Photo-Genic

The thing is, people are misusing the word retro. Over and over I see “Retro games shops” or “Retro Hifi” and “Retro Arcades” and so on and so forth. they’re not retro in any way, they stock original games or Hi-Fi from the 70’s, 80’s or 90’s. They’re not reproductions to look like the old stuff, they are the real thing.

The definition of retro is- “retro refers to a new item that imitates the style of the past” and that is all well and good. I have no quarrel with that. I play re-hashed versions of games on my Playstation for nostalgia reasons, sometimes because it is a pain in the bum to hook up an old console or arcade board to the TV to play the real thing.

Am I fooling myself into thinking that it is the original, no, not really, but it’s a lot more convenient if I just want to have a quick five minute blast on Space Invaders or whatever.

So, what’s the problem you ask, well, it’s the delineation when it comes to selling things online, It has now got to the point that repro items are being confused with genuine items because they themselves are now old in their own right.

Versions of tin plate toys are being sold as original “retro” items when they were made, say, 20 years ago instead of 70. Often for as much as the real thing, and people are being fooled into thinking the thing they just bought is an antique, when it is just a cheap knockoff.

This also goes the other way. The recent resurgence in vintage HiFi (yes, I used the word ‘vintage’ that’s almost as bad because it just means “of-age”, but I run Aston’s Vintage Technology Workshop, and I have a note from myself saying I can get away with it) 😛 Anyway, back on track, there is genuine “Retro” brand new Boomboxes and Personal stereo’s being made with a very nostalgic feel to them. They’re very bad quality, expensive, poorly built rubbish, using very cheap plastics and internal parts, and the thing is, people are buying it faster than it can be manufactured.

The problem there is, these same people now think everything is like that and it is tarnishing the past. “FiiO”, “Retrospeckt”, “We are rewind” and a bunch of others are all selling cheapo personal cassette players all at or around the £130 mark, which is expensive for what is a £10 to £20 cassette player, and what’s worse they all sound awful.

The first batch of non-Walkman cassette players I owned were all from jumble sales or car-boot sales and were a mixed bunch of average to semi ok sounding fayre. I mean, I was young and to be honest, I was just grateful to have anything at the time. Yet they all far outshone the dross being sold today.

And don’t get me started on the boomboxes… Long gone are the likes of which grace the album covers of such records like “LL Cool J’s 1985 debut Radio” a monster of a JVC battery powered monolith, or the copious amounts of Sharp models and the luscious Sony FH series powerhouses.

The new boombox offerings weigh nothing and have very weak speakers, the same miserable tape mech’s from china and lots of fake marketing.

What started as a mild rant about word usage has indeed blown out of all proportion and gone down a rabbit hole of annoyance and disappointment. If Sony, had got off of their ass and gone with the proposal to start making Walkman’s again (and I mean proper Walkman’s not those miserable iPod wannabe’s) they would have made out like bandits.

Think about it Sony. You started the revolution back in 1979 with the TCP-L2, the first Walkman. (even though it didn’t have Walkman branded on it, but let’s face it, it’s a Walkman). With all your manufacturing power and the history, and the desperate need for quality Walkman’s, you know what you need to do.

Make “Retro” Walkmans. (That’s right, there was a reason for all this rant after all).

Just make new versions of the classics. A nice new TCP-L2, some of the WM-DD range, even the lauded WM-DD9. All with a few mod cons like bluetooth or replaceable lithium rechargeables. Go nuts, make the best Walkman’s out there, you once did, you can again.

I for one would be the first in the cue to get a brand new WM-DD9 with all the bells and whistles.

Thank you, if you got this far, dear reader and fingers crossed. Aston…

Well, January’s been a bit of a wash out, so I decided to rebuild the workshop and service everything. Also finally got round to converting the Pace Sodr-X-Tractor Desoldering Handpiece for use on the Duratool base unit. It’s a bit “Heath Robinson” but it works fine. Nice to finally get to use it.

I had to effectively strap the sensor to the outside, as the internal one was just a negative coefficient jobbie and Duratool use one that produces a micro voltage, but there you go.

Fingers crossed it will stop raining soon… 😀

Enjoying my Christmas pressie (well, I enjoy them all but you know what I mean)

It’s a vintage 1990 Disc Drive Sony WM-DD11 Walkman in the thought to be “mythical Blue/Black colour”, and it is lovely to finally get to use one.

It needed the usual bits and bobs like a belt and all the caps replacing, however I thought I’d do it a favour and upgrade the caps with quality audio grade Elna’s and Nichicon ones.

Since Elna don’t readily sell low esr surface mount capacitors much outside Japan, I often have to resort to fitting miniature Elna jobbies instead. Ceramic caps might do but I’ve had mixed results with high end audio such as oscillation and general instability, so I go with what works well that I’ve used in the past.

The result is quite outstanding and I’m listening to all sorts of 80’s pop, just for the nostalgia of it all. Thanks Mum. 😀

Back when I started college to be an engineer (when dinosaurs ruled the earth, yes, yes, I know) Radio and TV engineers were treated with respect, as they were generally saving the customer a fortune by not having to buy another T.V. and the thought of disposable technology was science fiction fantasy.

So moving forward in time, in my last position as senior engineer, (attached to a large manufacturer, who shall remain nameless), when asked, it was considered to be an embarrassment that service departments exist at all, as it meant that their products might be perceived as less than indestructible.

Almost as if the customer would faint of shock at the mere suggestion that technology might fail. 😀

Nowadays we bend over backwards for customers and they treat us like an inconvenience. Oh for a lovely time machine. I’d be back at that lovely little Radio and TV repair shop, where I worked at, on a Saturday, and I was paid with resistors or random components. Great times.

Spurred on by getting a bunch of meter movements off of fleebay, I finally got round to cleaning up and preparing my early AVO 8 MK1 for repair.

It’s all cleaned up as far as the front bit is concerned, got to wind a shunt resistor which is burnt out, but that’s no problem and finally clean up the back case, which someone has varnished with something awful.

Fingers crossed there’s a good enough coil on the ones coming to finally get this old girl going again.

UPDATE- Well there was quite a few that were okey, as far as working, most of them were a bit bent up but I selected one that did the job and progress is, well, progressing 😀

Will update with photo’s when I get time and when I’ve got a bit further…

Ast..

Well, pickle me and call me fred…

It’s only taken me 38 years to finish a project I started at college. It was an ambitious capacitance meter that I started for my final, which, needless to say, didn’t work, and got put in a box, and then ultimately lost in the chaos.

What started all this off again was I finally managed to find the electronics magazine it was published in and found the missing page and information.

I had to unearth the location of all the bits around the house, and… it lives. 😀

Two faulty (from new) HEF4093 and HEF4511 i.c.’s and some higher spec resistors for better calibration.

Would have been handy back then, but it always nagged at me in the back of my mind, now it’s done. Phew.

It was, (and still is) my goal to finish all the little nagging jobs that I shelved over the years.

This one was a bit of a biggie for me, as I couldn’t figure out what I had done wrong. I thought I’d etched a mistake into the circuit board or something, turns out it was just a couple of faulty chips from new, which at the time would have been improbable or impossible to believe.

It’s been very satisfying clearing up all the dead bits of stuff and freeing up my cluttered brain, ready for new clutter. 😛

Stoked, so I decided to make a replacement display unit from discrete parts for one of my pieces of test equipment (with the faulty display that is no longer available)

After a lot of circuit diagram drawing and ribbon cable faffing, she lives again.

Phew, happy days.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting it to work first time, it was getting late and my eyes were getting sore, but I have enough bits now to sort out another if the problem pops up in the future.

It’s a bit ‘Heath Robinson’ but it’s sound.

After literally receiving no response whatsoever from Numatic, regarding custom Henry’s, I decided to put together a couple of custom personalised Henry vacuum cleaners dedicated to Mum and Me.

They comprise of custom head/hat assemblies with 20 meter cables for that extra bit of reach, the most powerful 620watt motors available in the range, ballraced cable drum assemblies, with rubber linings for that extra smooth wind, integral HEPA filters and finally, large 370 sized drums that have the tool storage at the back. Custom lettering was handcrafted, to be exactly the same as the font used on the current Henry’s.

So, take that, big grumpy corporation. 😛

So, instead of a shop, all the bits and bobs that get repaired are now being sold on eBay, but you can still buy them direct if you want to, just give me a call.

You can find my eBay shop here- https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/panasonic_bloke

For the last few days I’ve been working on some arcade circuit boards, and since I didn’t have anything to physically power them up separately, I decided to put something together, out of bits and pieces I had lying about, which is called called a “super gun”. Not sure quite why it’s called that but there you go.

So far I’ve go the Space intruder board working, Pacman board working, and the biggest headache so far has been the MVS Multi-game system, which had a leaky battery that destroyed a whole load of tracks. A sense of relief when it finally powered up working was immense, as these are now extremely rare.

I’ll save it all up for Saturday mornings when I can have a break, and veg out playing arcade games.