft segments. Look at this, they've got all these.

Are they like individual seven segments down there as well. right across the top. Or here we've got bar grass and then we've got this dot matrix display I don't know, can you count those but all up that is a hell of a lot. er, you know.

vacuum fluorescent segments. Unbelievable. I've popped the top off. We'll take a look at the VFD in a second up bar closer.

but I Just want to show you this. Interesting this sir. L II D PCB Here right? which has the that goes over there like that which is the you know jackpot flashing LED theme right? and look at the different colored on the solder mask. there.

it's white but where it's actually covered by the pattern by the actual wha plastic on here. Look at that. so that has got to be well, my guess would be yet. UV Exposure has caused this board to change colour where it's obviously this is the original white in here because this is where the external light was blocked out by this, uh, plastic here.

and the rest of it is you via some sort of uten. I'm pretty sure UV has come through and it's discolored. the board. Very, very interesting.

Maybe combined with our heed of the light flashing or something like that, perhaps. but that's really interesting. There you go for you. VFD aficionados.

Check that out. That's right. Fantastic dot matrix thing. and Ollie you notice how it's all sort of discolored, which is rather interesting.

I Mean, obviously there something has gone pretty horribly wrong with those things through use, but mmm so you can probably see the ones that have worn out that have the most where. Actually, we've got ourselves a switch mode supply in there, which I Kris says does squeal so year Likely something wrong with that puppy and he's the back of the LCD module. and of course you can hear it go mmm I Love it. Not sure if you can hear that that's coming through well, but uh, terrific stuff.

Anyway, yeah, you shouldn't do that by the way with VFDs but this one's um, basically it did, so we can have our way with it. We've got an M16 processor down there. sort of. Yep, not to be what that's totally to be expected from Japan but not too many connections on the VFD display.

We've got some here some there, and that's about all she wrote. We've got an infrared detector there. actually is there anything on the topside at all? Nope. and sorry, but I Had to get medieval on.

toss and chop all the pins off. it. couldn't be bothered desoldering it. It's no good, but hey, check out the pattern on the back.

we can see how it's all multiplex. This is fantastic. Look at this. sorry about that.

the reflections. This is all glass so it's sort of hard to hard to get things really right. but geez, look at that. I mean that's how they can get away with so few pins on this thing.

Everything's multiplexed. Ah thing of beauty. Joy forever look at. So thank you very much Chris for sending that one end that is is one fascinating beast.

I'd Love to see these puppies in action in Japan and manufactured by Samsung Thank you very much. Next up one from William Fit Fight I Call you Bill No worries Bill. thank you very much mate. He's from uh Utica in New York never heard of Utica UTI CA There you go.

Google it my viewers in Utica I'm absolutely butchering the pronunciation of as always. Anyway, it's from the United States of America Let's have a look. We have a note. Ah oh it's got a PhD Beauty.

Wonder what in doesn't say? Oh, we have things for the collection. Two things you might recognize that aficionados might recognize this. Oh, hang on. it's got the logo.

It's got the famous logo. Look at that? Beautiful. None of this a key site buddy. rubbish.

Anyway, let's have a look. It's another HP 41 CX Beauty and we also have this in a low pro case. Let's have a look. It is Tada a crusty old light.

Radio Shack Sound level meter Ah I I had um, the older model of this. um what? Tandy here in Australia it was and actually yeah it was yet. It had the analog Vu meter. none on this digital.

LCD Rubbish, no siree. Bob um any. and the bill says this was I'm sorry if you don't like being called Bill, but I'm gonna call you Bill. uh if the um, yes, he used it to calibrate his home theater a system, it was a worthless, inaccurate piece of crap from the beginning.

Yeah, these aren't I don't think this was ever a particularly great model. It's exactly the same the one. I've got a proper still, but it somewhere. don't know if it works, but it had exactly the same control on the thumb control on the side for the gate.

like that for the different ranges. and but this one is. looks like they just upgraded it to away a-- a digital readout instead of the analog Vu meter and Bill sending this gorgeous HP 41 CX And I've done a teardown of this on the blog before, so I won't - I won't subject this poor thing. It's got the stat and financial work packs in there and Bill said he bought this in 1985 for three hundred and twenty five bucks, but he's not sure what he paid for the stat packs and the financial pack.

So yeah, that would have cost a pretty penny extra as well. but ah man. I so lusted after this back in the day. You see the full-page ads in the electronics magazines for this thing and I thought it was just, you know, like it was utopia.

Let's rip apart this heap of crap. Here it is. Here's the different ranges and as I said, my one had the Vu meter I think I may have actually taken it apart on the blog before. actually.

So anyway, that's uh, let's crack this puppy open and see what's inside will be all through-hole like the old one was. I'm sure it was a heap. er heap. Oh crap.

trademark trademark Tandy Corp Hmm. come on. get out of there here. we go.

Gah yeah, there we go all through-hole and hang on. Yep, smells very 1980s. There's a little PCB mount wafer switch on the board. just held in with a self-taught but you know it does the business.

Nothing wrong with that. There you go, you flip it out there. It is a classic LM Three to four, beautiful and all. Look at this single sided couple of links in there or PCB designer couldn't get it all on one side because that's the the Holy Grail a single sided layout.

but don't you know? ask? Not bad e at the wafer switch. Everything else on there single sided, but that was very common for the day and it's probably like the exactly the same circuit they used in the old one or something with the analog Vu meter and they've just worked in a LCD module? That's it. Is that a date code 43rd week 82. It had matched the smell.

Anyway, don't know about the 66 on the end of it, but hmm thank you very much bill for sending those in. Yeah, you wouldn't use one of these puppies these days. The digital ones you can buy on eBay brought in a 20 or 30 bucks, can't you? You know that they're really quite good, you know, damn more than adequate for most purposes. And yeah, this thing was I was okay back in the day it was probably the only.

Was it the only affordable one I don't know because it was available from Tandy slash RadioShack I guess it was and probably the only uh you know audio level meter that Joe average could get hold of and although I didn't open this on camera sorry, but I was too excited when I got it. I am the owner of original parts from the screen used DeLorean the hero car. next up another one from the old art. Yeah, I'm just going I'm not doing these in chronological order like a first-in first-out buffer or anything.

I'm doing like getting rid of the big ones cuz yeah, it's a taking up space on the bloody bench again. Anyway, this one is from um I think it's Fetch Fetch. Never heard of the name fetch anyway I Fetch Coal teach art from the UK thank you very much Fetch Nick it is or as yeah it's a I think it's a T or is an AR with a little squiggle on the top. Anyway, have a look.

come on. Sometimes it's tricky when they've got all this masking tape on the outside. We have a note so let's have a look what that looks like type written. Is this looks like it? That or maybe it's come, looks like it.

Maybe it's come from a daisy we all perhaps. Hmm. Found this at the back of the cupboard in the company's IT office when they were having to clear out. All right, it's a look.

ah for all you Network aficionados Fluke Networks thing. Definitely 2-minute teardown. We've had one before. it's the I still got it here somewhere I see yellow holster? Ah one, but this one's different.

Ether Scope: Network Assistant Cool. Actually, it's pretty rare last calibrated in July 10 so it's probably not that old. There you go: I'll show you the letter and it's actually from Emma Is that yeah? Is that like a daisy wheel printer? Perhaps. Anyway, it's from Emirates not from Fetch.

Uh-huh Oh I think I'm It's either I thought Colt each I Think it's cottage. so that's batch cottage. There you go. so that's the place.

Um I guess So there you go, Thank you very much Emma we'll take a look. let's have a quick look inside this Fluke Networks ether scope. Network Assistant: Meeting the United States of America Murica and that's exactly what you expect to find. There's big battery contacts compartment down the bottom.

here. There's a big pulse transport even it output transformer. They've got the got some realizing there to switch it in and out and it looks like there's a big-ass BGA maybe an FPGA under there to actually do all the networking testing and stuff like that and it looks like we've got a media processor or something under there. Oh oh, it's an Intel something.

Woohoo! We'll check it out and some memory that just handles the you know, the GUI interface. all that sort of stuff. but all the networking testing to be done inside that pop. you have to flip the board open to find out what old score PCMCIA slot.

thank you very much. And because it ran a tad hot I guess I don't know. The FPGA is pretty grunty. It's got a little fan on it for something this size.

little La soon on fan nice. and there's the LCD screen there obviously. I got its own controller OPV I don't know that one. Anyway, Yep, there it is.

There's the bad. So I don't know what the resolution of this thing is. It is rather high. You can see the chip on Flex down in there.

There we go. So we've got hot bar attachments down here. Fluke are notoriously bad on there hot bar attachments. I've done a video on that Anyway, A lot of fluke products.

These they had their own hot buyer technique although pop. Nothing original about hot bar I mean but Fluke have their own in-house thing and yet notoriously unreliable. Anyway, there's a little chippy under there. you can see the outline of that and that's a chip on Flex.

So they've got individual column. they become drivers. Yes, they would would be column drivers down there. and there's your mainboard.

Check it out. There's actually two Y FPGA is on there and the main one will go straight in and we've got ourselves a Xilinx What is it? It's hard for me to read the LCD here. I need to get a bigger LCD if you're wondering why I can't read thing and you read stuff or I miss stuff and you can at you know the viewer at home can actually see stuff on your fantastic HD resolutions because I'm always looking through the camcorder screen here. so just standing here I can't Anyway, it's an X C to the 1000 you go.

you can go look that one up. and is this an FPGA or is that a PL d and that's got to be a CP or D So it's just odd and I doing some housekeeping stuff perhaps? Anyway, we have a high voltage inverter for the backlight here. That's what that is. No touchy when that's on.

I get a bit of a jolt and oh, we've got a internal wire. Is that a backup battery or a super cab? Don't know. It is a Super Cup point One Farad is it? Yep. and some nice little separate Dc-to-dc converter modules here.

so they to be for the various side rails for your FPGA is perhaps a you know, 1.2 volts, 1.8 volts, 2.5 volts, 3.3 whatever. So yeah, nice. You need a lot of them. That's a problem with bloody FPGAs and other modern stuff.

Really annoying. And what's this down here? Broadcom yeah, that's our gigabit transceiver. So yeah, you can go google that one. Look it up if you want.

Looks like we've got a is that a 32 Kilohertz Schneider 25 met crystal? There we go. So yeah, it's basically exactly what you expect to find in sort of like a analyzer A. So it's doing all the analysis up stuff inside the whatever it has to do I don't know I'm no expert put I'm no expert Network person. So this is a it's doing everything inside the FPGA there and as I said, that processor under there's handles the GUI what is it? Mm-hmm and you have to trust me, that's a high.

Got it on the microscope at a look under the mantas and it's a Px A 255, an Intel Xscale processor. So there you go. Thank you very much. Emma This is a rather interesting and exactly what you'd expect, though there's you know, a fair bit of hardware involved in this I Check it out.

You know if there's a lot of stuff in here for a handheld Ethernet analyzer, It's not just like you know, the you know, the transformer whacked into it. You know, straight into a micro or something like that. you know there's going to be a lot of smarts happening inside the FPGA That's really what you're paying for is all the testing, algorithms and everything else that they're doing. You know all the secret sauce in that they're doing inside the FPGA there.

I'm why they're doing it in that and not the micro micro is not fast enough. I Don't know. networking. You have to analyze it in real time.

decode stuff in real time. I Guess so. Yep. but yeah, there is an awful lot packed inside this thing and it's a really nice design.

Check it out. Beautiful. You're that that. It'd probably be a six to eight layer board something like that because it's got to be to fan out all the all the BGA stuff.

but it is terrific. Thanks Emma Next up, we have one from someone you've probably heard of. how could. I So thank you very much.

Hackaday Slash Supply Flame Yeah, I already opened this one sometimes. I Don't know whether or not it's a male. it's meant for the male bagger. it's meant for something else.

Viktor They have sent in the new Hackaday Omnibus Volume 2. Check it out! I Have no idea how you actually get this, but the first one was good and this is the second. Omnibus has got tons of really cool, interesting articles, builds hacks, all sorts of um, things in it, so check it out, hope hopefully provide a link down below And they also sent me something: Dave the generous donation of your time and talent. What makes great things possible? Hackaday? How could a prize judge? So only if you're a judge do you get one of these? What is it? I Don't know.

Could anyone tell me it's like moss or something, some sort of mass? I Don't forget the significance of that. It's interesting. thank you a kadai. So I'm actually rather impressed by this Hackaday Omnibus.

It's a it is very well produced and I this is the rare print edition which you can get for 17 bucks and some great articles and hacks and it's just. it's really well format in a well produced. so yes, check it out. I'll provide a link down below.

Ah yeah, there's something growing in there I Don't know. how did it get past? Australian Customs Hmm, don't try and smuggle stuff into Australia Oh man, Yes. serious. I Guarantee you if you tried to bring this through customs through the airport in.

Sydney Oh look, it's got wood. It's got wood and it's got organic matter it. Trust me, you would get the rubber glove treatment for an hour. Next up, another one from another company you should have heard of Tektronix Because yeah.

I Another one I Opened because I didn't Really? Yeah, Novels, mailbag or not. Anyway, if you didn't know Tektronix after I don't know? Well, no, not their entire history because they have changed it before. But they have a new logo. Yes.

New corporate banding. No, they have not changed the name so that's excellent. Um, but they have this new TX thing. So they changed the Tektronix logo.

That's the short-form version of it. No doubt they paid some consulting company a bazillion dollars to come up with new branding that's compatible across all their social media channels and all that sort of wink. Um, so yes, this is the just the TX logo. but I think they've got this wrong.

They sent me this logo right? and it had like a blue stripe through the X on it. It does not have it on this shirt so it seems like they've got the logo on the shirt wrong. It's all. it's different to what the the branding they sent me.

anyway. they've got the word Tektronix and then just the TX logo for you know, little square icons and logos and things like that. Um, you've got to have different types of logos and stuff this date these days. So thank you very much.

And apparently, um, oh yeah, here it is here. We go there, We go tomorrow. There we go as the new Tektronix logo. that's the full name version and apparently, um, this t-shirt actually contains a code.

So there you go, try and figure it out. Can you figure out what's on there? Apparently it does contain something anyway. thank you very much. Tektronix Uh yes.

We have a refresh new look and we're excited to show it off a bit. You are spending all that money. It's been a long time 224 years since they last changed about I Actually prefer the old school one with the tube in it with the CIT tube that was near old school and we think it's worth the wait. What do you think? Well, no, sorry I didn't wait 24 years and get a new logo like no, sorry I'd rather you actually have a new scope.

It's actually fast and responsive. How to be nice In honor of our new brand launch and because we appreciate your work as a blogger here. among the first to receive anything and their free stuff? Yes, Thank you very much. Tektronix There you go, check out the new Yes.

There's a hidden message in the slashers at the bottom the shirt. Figure it out. go on, post it down below. figure it out.

Sure you can collect it. Nerd power. Next up. I'm going to give this spot to one that what is a fair bit.

now it's punching above its weight in terms of size and everything. And because it comes from Dirk winning winning name awesome hashtag Women good on your Dirk I'm third he's from Deutschland I Don't want my German viewers. Everyone loves the pesky Germans so let's uh, this is tricky. should just slice the damn the whole thing open.

Anyway, let's see what Dirk is sent in. Tada yeah it's pretty unwieldy, but it's fun. Hmm let's do accent in alright. Hi Dave Vintage Sony Time yeah this one's from 1984 1985 He repaired something back in 1991.

Thank you very much. Duck and Postcard don't have many postcards there we go. Germany Deutschland. been there well I haven't actually been to is Lugan em Emmett Nikkor haven't been there.

sorry but looks nice Awesome we have. Well there's a CD in there as well Tada oh wow that's in great Nick it's a Sony CD compact. is that is that the original model that yet the D50 I think it is the original model Sony Dis Man Beauty I actually wanted this puppy I was looking for it on eBay and he's even included. Oh no I thought thought it was a actual disc.

It's not, it's just that it's the original manual and everything. Wow Wow, that's like like a bought one really is. Thank you very much. Dirk Zero Number Sixty Six thousand Seven Hundred Fifty eight I'm sorry, but this is more than a worthy of more than two minute teardown.

I Definitely wanted I Love doing the vintage tear downs and everyone seems to love them so I'll do this one properly I'll do it justice in a separate video. Thanks Doc I Just wanted to show you that ah, look at it, it's just the beautiful neck isn't It's the D50. There you go there first. Sony Discman: Well, as it was that they didn't actually call it the Discman Well, was it the dis man.

I Mean it's not written on it, but you know that's whatever because it came from the Walkman of course and look is that life of the original like in transport plastic discs in it? I mean wow it's in awesome Nick So thank you very much Dick. That'll definitely get its own teardown video Oh Can't wait next up one from straw Leah Thank you very much Mr.. Google Gum. And you may have heard of Google gum before.

They've had several sucks of the Sap on the blog and um, yes, is really, maybe upside down technique? That's that's got to do the business surely. Anyway, um, yes, school gum. Absenting various, I'd usually pick related, um, development boards and things like that. So yeah, it's another one like that.

So all your development brought aficionados will read the letter. Victor What? No, no, hey no, it's another two minute teardown. It's a D-link Um, switch d-link modem II The router thingamabob I Know he's included the Joey Oh, it's the Joey display board. It's tiny because it's a little Joey If you don't know, a Joey is a baby kangaroo that lives in the mothers.

a mother kangaroo's pouch there. Yeah, so this is this new board. Let's take a squeeze. It's got a I think it's got a pick a 7 segment display on it and don't.

Well this Joey is not a baby kangaroo. It's a baby koala. There it is. Oh isn't it cute? Um yes, a Joey is the generic name for a baby marsupial.

although most people will use it. You know when you say Joey you're probably thinking about a baby kangaroo because baby koalas Me? You know. Anyway, Um here it is. Here is the Joey It is as it says in numeric led to slay board for the Raspberry Pi There it is.

There's the header for it doesn't come with the pin so how do you plug it in? Hmm so there you go. It's an I squared C address so you can just program. It's got a whole tech chipset down in here we'll take a quick squeeze at and there it is. Thank you very much David of course Dave from Google Gum Electronics and I'll link it in down below it was the Joey was a successful and successfully launched on Kickstarter Beauty I think he's had a few successes on Kickstarter I think so Yes, loyal crowd there.

So if you need if you want a 7 segment 4 digit, 7, 7 display for your Raspberry Pi go for it. And there we go. It uses a whole text 16 K 33 that's not actually a micro, that's a I Squared C LED driver. So yeah, exactly what you'd expect to find in something like this whole tech make micros and a whole bunch of peripheral type chips exactly like this one.

And this sorry excuse for a router was I supposed to be powered from my 5 volts apparently and Dave plugged in 12 volts and yeah, the magic smoke escaped old school. Check it out. look at that big-ass Samsung a quad flat-pack Wow Anyway, ya know BGA rubbish in this thing. Is that some sort of magic smoke escape port there? And to know this thing up here that don't like the looks of that at all I think that is the yep, that's a genuine blowhole right there Wow that This is a pretty piss-poor design too, because like you know, here's our five Volt input here.

There's basically nothing. There's a couple of local regulators here, so they may have continued to work depending on you know, like their maximum input threshold voltage, but obviously there's some five volt power stuff in here and whammo. Thank you very much! So thank you to everyone who sent something into today's mailbag. Sorry if I didn't get around to your one eye only.

yeah, tore down a few of the big ones so I'll get around to them eventually. There's quite a lot left there on the shelf. There's I don't know, maybe 15 items or something like that. So if you like my bag, please give it a big thumbs up and all that sort of stuff.

And as I've done an announcement video on in case you didn't see it, there's an Eevee blog newsletter. go to Eevblog calm and go to the newsletter link and sign up for that. Catch you next time you.