In 1984 there weren’t many ways to listen to high-quality music, so an FM tuner was an essential part of any home hi-fi system. The Pioneer TX-950 picked up by [The Curious Lorenz] would have been someone’s pride and joy, with its then-cutting-edge microprocessor control, digital PLL tuning, and seven-segment displays. Astoundingly it doesn’t have an auto-tuning function though, so some work to implement the feature using an ATtiny85 was called for.

A modern FM tuner would be quite likely to use an all-in-one tuner chip using SDR technology under the hood, but this device from another era appears to be a very conventional analog tuner to which the PLL and microprocessor have been grafted. There are simple “Up” and “Down” buttons and a “Station tuned” light. One might imagine that given these the original processor could have done autotune. At least the original designers were kind enough to provide the ATtiny with the interfaces it needs. Pressing either button causes it to keep strobing its line until the “Station tuned” line goes high, at which point it stops. It’s an extremely simple yet effective upgrade, and since the ATtiny is so small it’s easily placed on top of the original PCB. The result is an ultra-modern tuner from 1984, that’s just that little bit more modern than it used to be.

If you don’t have a vintage FM radio, you can always build its modern equivalent.