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Show us your junk!

neuromodulator
neuromodulator over 6 years ago

I love junk, specially when it can be fully restored, has interesting parts or uses interesting technology. Most of the junk I get, comes from the university, its dumped because its either too old or it doesn't work anymore. I'll start this thread by showing one of my latest junk acquisitions:

 

imageimageimage

 

 

This is an autotransformer made by a company called "The Superior Electric Co" from Bristol, Connecticut. It was apparently build in the 60s (according to what I found in the net) and supports a max of 1.2 kva. The autotransformer works as expected but of course it shows its age, the rubber cable is not in the best condition and so isn't its paint. In the future I may repaint it and replace the cable but for now its good enough as it is.

 

Have you also found nice junk? Show us!

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Top Replies

  • michaelkellett
    michaelkellett over 6 years ago in reply to neuromodulator +13
    Here is the first processor controlled instrument I designed. Intel 8748, code hand assembled on paper and entered into Intel desktop dev system by hand in hex. Not really junk, but not very useful now…
  • dougw
    dougw over 6 years ago +12
    While looking for something else deep in the "archives" I came across my favourite scientific calculator. (circa 1975) It still works fine. The LEDs were so power hungry I eventually built a power supply…
  • genebren
    genebren over 6 years ago +11
    In the spirit of your original request (show us your junk!), here is some of my junk. One of my many past jobs was working for a life sciences company that built instrumentation for various forms of testing…
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  • dougw
    dougw over 6 years ago

    While looking for something else deep in the "archives" I came across my favourite scientific calculator. (circa 1975)

    It still works fine.

    The LEDs were so power hungry I eventually built a power supply for it, rather than constantly feeding it batteries. It was an old school power supply that used an LM10 to get the voltage I wanted.

    The white dots (who remembers white-out?) were added to discourage others from walking off with my calculator "by accident"...... it worked.

    image

    The numbers in this case need to be read upside down to get the message...

    image

    Calculator games were a thing back then. I recall on some calculators you could press multiple keys or a sequence and get odd behavior to manifest.

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  • neuromodulator
    neuromodulator over 6 years ago in reply to dougw

    I remember similar calculators made by Hp. The led display although power hungry was very easy to read because of the high contrast. They used reverse polish notation and had stiff buttons that "clicked" when pressed. They were a joy to use, specially compared to the low contrast of lcd calculators.

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  • neuromodulator
    neuromodulator over 6 years ago in reply to dougw

    I remember similar calculators made by Hp. The led display although power hungry was very easy to read because of the high contrast. They used reverse polish notation and had stiff buttons that "clicked" when pressed. They were a joy to use, specially compared to the low contrast of lcd calculators.

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