Viewer Mail #9 

That was such a rare treat to hear a voice from the past. I was happy you were able to capture it and play it at the correct speed. It promised to be like a mixtape from our day!

Damn. I know I'm getting old when a digital panel meter and some 1989 Veroboards turns up in a box of "vintage electronics" LOL

Some great stuff there Fran! That Star Trek door bell brought back some fun memories. Back in the mid 1970s I made a Star Trek Red Alert siren to use as a door bell for the house I was sharing. I think I use 2x 555s, one as an oscillator and the other as a triangle wave generator to sweep the frequency. I can't remember where I got the circuit from. Will ask a couple of the guys I shared the house with who are still around. We are all now approaching 70, so the memory isn't so good! Those switches are great. I remember working on gear back in the 70s which had lots of those. Multi-stage active filters with sets of resistors and capacitors all ganged together. The 1/4" jacks are interesting. I haven't seen any with that arrangement on a mono jack, but I do remember monitoring jacks on broadcast audio gear with complicated switches. You probably used the same things when you worked in radio with tip-ring-sleeve jacks with multiple switch contacts. I remember wiring up balanced audio jack-fields with the switches arranged so that you could plug in one row for monitoring and the other row to break into the circuit. One thing I do remember is that the BBC used PO (Post Office) jacks for audio which had a smaller diameter ring. One day I was called in by the audio guys because a particular patch wasn't working. It turned out that one of the sound assistants had brought in his new Sennheiser headphones with a standard stereo jack and had bent one of the contacts when he plugged them in! I had to bend them back with a pair of needle-nose pliers. I look forward to your video on the plug in modules, as I remember that the BBC had some gear from the 1960s with those. We were told what they were but I never got to see inside one. Take care and keep on posting fascinating stuff.

Love these mail videos never know what suprises awaits.

Fran with her NCC-1701 USS Enterprise door chime, absolutely priceless!

This was a great "Mail Call". Kudos to all the fans that sent Gems. Jeff, I think you really strummed Fran's heart chords. One day Fran, you can put the door chime next to your FranLab sign. It will happen. Keep up the good work, young lady.

The Voice-O-Graph recording sounds a lot better if you sum the channels to mono.

Hi, Fran. I enjoy seeing the whole old stuff you show us in your videos, but what really did my day, was the ELO references on the background, "El dorado" album and the bag. Best band ever. You got a "strange magic", Fran. ;)

I know I’m a big nerd. You had me on the edge of my seat with all the little electronic components and beefy switches that you unveiled in this video. Love your viewer mail unboxing videos. If I ever get around to cleaning some of my workshop, you’ll get a package with some viewer worthy goodies from me!

That hardware in the bag was vintage 1940 and probably MIL-STD parts. I had hundreds of pounds of stuff like that. When I want away to collage my girlfriend used her father's station wagon to haul it to a kid next to where she lived; passing the bounty to the next kid. It was big, heavy, strong, and extremely reliable. A long-gone area in electronics.

Those jacks with switches in them are my favourite. I don't really know anything about them, but I have a 1940's Western Electric 302 phone, and the hook and dial switches inside are similar. I love the look of them. So simple and elegant.

My dad had a big bunch of home recordings (mostly with metal substrate) which he stored in a damp basement. They were a total loss.

"Where does Fran live?" _slowly opens knife and starts slicing_ "Oh, probably Philly."

Love your channel Fran! It is very underated. I wish you the best and enjoy each video you release. Words are not able to express what your whole story as expressed in your entire video library does to encourage me to learn more about the vintage era world as it is my history now and accept (me!) as I am! Dave

Wow, what a coincidence, I just gave one of the Star Trek Door Chime units to my boss this morning as his retirement present... I have one as well and thought any Trek fan should have one.

"They tried to tell us, we're too young." -- We should have listened.

I build a clock (think I still have it) using that 40 pin clock chip. It was made to drive a VFD display. I used 4 discrete seven segment VFD tubes for that.

I was almost 2 months old when that newspaper came out. :-)

I have two of those serviceman's recordings that my father sent to my mother while he was still in infantry training before being shipped to Europe in late 1943. The were sponsored by Pepsi Cola, which apparently set up a record-cutting machine at the camp with a professional announcer to make the introduction. The weird thing about them is my dad, a self-described Appalachian "briar-hopper," had an outrageous up-holler accent that was completely gone by the time I came around in the 1950s.

I'm from Rio de Janeiro Brazil, and I really like your videos! Success and happiness to you!

I think there's a technology that "plays records by laser-scanning them. Might work for this one.

Yes please do a video on those cool DC Logic modules. Very very cool. Thanks Fran. 💖👓

My eldest son ( late 30's ) would love that Star Trek wall unit ! I've encountered those hybrid logic units in the UK while at university, they were called PIDAM - Plug In Digital Analogue Modules. I remember one contained a Schmitt trigger... I love seeing your enthusiasm and delight at discovering a treasure. I'm working my way back through the Viewer Mails [new subscriber]

That strange object you showed at 41;00 was called Cordwood Technology and was a rather early attempt at making circuits more dense. Subsequently replaced by printed circuit technology and then integrated circuits.

the old recording reminds me of "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet" by Gavin Bryars, check it out its beautiful

"Sondey" is a brand from the LIDL store chain, here, in Europe. Nice biscuits / cookies. They also make « Neo » that are very good Oreos replicas. Lotus is a well known belgian cookie brand. They make brown sugar stuffed waffles and, above all, they make delicious speculoos !

Transistors that came in "tube" boxes besides Tungsol included: Delco & Sylvania, Some Mil Spec xistors also came that way. The JFD ballasts are gold to us old radio collectors when you need one. IIRC Collins Radio also made & used those modules in their Military equipment. Somewhere in storage I have a box full of them.

Hey Fran. I was looking forward to your next video. Thanks for making my night better. Please try and get some sleep tonight. ❤ you Fran.

Gangs of switches, saw some multiple strips recently (used) and a knowledgeable guy told me the ones I was looking at were used to enable/disable the telephones in hotel rooms at the front desk.

Didn't know you were a connaisseur of the Dutch language, you never stop to amaze me. The biscuits are called 'Speculoos' in Dutch. Keep on trucking

26:05 Crunchcrunchcrunch

Noritake GU-7000's, neat. I used to program those professionally on the RS232 interface, using 8-bit computers. In fact, I think I had the exact same display as the bigger one when doing prototyping. "All the best stuff's made in japan." I actually used them for a car dashboard outside of work, put digital turn signals and other indicator lights, and speedometer based on GPS on my Plymouth Horizon dashboard.

The “squaring amplifier” is probably an early 74LS14 (i.e. Schmidt trigger inverter/buffer) designed to produce a nice square wave with a sharp rise/fall time from a slowly changing input waveform. That’s my guess.

23:00 jelly babies, the fourth doctor's (tom Baker) favorite! Lol

Crunching on Biskets, strangely asrm satisfying.

The NIB transistors were awesome but the transitional solid state tubes have got to be profiled soon!

I've seen SO many of those cut your own type records that have deteriorated. It's kinda tragic... I wonder how many unique recordings by people who never had any other chance to record themselves have been lost to the ages. It is nice that this voice could be heard again. That's what this person wanted... To record their voice and save it. I wonder who it was intended for? Was it a person who wanted to become a singer? Was it someone who was sharing a song with a sweetheart?

imagine the workout you got using those old jacks and switches.

The vintage tech you get in these videos are so awesome!

I so can see you using the Star Trek Panel by your bathroom Door..Milk Red Alert..Lactose Red Alert..hehe

Yeah, gut that box Philly style! :D

Good to see you wearing your JEFF LYNNE's ELO Tee. Keep wearing it and keep playing the vinyl!

The recording surface on the voice-o-graph is very likely lacquer.

Liked your video, fun. Some nice gifts you received!

As soon as I saw the opening at 12:13, I knew >> THE ULTIMATE HACK

Any chance that in the future you could enable automatic captioning for your videos? My hearing has trouble understanding people sometimes(Voices tend to be loud enough, but not clear). been that way since childhood.

So, do androids dream of electric sheep? The first thought to pop into my head upon seeing “Do Robots Dream?” - courtesy of Phillip K. Dick and Blade Runner.

Did you enjoy the ELO concert?! I saw them in Toronto last week!! Breathtaking indeed!!!

Back in the day i remember reading about some vacuum tube replacements that were solid state, they were a direct replacement for a conventional tube.

I think my only hope of having something like this would be to make it.

00:57 - "o/ Don't take a slice-uh my pie... o/" :)

Fran! You skipped the rotary lever switches. I was looking forward to a better peek when I saw them in the background.

Korg NuTube uses the same Noritake package, interesting stuff.

You get so much mail..... *WOW*

17:50 - "Scotty, what's going on down there!?"

Great video as usual. Love the ELO stuff. I saw them at Madison Square Garden last week. Awesome. I assume you saw them in Philly last week. You also displayed my favorite ELO album "Eldorado".

Nice jackknife. 👍

I've come across those solid state digital modules somewhere before. Some random youtube late night autoplay film.. I think they were sold to the hobbyist in the early 60's and were made using something technology from a decade or so earlier (military I think.. a dead end which led indirectly to the printed circuit board). Interesting things. The light pipe led's look like manufacturing prototypes. You missed the vintage Strat switch lurking down in the box as well ;)

Those super mega scissors look really handy for cutting trunking / cable capping in my line of work (electrician) as well as for cutting small gauge wiring (think telecomms/cat5-6) as well as zip ties. I will be on the lookout. It was a real pleasure to watch you geek out when you got the star trek wall communicator :) Oh and for more info on the tube Martin (my namessake) sent pics of... google crookes tube or maltese cross tube :)

Wow, that solid state tube is beautiful inside. No one makes anything like that any more and they are probably extremely rare. Also those binding posts are proper chunky binding posts, not the modern plastic rubbish. Are they glass?

its scary to listen to the 1944'ish world now in 2020, eerie is maybe a better discription TGC and Blessings :)

Love your tee

Wow you have some Awesome followers! What are the make of the larger Scissors,would like to do search for them. Love all your videos 👍🏻

That reminds me, I have stuff to send you, might remember in time for christmas lol. :)

My favourite item has to be the clock ic. How cool is that? Looking forward to seeing some of these in future projects!

If you want to determine if the voice-o-graph disk is shellac, you can put a little isopropyl alcohol on the cracked shard and see if it dissolves.

I need that bandswitch.

Crompton Modutec is from my hometown, and apparently is still around?

I really like the packaging on the ballasts

So informative & interesting, great to see you yse a scissors, mostly, not like that careless peron David in Australia, whom in sure you've never heard of. Also I agree with you that reading the instructions is always the last resort, except if you actually need to know how to operate a object

A line-out on that doorbell would be nice, hearing those Star Trek sounds through a beefier speaker. Another future project?

Fran feed this in to the accelerator (photon)

Some of that stuff would make nice exhibits in an Electronics Museum!

funny to hear you mention Galaxy Quest. I just happened to watch it again today. It's so great, and a must-see for anyone who hasn't.

Very kool

REPORTED FOR NUDITY!!!!!!!! >> Re : Naked light pipes

This was such a great video!

Question: I have some old electrolytic caps in a metal body. It turns out that the negative is shorted to the case. Could this be intentional, or does that mean they are damaged? They are 4700uF 100V with screw terminals. They are at least 30 years old. Their capacitance reads a bit above their rating, ESR seems fine too.

You have to laugh when the Star ship Enterprise had the top technology using warp drive and rotational analog readouts on the control module. No light pipes, no leds,no lcds, they were too ancient.

Red Alert... hehehe P.s Lotus (the biscuit) do a spread, its practically a heart attack in a jar but its so nice :)

Lemme guess: Those hybrid modules are a predecessor to component cards like the ones we see in modern PCs?

Star Trek Door Chime, classic :-)

Isn’t that a light above the speaker? Maybe press the button in red alert mode...

can you do a video about your favorite records in your collection?

I think you caught an EVP on 30:16 saying 'yeah'

That's something that bugs me about the "classic" or "antique" technologies that are resurgent today... they're the _most basic form_ of those technologies, the fancy, advnaced, patented, manufacturer-specific bits having fallen off the face of the earth. =(

14:50 They're pruning shears.

I remember when the owner of a TV and Radio shop died and his sone took over. He threw out whole cartons of valves, I recon a couple of thousand all in. It makes me weep when I think about it. Thanks for the great videos Fran, I liked the one about the record message. I remember going to the coast and going in a booth and recoding my ow 45" It was proper vinyl so they did not break. This is the UK of course. I still remember when you could make kits. I made a signal injector and trace kit that was made by one of the American companies that used to sell in the UK. Good stuff and I miss it. Jeremy Travis Formerly Teletape London

Naked light pipes....Electro-porn at it's best.

10:10 - those displays can't be that old. The silkscreen contains a URL! ;) Why were these in a DUMPSTER!?

I built the LED display decoders for my Kerbal Space Program instrument panel in a somewhat similar manner to those solid state tube socket modules. Granted, I used chip sockets, not tube sockets, and my PC board is arranged vertically, not parallel to the socket, but I had a suspended PC board and soldered diodes between the socket and the PC board to code the digits I wanted to reproduce. i.imgur.com/W9BieNJ.jpg

Please do your videos binaural!😭 That would be SOOOO cool

good videos keep up

fran are you still receiving mail at this address I have something for you

14:20 - I bit too glossy though :( The 'real' comm. centers weren't glossy). It would create lighting problems on the set. Even YOU experienced lighting problems with it! (15:20) :)

Fun video as ever but I'm not sure about hearing something from 1989 being called vintage. :-)

Do lactase-enzyme tablets not work for you? =(

Wonders!

Fran the Knife!

Hi you Should call it "fran mail" 😁