Show and/or tell your obsolete science/engineering accoutrements

[rdenney]

Sheesh. I don't even know where to start. The definition of "obsolete" is challenging me, too. None of the below is rendered useless by later technology, and I use this stuff routinely.

Calculation:
-Keuffel & Esser Deci-Trig Log-Log slide rule, ca. 1945, gifted to me by my father when I was in high school, maybe two years before everything switched to digital calculators.
-Smoley's Combined Tables, because the drafting room boss I worked for at the time didn't trust digital calculators.
-TI-59 calculator, which was the most awesome and powerful tool I could imagine, until I had a chance to play with RPN
-HP11C, which I've used ever since (42 years and counting). (I have two, plus I also have an HP11C app on my iphone.)

Physical measurement:
-Lufkin micrometers probably 70 years old, I have the "+4" set--4-5", 5-6", 6-7", 7-8", 8-9", and 9-10"
-Etalon 12" vernier caliper (accurate to 0.001")
-Mauser 6" vernier caliper
-several Starrett micrometers in the 0-4" range, none of which is newer than 40 years old, though they are still made the same way today (bring your checkbook). These read to 0.0001".
-Starrett/Weber shop-grade gauge blocks with validation stickers from the 80's
-Ralmike's 0.25"-0.5" gauge pins (a pin at every thousandth in that range--these are a "minus" set, 0.0002" undersize)
-Starrett 0.060"-0.250" gauge pins that are even older than the Ralmike's set

(Machining is beyond the scope of the thread, so I won't mention the 79-year-old toolroom lathe or the 40-year-old milling machine. And toolboxes--a Gerstner from 1958 and several Kennedy and Parks boxes no newer than the 70's, etc., etc.)

Test equipment--I think I need to set a limit here, perhaps anything made before 1990. Only a couple of these were made after 1980. I do have newer test equipment on the bench as well, but that's for another thread.
-Simpson 260 meter
-Trio SSVM
-Tektronix T932 oscilloscope
-Tektronix CFC250 counter
-Tektronix CFG250 signal generator
-Power Designs power supplies
-Transistor Devices calibrated load
-HP 339A distortion analyzer
-HP 3456 6.5-digit bench DVM
-HP 5334b counter (last calibration sticker says 1991, still accurate to 0.1 Hz when measuring 10MHz)
-Keithley 179 4.5-digit DMM
-Keithley 197 5.5-digit DMM
-Fluke 8050 DMM
-Kikusui signal generator
-HP 350D precision attenuator
-General Resistance Dial-A-Source precision voltage source
-GenRad precision decade resistor
-plus whatever I'm forgetting

Rick "pictures on request" Denney

 

[Ropeburn]

Behold! The almighty Yamaha MEP-4 Midi Event Processor (1986).

This dinosaur can do everything with MIDI messages. Filter channels and message types, pre-set them, split, stack, delay, route freely to four outputs, whatever your heart and studio desires, it's there. Beautiful 80s microcomputer technology:

Hitachi HD6809 "revolutionary high performance 8-bit microprocessor" (datasheet quote) to the right.

Then just left of it, the rightmost of the four bottom memory chips, a whopping 8kB Toshiba TC5564 SRAM, optimised for battery backed up systems. Remember, those were the times when Flash was a comic book hero and nothing else. 10 nanoampere standby current!

Result: the CR2032 backup battery at the top right still shows 3.25V. Not bad for 40 years! They really built stuff to last back then.

...

I haven't used it once.

 

[Somafunk]

Here the original Wankel rotary engine Car Ro80 which I owned around 1975.

That’d be worth a small fortune now, unfortunately it’d take a large fortune to recommission and pay for running costs.

 

[Doodski]

Here the original Wankel rotary engine Car Ro80 which I owned around 1975. Gas consume was 16 liter per 100 km, regardless whether city, road or autobahn. Unfortunately the engine went bad with big clouds of oilfog off the exhaust pipe.View attachment 494843

I lived in small towns for the first ~20 years of my life. One small town I lived in there was a guy that drove what I remember as a Mazda RX4 rotary engine car. It was a wonderful car, sporty looking and me being a early teen and of course discussing cars with my teen buddies because cars is what is discussed at that age we had many ideas about this Mazda rotary engine RX4. The driver was often and I mean often seen by us as we attended the junior high school in the center of the city downtown and we saw all the cars downtown etc. The Mazda RX4 owner was regularly seen downtown speed shifting 1st to 2nd gear at full throttle and screeching the tires. The car was virtually appearing to be brand new, it made a wonderful and very different sound and yes it was great at 1st to 2nd gear changes at full throttle and screeching the tires. The car abuse went on month after month and eventually the car was smoking, blowing blue and simply was not able to lay down the rubber as well as time went on. The car owner killed the car and we never saw the car again.

 

[rdenney]

In my autocross days, the RX4 was deadly. They would smoothly wind up to about 12,000 RPM and not complain a bit until it exploded. Very fast indeed in their category.

But they could never meet tightening emissions requirements, and that more than anything killed them.

Rick “but they couldn’t corner like a Datsun 510” Denney

 

[MoreWatts]

I spent a few years as a 'field biologist.' I assume these reference books and field guides can now be replaced by apps that work with a phone viewfinder/photo. They have 'birding binoculars' that have software built in that will identify the bird instantly, afaik.

 

[Doodski]

In my autocross days, the RX4 was deadly. They would smoothly wind up to about 12,000 RPM and not complain a bit until it exploded. Very fast indeed in their category.

But they could never meet tightening emissions requirements, and that more than anything killed them.

Rick “but they couldn’t corner like a Datsun 510” Denney

Datsun 510. LoL... Boy o' BoY! My best friend had one. We rode 2 stroke dirt bikes and his parents owned a outboard engine, boat, snowmobile, Suzuki, chainsaw, weed eaters, lawn mower, tractors and all that sort of jazz outdoor equipment shop. They loved me and I them and I was there every moment possible to escape my terribly bad parents and family. Me and their son broke, damaged, bent, busted, blew up and generally raced everything we had and treated everything like it was a test and we where racers. We where wrenching our machines everyday pretty much in effort to keep them operating and we did keep them operating. When he turned 16 he got a Datsun 510 in orange. We went everywhere in that car. I mean huge mileage and it took it all in stride. At ~90 miles per hour one sunny day in the afternoon cruising the highway he exited the highway into the corner entering the village of about 350 people where we lived. He slowed to maybe 80 miles per hour and we entered the corner and it was more Gs, more Gs, more Gs and then we sliding went up on the drivers side 2 wheels for a very obviously long time and we where still cornering and sliding. The car came down on the 4 wheels and we used all the road and carried on laughing and shouting out HoLY F*** and all sorts of explanatory comments and thinking this was all very tremendous and howling Dukes of Hazard yelps as The Dukes of Hazard was our de factO favorite TV show and whatever The Dukes of Hazard did we did and thought it all very great.

 

[Ropeburn]

I spent a few years as a 'field biologist.' I assume these reference books and field guides can now be replaced by apps that work with a phone viewfinder/photo. They have 'birding binoculars' that have software built in that will identify the bird instantly, afaik.

View attachment 494905

After the apocalypse, those will become invaluable.

Just like this one:

From 1907, for higher education. Not only describes all the elements, but where in the world to find them (at least in 1907 lol), how to isolate and mass produce, including gear needed. Includes organic chemistry.

Just with this book you can actually make iron, glass, porcelain, vinegar, nitroglycerin, everything. Either as a time traveller or apocalypse survivor, take this and you're set. Haha

 

[Doodski]

After the apocalypse, those will become invaluable.

Just like this one:View attachment 494906

From 1907, for higher education. Not only describes all the elements, but where in the world to find them (at least in 1907 lol), how to isolate and mass produce, including gear needed. Includes organic chemistry.

Just with this book you can actually make iron, glass, porcelain, vinegar, nitroglycerin, everything. Either as a time traveller or apocalypse survivor, take this and you're set. Haha

Cool book! I generally hang only in the humanities section when I go to the library. But I was meandering the science section and found some books about metals, elements and minerals etc. I opened a book that had all the elements, metals and stuff like that categorized in it. I was looking at the various metals information all separated into each metal with the associated details. It has all about the metal, why, what, where, when, how etc. Then it had the section of historical relevance and significance. I read all the copper information. It was incredible. I read from the known first history of copper through the ages and all the mining and who used it for what and how and read of how near all of it has been recycled to today and that we are still using the Roman copper as it is all mixed in our recycled copper. Fascinating book. I moved from that city and lost touch with the book but the book exists and it is an amazing fascinating book that totally fast tracks any reader to know about minerals, metals and the elements one by one in many regards.

 

[Ropeburn]

Cool book! I generally hang only in the humanities section when I go to the library. But I was meandering the science section and found some books about metals, elements and minerals etc. I opened a book that had all the elements, metals and stuff like that categorized in it. I was looking at the various metals information all separated into each metal with the associated details. It has all about the metal, why, what, where, when, how etc. Then it had the section of historical relevance and significance. I read all the copper information. It was incredible. I read from the known first history of copper through the ages and all the mining and who used it for what and how and read of how near all of it has been recycled to today and that we are still using the Roman copper as it is all mixed in our recycled copper. Fascinating book. I moved from that city and lost touch with the book but the book exists and it is an amazing fascinating book that totally fast tracks any reader to know about minerals, metals and the elements one by one in many regards.

Sounds like the exact same kind of book. I wonder whether they're still written like that, in that dense, detailed, and packed way. When I think about my schoolbooks, they were awfully lacking in actually useful information in comparison, all theory and little practice. Either that, or you had to get dozens of specialised ones.

Rarely have I come across any one that seems like you could start a whole industrial civilisation with, from dirt. Sure, we have all the knowledge of mankind available easier and cheaper than ever, but it would seem the teaching and compiling methods used to be better. It's weird really. Information overload without careful curation doesn't help.

 

[respice finem]

Sounds like the exact same kind of book. I wonder whether they're still written like that, in that dense, detailed, and packed way. When I think about my schoolbooks, they were awfully lacking in actually useful information in comparison, all theory and little practice. Either that, or you had to get dozens of specialised ones.

Rarely have I come across any one that seems like you could start a whole industrial civilisation with, from dirt. Sure, we have all the knowledge of mankind available easier and cheaper than ever, but it would seem the teaching and compiling methods used to be better. It's weird really. Information overload without careful curation doesn't help.

IDK if this is universal, but at least in medicine, the "culprit" is the pressure to publish as much as possible (impact factor etc.), so knowledge is "strewn" instead of condensing it in just a few publications. The other problem: Much is being verified and corrected/appended faster than was possible in "analog times". At some point, life will be too short to even read all of this (if not already the case).

 

[Ropeburn]

IDK if this is universal, but at least in medicine, the "culprit" is the pressure to publish as much as possible (impact factor etc.), so knowledge is "strewn" instead of condensing it in just a few publications. The other problem: Much is being verified and corrected/appended faster than was possible in "analog times". At some point, life will be too short to even read all of this (if not already the case).

Verdict: the world needs less specialised idiots and more universal geniuses.

 

[respice finem]

Verdict: the world needs less specialised idiots and more universal geniuses.

But, what the world gets is the exact opposite (most of the time).

 

[xanalog]

eGadz! Aren't we a nostalgic lot?
Perhaps it was a bad childhood but I did not think I was one.
I could not even remember when I graduated from High School... Yet, uze 'awl insist on 'tickling' my mind.

During 10th grade, in the HS Chemistry lab, there sat this weird gadget that I recall as having an 8-inch display (w/8+ digits).
It had sat right behind my shoulder, in the lab... and I would press bunch of its keys and the digits on the display would all flip to different numbers.
At the time, neither did I know that this gadget was called a 'calculator' or that the digits were 'nixie tubes'.
Ignorance (then and now) has always been bliss, so I asked that BraveSearchAI for some historical assistance.
I don't like its answer:

The HP 9100A, introduced in 1968, was a groundbreaking electronic calculator that fits the description of a large, nixie-tube-equipped machine likely present in [your] high school chemistry lab...

I could not find any images of HP-9100 having a display comprised of nixie tubes (my recollection)!

Love seeing all those HP calculators.

Perhaps, @Gary_G can dig deeper for an image.
I am not that nostalgic!

 

[respice finem]

https://www.hpmuseum.org/hp9100.htm

but these aren't nixies, wrong model?

 

[xanalog]

https://www.hpmuseum.org/hp9100.htm

Nope.

 

[Multicore]

Sheesh. I don't even know where to start.

Well, thank you anyway.

The definition of "obsolete" is challenging me, too. None of the below is rendered useless by later technology, and I use this stuff routinely.

Yeah, well different people have been using different criteria. Speaking just for myself, there are a number of things to consider. Old doesn't make obsolete. A calibrated Fluke 8050 is a useful tool and not obsolete, even if the model has been replaced. I think the Simpson 260 multimeter is obsolete because the old needle pointing things have a number of disadvantages that the digital overcame. The digital obsoleted the analog. So in that case I think the type of technology is device is key.

In calculation and computation we can probably agree stuff like this is obsolete

Pocket/desk calculators are still useful for simpler jobs like arithmetic and the HP12C is still made but advanced scientific and programmable calculators have mostly gone because it's so much easier to do that work on a computer.

Similarly for graphing and preparing sci-eng diagrams it's way easier to use the computer now. For example I was really struck by how long it is since I saw log graph paper, you know, real paper. And I'm glad I no longer need to fill or clean Rotring technical drawing pens. Stencils, sheesh.

With computers themselves it's harder to say. We can probably agree that a Cray-2 is obsolete. But with desktop and personal computers I expect we could argue without conclusion where the cut-off lies.

But in any case, computers are no longer really accoutrements of the scientist and/or engineer because they are ubiquitous.

-TI-59 calculator, which was the most awesome and powerful tool I could imagine, until I had a chance to play with RPN

My dad was a heavy TI 59 user. They weren't so well made as HP so he got through a lot of them. He had the printer tray and would sometimes leave it running overnight. Programming was a nightmare and he moved his work to a Z80 as soon as we got one. This is an example of the obsolescence I mentioned above.

Rick "pictures on request" Denney

Please share photos of anything you like so long as you enjoy making and sharing them. This is a just for fun thread and there are no assignments.

 

[Multicore]

Regarding the word "accoutrement" − it's something like a badge of the art. The stethoscope is the accoutrement of the MD.

Here's an example of another accoutrement. If someone is wearing one of those in the breast pocket it means something.

If it is in the breast pocket of a buttoned brown shop coat then it means something more specific.

Btw, what happened to shop coats?

 

[xanalog]

https://www.hpmuseum.org/hp9100.htm

but these aren't nixies, wrong model?

Proof positive that both humans and AI can hallucinate... and both (me/it) can even experience the 'same' hallucination!

 

[Ropeburn]

Adjustable wrench from who knows when. Nice little souvenir inherited from grandpa (*1923)