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Old 13th Nov 2019, 7:01 am   #8
Radio Wrangler
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Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Fife, Scotland, UK.
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Default Re: Sun Microcomputer II Motortester 1215

The cabinets of these things have to be designed to take a direct nuclear hit, so the section of that top extrusion isn't surprising.

The styling has to involve a lot of showmanship to impress the punter, hence the large and brightly lit name across the top. Sticking 'Microcomputer' in the name is very 1980s and a 6800 or 6809 CPU would fit right in wit that era.

Datecodes on the chipset should help.

It's definitely too early for digital trace storage for the oscilloscope section, so that's going to be pretty straight-forward. The timebase and trigger may be the most interesting bit here.

I expect the microprocessor side will handle voltage and pressure measurements as well as a delayed strobe timing light, but I'm guessing it does a lot of guiding the user through the tests. Designed to look terrifyingly technical to the punter ( and thereby justify bigger bills) while actually de-skilling the job a bit.

I used to use an old Crypton at dad's garage. Interpreting waveforms was key to getting value out of the thing. The mixture meter that could go out on the road was excellent as was the delay strobe and rev counter so you could check advance curves.

Sun and Crypton were in fierce competition in the day. Their products did the same basic things, it was really operator familiarity that locked you into being a Sun shop or a Crypton shop. Their sales guys had a difficult time with clued-up customers who could see past he window dressing and see that each subsequent generation still did the same things.

CRT EHT systems and the signal input attenuator seemed to be the areas most likely to need attention as far as the scope side went.

Gonna get an 'Octopus' tester to go with it?

David
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