In Praise Of Old Meters

January 12, 2024 by Al Williams 54 Comments

We are spoiled with multimeters today. Even the cheapest meter you will get these days is almost surely digital with a tremendous input impedance. But a few decades ago, meters were almost always analog affairs. To make a precise measurement, you needed a mirror under the meter to ensure you read the needle correctly. Moreover, a common meter wouldn’t have that high of an input impedance. If you spent more, you could get a VTVM and, later, one that used FETs to provide high input impedance. [Peter AA2VG] just picked up a vintage Micronta FET volt-ohm meter to join some of the other new and old meters in his shack. You can check it out in the video below.

[Peter] already has a Simpson and a more modern Fluke meter. The Simpson, however, doesn’t have a tube or FET amplifier. The Fluke is nice, but there is something about the needle on an analog meter. If you aren’t old enough to remember, the Micronta brand was a Radio Shack label.

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Will RadioShack Return?

September 8, 2023 by Al Williams 145 Comments

We suspect that if you want to write a blockbuster movie or novel, the wrong approach is to go to a studio or publisher and say, “I have this totally new idea that is like nothing you’ve ever seen before…” Even Star Trek was pitched to the network as “Wagon Train to the stars.” People with big money tend to want to bet on things that have succeeded before, which is why so many movies are either remakes or Star Trek XXII: The Search for 4 PM Dinner Specials. Maybe that’s what the El Salvador-based Unicomer Group had in mind when they bought one of our favorite brands, RadioShack. They are reportedly planning a major comeback for the beleaguered brand both online and in the physical world.

In all fairness, the Shack may be better in our memories than in our realities. It was handy to stop off and pick up a coax connector, even if it cost three times the going rate for one. There was a time when RadioShack offered reasonable parts for projects, and it seems like near the end, they tried to hit that target again, but for many years, you could not find the typical parts for a modern project there anyway. However, Unicomer isn’t just a random group of investors.

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Nostalgic 30-in-ONE Electronics Badge For DEF CON 30

December 9, 2022 by Joseph Long 12 Comments

[hamster] and the DC Zia crew offered up a throwback 30-in-ONE Learn Electronics indie badge for DEF CON 30. The badge is inspired by the Radio Shack “100-in-1” style project kits that so many of us cut our teeth on back in the 70s and 80s.

DC Zia is a hacker group loosely associated with New Mexico who have been working together to make an indie badge for DEF CON each year. If you aren’t familiar with the badgelife community of hardware hackers and programmers who make electronic indie conference badges, check out our BadgeLife Documentary.

The 30-in-ONE badge is provided in the form of a kit, so the learning and fun begins with assembling the badge. From there, an included booklet guides the badge holder through building and experimenting with 30 different circuits.

The included components include resistors, capacitors, LEDs, transistors, switches, transformer, speaker, OLED display, battery box, and a bundle of jumper wires for making any desired circuit connections. The documented circuits have compelling titles such as the Electric Cat, Light Theremin, Grandfather Clock, and Frequency Counter.

Flashback to what DC Zia, and other groups, were up to five years prior in our expose on The Hardware Badges of DEF CON 25.

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Hackaday Links: July 10, 2022

July 10, 2022 by Dan Maloney 9 Comments

We always like to call out a commercial success stemming from projects that got their start on Hackaday.io, and so we’re proud to announce the release of MAKE: Calculus by Joan Horvath and Rich Cameron, a book that takes a decidedly different approach to teaching calculus than traditional courses. Geared to makers and hackers, who generally tend to have a visual style of learning, the book makes heavy use of 3D-printed models to illustrate the relationships between functions. The project started five years ago as a 2017 Hackaday Prize entry, and resulted in a talk at the 2019 Supercon. Their book is now available for preorder, and might be a great way to reacquaint themselves with calc, or perhaps even to learn it for the first time. Continue reading “Hackaday Links: July 10, 2022” →

Captivating Clock Puts Endangered Displays On Display

September 24, 2021 by Ryan Flowers 18 Comments

The DT-1704A VFD is straight from the 1976 Radio Shack Catalog — The DT-1704 VFD as seen the 1976 Radio Shack Catalog. The “A” version has no substrate, making the VFD fully clear for added effect.

When you have a small stock of vacuum fluorescent displays (VFDs) straight out of the 1976 Radio Shack catalog, you might sit around wondering what to do with them. When [stepawayfromthegirls] found out that his stash of seven DT-1704A tubes may be the last in existence, there was no question. They must be displayed! [stepawayfromthegirls]’ mode of display is this captivating clock build. Four VFDs with their aqua colored elements are set against a black background in a bespoke wooden case. Looking under the hood, the beauty only increases.

VFD Clock Wiring is almost as stunning as the clock itself — VFD Clock Wiring is nearly as stunning as the clock itself.

Keeping the build organized was not an easy task because the tubes are designed in such a way that each segment must be individually controlled. The needed I/O duties are provided by an Arduino Mega 2560 Pro (Embed). 28 2n3904’s each with their two resistors serve as drivers for each VFD segment.

The output of a 24 V AC transformer left over from the 1980s is rectified to 34 V of DC power which is then regulated to 27 V to power the tubes. Switching power supplies provide 6 V to the Arduino and 1.3 V to the filaments. If you look closely, you’ll also see a GPS module so that the clock doesn’t need to be set. To future-proof the clock against daylight savings time adjustments, a potentiometer on the back of the case allows the user to set custom hour offsets without editing any code.

We think the end result is a remarkably clean, simple, and elegant clock that he will be proud of for many years to come!

If VFD clock builds are your thing, then you’ll enjoy this Network Attached VFD Clock and a Mini VFD Clock with floating display. And while not VFD based, we’d be silly to leave out the Boat Anchor Nixie Clock with enough knobs, switches, and buttons to delight even the fussiest of hacker.

A Computer In Your Pocket, 1980s Style

January 22, 2021 by Al Williams 25 Comments

These days, having a little computer in your pocket is par for the course. But forty years ago, this was a new and high tech idea. [The 8-Bit Guy] has a great video covering the state of the art in pocket computers and personal digital assistants from the 1980s and 1990s. You can see the video below.

There are a lot of familiar faces on the video including the Radio Shack pocket computers, Palm Pilots, and some more obscure machines of varying quality.

It might impress you to know that the Radio Shack TRS-80 PC-1 pocket computer actually had two CPUs. Of course, each CPU was a 4-bit processor running at 256 kHz, so maybe not as impressive as it sounds. Still, what a marvel in its day, programming BASIC on a 24-character LCD.

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RadioShack To Be Reborn As Online-First Retailer

November 19, 2020 by Tom Nardi 103 Comments

The good news is that as of today RadioShack has officially been purchased by Retail Ecommerce Ventures (REV), giving the troubled company a new lease on life. The downside, at least for folks like us, is that there are no immediate plans to return the iconic electronics retailer to its brick-and-mortar roots. As the name implies, REV specializes in online retail, having previously revamped the Internet presence of other bankrupt businesses such as Pier 1 Imports and Dressbarn.

While the press release doesn’t outright preclude the possibility of new physical RadioShack locations, it’s clear that REV believes the future of retail isn’t to be found in your local strip mall. As the US mulls further lockdowns in response to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, it’s hard to disagree. There will be millions of bored kids and adults looking for something to do during the long winter nights, and an electronic kit or two shipped to their door might be just the thing.

REV says they plan to relaunch the rather dated RadioShack website just in time for the company’s 100th anniversary in 2021. As of this writing the website currently says that sales have been temporarily halted to allow for inventory restructuring, though it’s unclear if this is directly related to the buyout or not. Getting an accurate count of how much merchandise the company still has on hand after shuttering the majority of their physical locations in 2017 certainly sounds like something the new owners would want to do.

Like most of you, we have fond memories of the Golden Age of RadioShack, back before they thought selling phones and TVs was somehow a good idea. To their credit, they did try and rekindle their relationship with hackers and makers by asking the community what they’d want to see in their stores. But we all know how that story ended. While it doesn’t look like this news will get us any closer to having a neighborhood store that stocks resistors, there’s a certain comfort in knowing that RadioShack kits and books will still be around for the next generation.