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22 Dec, 9 tweets, 2 min read

these little guys are 0805 surface mount devices, but you'll never guess what they are! hint: they're not resistors!

not fuses, not capacitors, not diodes, not LEDs, not antennas...

it's in stock at Mouser. no guesses?

not an inductor, not a filter...

ok i'll tell you

it is a pyrotechnic igniter!

and here they are on Mouser. mouser.com/c/?q=mepic

the datasheet is wild. vishay.com/docs/53058/mep…

(ok yeah i guess technically it is a resistor 🙄)

what's the difference between it and an ordinary resistor? they put in a special type of magic smoke...

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More from @TubeTimeUS

Tube☃Time

@TubeTimeUS

21 Dec

today's project is to fix this old Seagate ST-412 hard drive. 10MB, full height, and really loud!

here's a problem: the positioner stepper seems to move around randomly on power up. it's supposed to wait until the rpm goes nominal before moving. could be an issue with one of the motor phases.

looks like the stepper is controlled from an MCU. but there's some electronics in between i should check.

Read 20 tweets

Tube☃Time

@TubeTimeUS

4 Dec

check this out! it's an accelerator card that turns your 8088 PC or XT into a 286. let's try and get it running... 🧵

hmm, there's some damage to the sockets

the card is an Orchid Tiny Turbo 286.

Read 52 tweets

Tube☃Time

@TubeTimeUS

3 Dec

look what I got! it's the first high resolution video card for the IBM PC!

handwritten serial number.

it's a rev C, so not particularly rare.

Read 24 tweets

Tube☃Time

@TubeTimeUS

29 Nov

here's an amazing thing! it is a 370 channel simulator. what is that, you ask? well, read on! 🧵

the System 370 was a series of IBM mainframes from the 1970s. it was the follow-on to the System 360.

you could connect a variety of peripherals to your System 370, including things like printers, disks, tapes, and so forth. except these peripherals were typically quite large, like this array of hard disks!

Read 22 tweets

Tube☃Time

@TubeTimeUS

26 Nov

https://twitter.com/i/status/1464176912503390223

so this gif has been making the rounds, with the unhelpful title of "data cable on a computer from 1945". but what computer? what sort of data? let's find out.🧵

https://twitter.com/i/status/1464176912503390223

the gif is from this YouTube video, an introduction to the ENIAC, where they interview some folks and show off the pieces of the ENIAC on display at the University of Pennsylvania.