Optical mouse, the old way

Today’s topic is somewhat unique- a vintage optical mouse, made in the days when it was not very trivial. It’s not like you can just slap a camera in and have it take pictures to figure out where things move. In the old days you had to actually design it, maybe even using some 2N3906 and 555 timers as we’ll find out. Let’s start with unboxing (pardon the masking tape holding things together)

Vintage find

Vintage find

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Vintage multimeter – Weston 6000

Another addition to my growing collection of vintage multimeters is this Weston Schlumberger Model 6000 meter from the mid 1970s

Old vs new

Old vs new(ish)- notice how square it is

The meter was listed as in almost like new condition except for a spot on the front panel. It came with (very rubbery) test leads and an actual printed user manual- a rare thing these days.The Ebay posting was worded very carefully to never mention whether the thing actually works, so I figured it did not really matter. If it does not- teardown turns into repair attempt and either way we learn something new. Continue reading