When I made this video I recorded the entire disassembly and powering up process. I try very hard to capture my genuine experience during this time. Then I wrote the story script with all the things I've learned, either in full sentences or bullet points depending on the section and record the story of my experience. The final edit is a combination of the two recordings. The moment of eprom reveal was in my head a lot and if I've been unable to capture and present that authentically then that's entirely on me. The aim of this channel is to explore technology and connect with people as I do this. Which is why I'm humbled by the feedback I get from everyone and why I love your comment in particular. You are helping me to grow and improve. Thank you for sticking with me as I learn to make better videos. I do find it really hard sometimes to properly express myself emotionally. But I also feel that I'm making progress with this over time. And from the wonderful responses I'm getting from everyone. Thank you all so much. I learned during making this video that the eprom was how the software was upgradable in this phone. I'm now even more keen to read the contents. Though it will need to be desoldered from the board to do that. That could take some time to set up. The bridged solder pins are very weird indeed. I'm keen to look further into these things in a second part one day. In the meantime I've got a couple of new videos in the works and I hope something good comes out.

@@JanusCycle idk, I thought the eeprom reveal was done well aside from my previous feedback. I knew exactly what it was when I saw it, so my perspective may be different from someone that didn't. You did an excellent job of describing *why* it was exciting. It was just that one sentence that your words didn't seem to match the emotion. I also LOVED how well you described the nature of the board, double sided surface mount, 12 layers. I knew that was uncommon for the year, but you helped me understand just HOW special and uncommon it was for the time. I have trouble expressing emotions too. Doing videos really helped me with that. The biggest thing I learned is that the camera works against you. For some reason, when I smile or sound angry, I never appeared to be expressing as much emotion as I thought I was. So I started exaggerating whatever emotion it was I was trying to express. Oddly that made me appear to be expressing myself more naturally in the video. I think for the most part your speaking rhythm and cadence match the subject matter and 'feel' of your videos. Your voice is easy to understand and pleasant to my ears. For my american ears, your accent is almost melodic. I'm excited to see what you upload next!

It's the encouragement and honest criticism like yours that's really motivating me to strive towards making better videos.

​@@JanusCycleyou should be able to read the programming with a clip lead set. Without desolding if you remove the battery. My guess that is how they would do programming too. If it was strictly programmed from the base, they would have done the erase from there as well. I was fixing cellphones in the early 2000 time frame, but I was playing with Amateur Radio before that, a 12 layer board is mind boggling complex for a decade before then. Techtronics would have been pushing their design software right up to the limit. 6 layer fab was much more common at least in the computer market though some places did more. It occurs to me that the RF modules separated by the battery may and likely at least 1 layer in the board was used for additional RFI reduction/isolation. I wouldn't know what to do with the information, but maybe you can find a technology service who can Xray it once you get the software backed up.

@@RowanHawkins I have since found out that the Eprom is sitting in very low profile socket pins and easy to remove. I think I was quite wrong about it being programmed in circuit. This will be in part 2. I now need to find a good Eprom reader/programmer. I am going to desolder those RF modules as well. Great suggestions in your comment as well, thank you.

89 my dad had one of those grey bricks this would have been too expensive.

I remember about that time when people would walk through the mall pretending to talk on them. Adults.

I had one of them too. I feel old. Life is so fast.

Haha Well if you still got that phone you might could bring it to this man to repair it,only problem is he sounds like as if he got sex with his wife,damnit.

​@@KenanTurkiyedon't remind me

Hi Andy, thanks for stopping by. It's an honour to have you here. I hope you enjoyed the video. I understand I made some mistakes in this video. I intend on correcting these in a part two. If you have any stories you would like to share, I would be very interested in hearing them. Either here or you can also email me if you wish.

@@JanusCycle One thing that might not be so obvious was that some of the variants of the main PCBs had buried vias on them. This was pretty revolutionary at the time, and hugely expensive as well.

@@JanusCycle Me again... The Service mode was designed by me as an aid in field testing. My original version was a lot more comprehensive than the version that we eventually released on to customers phones though. the service techs out in the field absolutely loved this feature as it allowed them to have far more visibility of the system than any of the competitors phones gave them.

@@AndyPevy This is all very interesting stuff. I really appreciate you sharing this.

Hi Andy, fellow Techophonist from a short while later👋 IIRC the processor was a standard chip, not in one of the gate arrays? Hitachi 6303? CMOS version of the Motorola 6800 family. Under the "GL" sticker perhaps.

great description :)

Looks like a calculator with an antenna lol

I mean that’s basically what it is….a calculator that connects peoples voices thru antenna lol

Tv remote

Thanks for watching! It must have been amazing to work at Technophone during such an innovative time. I'm glad you enjoyed this.

Did you sign those QC stickers?

@@rhuttrho88 not personally, but someone did!

I worked there then! Do you remember that crazy Steve guy?? Those were fun times

With the hair? Claimed he stuck his fingers in the mains every morning to get it like that 🤪

he is getting more and more subscribers x2 in 2weeks time

this guys narration was brilliant.

Very small niche though isn't it. Interesting for the geekiest of geeks but that's it.

I am 6 months late, but the Algorithm is working. ☝🏾🧠🥸

Yes, you can see a lot of tender loving care went into each connector.

This is something I would like to try one day. I have more learning I need to do with SDRs.

It must have been amazing to work on these at that time. I did make a few errors in this video. For example I have since discovered the Eprom is removable. Sitting in very low profile socket pins. And the upgrade would not have been done while in the phone. I will correct that and other things when I can read this Eprom and make a part 2 video. My battery didn't leak too much and you could still try and clean yours up. Really awesome that you keep one on display.

I worked in the UK for both Vodafone and Cellnet at different times repairing analogue and gsm phones to component level well into the mid 90’s, I went on training courses and was an authorised tech for the likes of Motorola, NEC, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, Sony and Ericsson to name but a few, thought it was a job for life given the cost of the handsets but then it got to the point where you could almost get a free one with a gallon of petrol! I work in industrial electronics now but still miss those days, the good old Marconi 2955 / 2960 test sets etc, thanks for making me feel so old 😂 Great Vid.

SIM cards for GSM must’ve been so much easier! Though in a way even 3G CDMA phones kind of still worked like that, with the subscriber info hard-programmed in

It was only difficult to get the ESN pair if you didn't own a snarfer. If you did have one, you just drove around the city centre for an hour or so and you'd hear the constant PING of pairs being logged. Not too hard to build one with an old scanner and some decoding logic. No security whatsoever, ah those were the days, lol

I like to imagine that to get someone's ESN/phone number, all you had to do is schmooze a middle aged office lady named Tilda who kept them all in a binder.

I wold love an Oki 900, that is a legendary phone in hacking circles. I didn't know it worked so well with the HP 200LX, another legendary device. What an amazing combination that is.

Totally agree, finding phone TV ads & news from the mid 80's !! WOW

The footage used is australian, there is a few paid services that have the entirety of our major channels archived with footage stretching back to the 60s

@Ryan Lewis the US is the exception, not the rule.

​@wazaagbreak-head6039 Amazing. Here in Greece the different stations archive their own programs for free, but some of it has been lost to time, for example our first ever entertainment program (mix of game with contestants and humorous skits, was named Louna Park) was all lost except a part of the last episode in a devastating fire that occurred on the (then) state owned station ΕΡΤ's (formerly ΕΙΡΤ) archives. Very sad to see a part of history be erased, even sadder as most of the Greek populace wasn't wealthy enough to own VCR's at that time.

It's very hard to erase an eprom without strong UV. Still it's good practice to keen them covered.

This was also my reaction as soon as Insaw the window! I'd only learned about those in class, never encountered one. I'm glad to know it takes a focused UV beam.

I think the "eprom's" memory is UV erasable. The "eeprom" or as you computer nerds like to call it, e-squared prom (😂😆🤣) is Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory. Also, I didn't know surface mount was a thing in 1985.

Used to place eeprom under desk fluorescent lamp overnight to erase them during my EE degree days, about the same year when this phone came out.

I was Working a Trade show back in the 90’s, we had a Liebert Deluxe on the Floor, Powered up the Controls with 115 Volt Cheater Cord. These Japanese came up and started taking close up Flash Pictures of the Board(s). I got into a tussle with them. Yes, they wounded the EPROM. Luckily it wasn’t enough to destroy it working’s at the show.

Thank you, that's an awesome compliment. I just hope that over time, the people that enjoy this kind of thing are able find the channel.

The percentages I've seen suggest maybe 10% of mid 80s consumer tech had SMD. I guess it depends on how much of the board had SMD vs through hole. There was a long transition period.

Awesome!

Those Kodak batteries are trash. It's really difficult to find cheap NiMH batteries in Australian shops now. IKEA is the best for Nimh and Bunnings have really cheap Varta alkalines. I've got an OKI 900 battery of yours with a printed cheat sheet on it. I'll give it to MM if you like ? Also let me know if you want any Palm accessories, I've got rather a lot. Including Mikes old Sony P800.

@@edwardfletcher7790 A P800 hey? If I can get bluetooth working then 'Browsing the Internet on a 20 year old Smartphone' could be a very interesting topic. I'll happily take any old tech you have, there are so many stories to tell.

these phones were modular so they could be sold all over the world.. right off the bat there were battles of frequency for cell networks.. making the radio transceivers modular allowed the phones to be adapted for any place they got regulatory approval (without a whole new phone). the EPROM also was there obvipusly so phone software could be updated easily.. I used to "mess" with the NAM modules in phones back in the day.. there was a lot of neat stuff you could do on the old analog networks.. im surprised that phone still had its NAM data unless they burned the defaults into the EPROM.. many of them were simply battery backed RAM so the NAM would lose its program when the 'CMOS" battery would die.. typically the little battery only got load on it when the main battery was dead thus they had a long life typically until a phone was tosed on a shelf someplace forever like yours was.. it is really interesting seeing so much SMT.. amazing for 1985.. I never remember seeing that much of it back then.. as a teenager (I was 19 at the time) I won a motorola "brick" and a year free unlimited service in a local radio station comtest... that thing was heavy but the looks it got walking in a shopping mall or sitting at a restaraunt talking on the phone was priceless!

Could you share the infographic with Nokia phones in decent resolution?

You might want to double check if that EPROM is really soldered in. The pins look too round and too thick from the bottom, could be socket contacts.

I posted above that I think it was a 12 layer board *all laid out by hand*, no CAD software! I'm not certain, it was a long time ago but that was one of the reasons for the 12 layers and the hidden vias.

Thanks, I am keeping it covered. At least until I can back it up and hopefully make a part 2 video.

What a feature 'Mortally wound them', kind of like the extra long flashlights full of 'D' cells, that security personally used to love carrying. A policeman's truncheon is illegal to carry, a flashlight is ok, same weight, same effect.

1960s baby, nasa used it big time.

@@klaasj7808 Not surprised.

thanks!

That must have been amazing to learn and work during that time in such a fast developing industry. I really appreciate hearing your story, thank you for sharing.

I was software lead for the PC205, I like to think it was that phone that really made Technophone as it sold in much greater numbers than the first generation PC105 etc.

@@TonyWhitley what a great job!

Thank you for your compliments :)

Those red LED displays with full dot matrix characters are amazing!

I'm glad you enjoyed this, thank you.

Very interesting, I will include this in part 2 when I am able to make that.

Had the same one

I'm glad you got a kick out of this :)

That is an awesome description, thank you :)

That is cool, thanks for letting me know.

Me too! I am glad I found this AMAZING channel.

That has "my" chip in it.

OK, there were 3 of us and I can only claim the least of the credit.

Back then, even getting a 12-layer board was a huge deal, and the precision placement of surface mount components were also very very expensive! 😁 the fact it looks DIY today is testament to the progress in PCB manufacturing and further miniaturisation of components! (Indeed, these first gen surface mount components look barely smaller than through-hole versions!)

You still can.

@@Mattthijs it’s definitely possible, but not as common

It's a cost effective solution. As a gen-x electrical repair technician, I've seen newly designed electronic control modules (mother boards, serial communication modules, peripheral interface and so on) get designed, tested and put into production. Depending on how complex the module is, inevitably an improvement, a flaw, or some kind of bug calls for "red wire hacks." The wires and components that are "hacked" or soldered in place to solve the current problem are eliminated in the module's next ECL (engineering change level) release. The pattern repeats.

DIY hahaha. you must be a12 yo

Maybe reduce the number of available channels on older networks as new systems are built. Really old networks could have one or two channels still available for occasional use. It's not practical, but I like the idea.

ok, deal :)

Glad you enjoyed this.

glad to hear, thanks!

and you can charge them too under supervision

Yes also that was prolly a good nuff decently priced LED for 85. LED tech has gonr far!

NiMh AA batteries have maximum 1.2V and are rechargeble. So maybe a better overall solution. Sorry for my English.

Nice, it would have been really interesting to see the control channel decoded.

Thank you, I hope you keep enjoying.

Good lighting is key. Using lights with a high Colour Rendering Index (CRI), positioned to give shape and contrast on the subject really help the camera sensor capture a good image. 25fps also works well here because it's a small desk with no high speed movement. I will be looking into improving the quality when I am able to some new equipment. And thanks for watching, glad you enjoyed.

Thank you

It's covered, though there's not much UV-C around to be a problem.

Thanks, I will mention this in part 2 :)

Varta: the bane of retrocomputing, now also the bane of retrophoning!

Pleased to hear that, thank you!