BINA-VIEW II: The Repair!

Рет қаралды 146,106

Күн бұрын

I said I wasn't going to try to fix this BINA-VIEW but hey... I'm on lockdown and very stir-crazy so I just went for it. Enjoy!
The FranLab Bina-Crawl - • BINA-VIEW FranLab Disp...
Join Team FranLab!!!! Become a patron and help support my KZfaq Channel on Patreon: / frantone
#first #rare #repair
- Music by Fran Blanche -
Fran's Science Blog - www.frantone.com/designwriting...
FranArt Website - www.contourcorsets.com

Пікірлер: 791

@buckykattnj 4 жыл бұрын

Time to hook that up to an Arduino. Make the world's first 1x1 text terminal.

@SteveEh 4 жыл бұрын

Arduino + keyboard, type name for intro!

@tngunworks9065 3 жыл бұрын

Can you imagine how loud a bank of those would be?

@xXTECHxKNIGHTXx 3 жыл бұрын

Make a clock out of these would be awesome!

@DCFusor 3 жыл бұрын

@@tngunworks9065 If you can use floppies to make tunes, well, here's the percussion section.

@tngunworks9065 3 жыл бұрын

@@DCFusor lol

@alasdair4161 4 жыл бұрын

Maybe it was dropped at some point in it's life, dislodging the 32bit rod and the end springs. Great job fixing it though, you are now an authorised I.E.E. repair agent and your warranty can be reinstated... (no cover for the bulb though... very sorry)

@AngDavies 4 жыл бұрын

Would agree, at 7:56 the coppery coloured plate that the rod fits into has isn't straight- it's bent backwards noticeable to the point it's separated from the silver die casting( you can see a gap where there's none on the other two. Probably been pushed by the rod when something's hit the other end of the rod( possibly the other end got smacked when it was dropped on its face) So now I guess it has forward backward play, which was why it fell out of its track

@ajc5869 4 жыл бұрын

Imagine an airport departure board made with these!

@MrScoopoo10 4 жыл бұрын

AJC it would be loud

@user2C47 4 жыл бұрын

@@MrScoopoo10 Only when it updates. The clicking might actually be useful as a reminder to check the sign again. It would need red and green colors and a right facing triangular arrow.

@MrScoopoo10 4 жыл бұрын

User 2C47 I was thinking of those old departure boards

@RODALCO2007 4 жыл бұрын

@@MrScoopoo10 That were the old Italian made Solari Udine flip boards and clocks.

@stevematson4808 4 жыл бұрын

Imagine the power

@mos6507 4 жыл бұрын

There really is something satisfying about seeing some old clearly "obsolete" piece of electronic equipment brought back to life. The next step is to find a way to actually use this in a larger piece of gear. If only you had 4 you could make a clock out of it.

@AntonyTCurtis 4 жыл бұрын

I wonder if possible for a modern maker to make something similar - perhaps laser cut black anodised aluminium foil and 3d print the rest. 4 bits initially...

@mfbfreak 4 жыл бұрын

@@AntonyTCurtis photo etching would also be a good idea. If the plates are somewhat easy to remove, someone who has a display like this could scan them. People at home could then print them onto overhead projector sheets and use those to expose photoresist-coated sheet metal. Then, the sheet metal can be etched. Pretty much like you do with circuit boards and the way shadow masks for CRTs were made. Now i'm thinking of it, maybe you can even print it on a sheet of baking paper and do the toner transfer method to get the toner onto a thin piece of glass or plastic.

@PenZon 4 жыл бұрын

I don't think that a clock would use anywhere near the full potential of that thing. After all it can do the alphabet. You could for example make it spell out the names of new patrons. And by adding a moving platform it could write in long exposure photographs. Add in RGB cob and you have yet more options for your text.

@mfbfreak 4 жыл бұрын

@@PenZon News headlines or weather predictions would be nice!

@robertlozyniak3661 4 жыл бұрын

@@PenZon Two words: Alphabet Aerobics.

@Blink1826000 4 жыл бұрын

On the topic of the switching order: The main solenoid lifts the character plates, which allows the selector solenoids to freely rotate the selector arms. Depressing the selector switch, then lifting the character plates while holding down the selector will cause the selector arms to rub against the selection teeth on the character plates. I suspect the best order of operations for this device would be to depress the switch that lifts the plates (set pulse), then, while holding that, depressing the switch to set the selector arms (bit/signal pulse). Now with both switches pressed, release the switch holding the character plates up, which lets them settle onto the selector arms. Now that the character plates are effectively holding the selector arms in place, the second switch can be released. This order of operations agrees with the description in the manual. The set pulse must be at least 30ms, the bit pulse must be at least 50ms, the time between bit pulse going high and set pulse going low must be at least 30ms, and the time between the set pulse going low and the bit pulse going low must be at least 20ms.

@olavl8827 4 жыл бұрын

@@tissuepaper9962 Did timing diagrams even exist when this thing was made?

@ReverendTed 4 жыл бұрын

I was wondering if the switch for the selection signal was even "expected"; that perhaps the bit signal would be sent continuously, and then the set pulse would simply display whatever was being requested at the time it was triggered. But I can see the concern that the selector arms could be pressing against the teeth in unhealthy ways.

@absurdengineering 3 жыл бұрын

@@tissuepaper9962 Because back then you didn’t have a word processor to merge all this stuff together. It would be a copy and paste job with actual glue and someone would have had to draw the diagram in ink. They probably didn’t have anyone to do it at the time (maybe all their drafts people were busy or whatever). Nowadays that timing diagram would have taken about as long to draw out on a computer as typing this comment took on an on-screen keyboard… Progress isn’t always a bad thing.

@kruleworld 4 жыл бұрын

"You're doing it wrong" in the comments is so common it should be a meme. Everyone's an expert even for equipment they've never seen before.

@Gartral 3 жыл бұрын

that's because those of us who go "That's cool!" just want to sit and learn! lol

@Fabelaz 3 жыл бұрын

Well, some of those types of comments can be useful.

@HowardCShawIII 3 жыл бұрын

Well, without knowing anything about it at all someone could still read what she read and see that it pretty clearly says the set pulse and the input pulse should coincide for the first 30 ms, and the input pulse should extend another 20 ms. That indicates you press both and release the set pulse while still holding the input for 20ms. Which is different than what she is doing and saying, hence why people are confused. She seems to think they are saying you do the set pulse first and then the input, but that is not what the document says - but it also doesn't say what she said. |-------input+set--30ms--------|---inputonly--20ms--|

@gcewing 4 жыл бұрын

Idea for a use: Put an ultraviolet lamp in it, and arrange a strip of glow-in-the-dark film scrolling in front of it.

@wandersgion4989 4 жыл бұрын

Greg Ewing That would make a really cool scrolling marquee effect!

@tedhaubrich 4 жыл бұрын

That's a really cool idea.

@Nevir202 4 жыл бұрын

Using an Arduino for control? 🤔

@richardhaas39 4 жыл бұрын

Trans-Lux had something like that in stockbrokers' offices displaying the NYSE ticker.

@seanclark8452 4 жыл бұрын

Ooh, that'd have a neat fade effect as the letters moved too

@boblovetz 4 жыл бұрын

I could see yesterday that the back 2 plates seemed to be stuck together and I was screaming at the tv (ok, only in my head) look, look! Lol. Glad you had a go at fixing it that was satisfying to watch... Next program up a pi to drive it and get it to spell out Fran Lab 😋

@legyengeza4768 4 жыл бұрын

I've seen the 32 bit plate being too low and did the same..

@jonasgrill1155 4 жыл бұрын

On page 8, it says you can connect up to 4 together! ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=5531927 If it's possible to find 3 more, it would be even better!

@ebkesq72 4 жыл бұрын

Fran, your enthusiasm is contagious! Plus, your brilliance and stick-to-it-tiveness is amazing. To call you a “renaissance woman” would be an understatement.

@Tirdad1981 4 жыл бұрын

What a coincidence! Bina in Persian is an adjective and means "Being able to see , Seeing , Watcher. The antonym of Blind.

@mohsend72 4 жыл бұрын

Aah! Another Persian retro tech nerd!

@jimbeam7971 4 жыл бұрын

Interesting note, the Nimo tube and the Bina-View were both products of the same company, Industrial Electronic Engineers (I.E.E). And as some else stated it's still in business today making what else ... Displays.

@SpiacyLos 4 жыл бұрын

I can't imagine more satisfying videos. Few days ago I had no idea such a technology even existed. Now I know exactly how it works, I've seen it being repaired, I saw every character. 100% completion. I love it!

@heyidiot 4 жыл бұрын

6:11 I'm here talking to the screen... "It's too low... 32 is too low!" 11:52 Ahhh! I can relax now. 17:16 Preceed or follow this with any other setting quickly for a persistence-of-vision border?

@daleeason9687 4 жыл бұрын

Yes I saw that too and screamed as well.

@user2C47 4 жыл бұрын

17:16 the display is not that fast and would wear out quickly.

@markpenrice6253 4 жыл бұрын

The border could be for some kind of photosetting, maybe? Or a storage type CRT or something similar (anything that has continual feedback) with a set of lenses that can steer the output of the binaview to imprint characters across it... kind of slow given that you might struggle to reach even 10cps, but it may work as a way of putting up teletype messages on a big screen with that artificial persistence? Or it's just a placeholder they put in to allow testing etc, or there's some application for which that would have had meaning distinct from all-black or all-white? Maybe showing "this is a space" actively, so you can be sure the mechanism hasn't jammed in the between-characters all-black position?

@GeorgeHafiz 3 жыл бұрын

@@markpenrice6253 could it have represented a cursor or something? Maybe indicating the next character to be updated from a live text stream

@SueBobChicVid 4 жыл бұрын

This is the kind of stuff I come here for. Thank you Fran.

@SnekInASuit 3 жыл бұрын

I just wanted to say, having just watched the first video and luckily having found this one as well, the moment you showed off the front in the first video, my eyes locked onto that 32 bit being too far down, and the whole time my mind was screaming, including for the first half of this video, "PLEASE NOTICE IT ISN'T ENGAGING"... and my absolute relief when you did was something I needed to voice. Thank you, so, so much.

@originalveghead 4 жыл бұрын

I literally cheered when that 'A' appeared. A perfect bodge.

@TheOwlman 4 жыл бұрын

I think bodge is a bit strong! It was an expert technical intervention :D

@originalveghead 4 жыл бұрын

@@TheOwlman Oh I agree - I was using Fran's terminology.

@TheOwlman 4 жыл бұрын

@@originalveghead I know, I was having a bit of fun... mind you, there is nothing wrong with a good bodge if it gets sonmething working properly. Stay safe. ( edited because my typing is decidedly average today.)

@wembleyford 4 жыл бұрын

Love your avatar, Originalveghead

@originalveghead 4 жыл бұрын

@@wembleyford takes one to know one - BBC fans need a secret handshake

@shenmisheshou7002 4 жыл бұрын

Fran, you crack me up. Part detective, part engineer, and part the amazement of a kid. Well done. Enjoyed seeing this very interesting piece of gear and you efforts in getting it going. Always fun to check in to see what you are up to. Stay safe and thanks for keeping us entertained and educated.

@BrightBlueJim 3 жыл бұрын

Engineers HAVE to be detectives, or they'd never get anything to work.

@jamadir 4 жыл бұрын

Please make a proper driver board so it can display some text. The sound should be great if it switches way faster.

@jonasgrill1155 4 жыл бұрын

On page 8, it says you can connect up to 4 together! ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=5531927

@Evergreen64 4 жыл бұрын

You are now the foremost authority on Bina-View displays. I think that these older electro-mechanical displays are easier to repair than their digital counterparts.

@AntonyTCurtis 4 жыл бұрын

I like how they use smaller holes for anti-aliasing to make the character edges look nicer.

@originalveghead 4 жыл бұрын

They really do look smooth!

@AntonyTCurtis 4 жыл бұрын

@@originalveghead It's really noticeable on the "7".

@claypotts2334 4 жыл бұрын

@@AntonyTCurtis The numbers look very clean, did not expect that

@CarloRoosen 4 жыл бұрын

Nice one, I did not realize it is anti-aliasing indeed.

@DogsBAwesome 4 жыл бұрын

There is supposed to be a diffuser at the front, she took it off as the bulb is 28v on a 24v supply and it wasn't bright enough.

@juliannesermon8057 4 жыл бұрын

It's such a hilariously complex, error-prone solution to a nowadays trivial problem. But more importantly, it's a thing of beauty, especially the noises it makes. That click-clacking, so satisfying!

@xtalvt 4 жыл бұрын

I am a machinist by trade ... and instrument designer/tech ... and design and build industrial electrical control panels. This is sooooooo fascinating on so many levels! Awesome job explaining the operation in your last video and fixing it in this one! Hats off to you !

@mitchelljermaine 4 жыл бұрын

Fran really is the greatest. There won't be another woman like her for centuries.

@gregorythomas333 4 жыл бұрын

YES! You fixed it!! Now you only need 6 more to write FranLab :)

@Mitch3D 4 жыл бұрын

Someone needs to kickstart a modern version of the Bina-view displays

@StatisticalError82 4 жыл бұрын

Absolutely, add in stretch goals for other IEE displays too

@mal2ksc 4 жыл бұрын

Someone could also cheat pretty easily and use an LCD panel between the meshes, and some solenoids whose purpose is solely to make clicky noises. That would probably be good enough for anything but a full retro restoration, like a movie prop or something made in miniature.

@rarbiart 4 жыл бұрын

you can 3dprint or lasercut the sheets!

@johndododoe1411 2 жыл бұрын

@@rarbiart Etch or lasercut. Can't use shiny metal or transparent material.

@davidokinsky114 3 жыл бұрын

I remember seeing these things in air ports and train stations as a kid. Thanks for showing how this works.

@Shunnabunich 4 жыл бұрын

Y'know, with so many unused addresses in there, all you would need to do is find a metal sheet of the right thickness and a laser cutter, and you could design and build additional glyphs for that beauty!

@ForumCat 4 жыл бұрын

Smiley faces? Emoticons? It could be your workshop mood indicator. :D

@markpenrice6253 4 жыл бұрын

There's only space for maybe 4 or 5 additional plates though. The full 64-character versions (if they even existed, the order sheet doesn't seem to imply anything greater than mid-40s) would have needed a longer "rack" for everything to sit in. But that'd still be enough for the old J, K and L Wingdings... And the resolution is enough that it should be possible to just about construct a readable "Fran [Lab]" logo, with the two words vertically stacked.

@mrimmortal1579 2 ай бұрын

It’s 15 minutes to 3am. Just finished the video where Fran says “I’m not gonna try to repair it”. Then the preview card pops up with ‘Part 2: I repair it!’. Now it’s 15 minutes *after* 3am. Thanks Fran. 😅

@PelDaddy 4 жыл бұрын

Nice job on a part 2! I am sure a lot of people were, like me, screaming at the screen that the right unit was too low. Glad you found it and trimmed it with your tongue at the right angle.

@XFolf 4 жыл бұрын

I knew there was no way you'd let this thing sit as it was. I wish this sort of display were common today, its so magical and pleasing.

@edwardpaulsen1074 4 жыл бұрын

This. Was. *Fran-tastic*!!! These are the videos I love.... not just finding the rare bit of equipment, but them to figure out the repair!!!

@dermax9390 4 жыл бұрын

I think the datasheet actually tells you to activate the data and latch at the same time. After 30 ms you release just the latch (causing the selected plate to drop) and after another 20 ms you are free to also release the data. The way you did it (first energizing the data) shouldn't impact the way it works, it just wastes the power you put into the data-coils before you activate the latch.

@johndododoe1411 2 жыл бұрын

Another option is to pulse one bit at a time, 30ms each, then release the latch. To interface with tube systems, the 6.3V bulb can be driven by the cathode heating voltage while the 24V solenoids are driven from tube-switching 26V power rails. (Tubes are similar to FET transistors). For electronic interfacing, a 2N7002 chip can control all 7 solenoids from TTL level signals like an UART chip or an Arduino, The Arduino could do the ASCII to bini character mapping and control the timing to display something like a chess move or code ID. But so could a small pack of 74xx chips, with a pair of 74121s providing the master pulses fed to and gates. Perhaps a diode matrix could form the core logic and mapping table, with some 22 pin 4-to-16 decoder chips decoding incoming bytes to ROM columns (3-to-8 decoder chips would be needed in larger quantity, a diode logic column selector would need a bunch of inverter/buffer chips). Diode logic obviously needs germanium transistors to stay within the 0.4V margin between 0.4V low outputs and 0.8V low inputs.

@Uncle-Mike 4 жыл бұрын

Agreed: this is the most satisfying video I've seen on KZfaq in a long time. Great job, Fran!

@fumitakahayashi 4 жыл бұрын

make a clock with a Bina-view, a Nimo tube, a Nixie tube, and an electro-mechanical device for each digit.

@markpenrice6253 4 жыл бұрын

If you made three custom plates for the Bina, or assigned letters to 10, 11 and 12, and had a couple of masked bulbs or a simple mechanical two-state flipflop thingy to show AM/PM, you could make a 12-hour one at least. In fact with more determined customisation you could do a full 24 hours using the Bina and get away with a 3-device clock. (Or Bina for hours, and two Nimos for minutes? As those would fit together better. Nixies are a different form factor...)

@verschissmuss3171 4 жыл бұрын

Great idea, Fumitaka. I hope she will realize it.

@therugburnz 4 жыл бұрын

Thanx to Fran & her Patrons. This was educational and fun.

@chadcastagana9181 4 жыл бұрын

2:54 This "BINAVIEW" was built specifically for use with Extended Binary Coded Decimal character set of 40 symbols. That and the archaic looking connector socket on the back makes this look like it was made for tube-based electronics only. So this device was designed long before 1969. 10:20 A time unit of 10 milliseconds used to be called a "jiffy?

@markpenrice6253 4 жыл бұрын

Yep. 100 jiffies to the second. It somehow persisted into use for computer animation timing, in terms of ticks-per-frame. Even though there's been little in the way of 50 (or 100) Hz displays outside of the IBM MDA (and Hercules graphics that were compatible with it) and any PAL-region home computer. Animated GIFs, for one thing, have their framerate specified not in FPS, but in jiffies per frame. Which is why it's damn near impossible to get a smooth playback speed out of them.

@chadcastagana9181 4 жыл бұрын

@@markpenrice6253 Fascinating! I learned much of this in electronic's classes in the late 80's early 90's, but have since gotten rusty. Animated GIFs are not streaming video, just digitally realized flip book animation, like the mutascopes of a hundred years ago by Edison. Electronic Computers renders this type of animation possible, but leaves incorporating audio modulation( a sountrack) impossible, or is it a copyright issue? Please give me your feedback

@BrightBlueJim 3 жыл бұрын

@@markpenrice6253 Yet another bit of evidence that "GIF" should be pronounced "jif".

@johndododoe1411 2 жыл бұрын

@@markpenrice6253 Also, the internal timer clock unit in UNIX/Linux is a jiffy, and was original HZ=100 .

@scose 4 жыл бұрын

Please, let us all try to buy more BINA-VIEWs and send them to Fran so she can make a multi character display!

@MonsterMidi 4 жыл бұрын

This is INSANE! I LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS! From the other video I watched before this, I could tell that the “4/5/6” bits weren’t moving. And then I thought, wait, there’s no wire wrap for the last three solenoids... until you said they were inverted. I knew it had to be an alignment issue. This is so so cool! I love electromechanical things! And this thing must have been a mathematical nightmare to design and build, and figure out. Thank you so much for this video!

@ThisADHDLife 4 жыл бұрын

Thank you for all you do! I’m so happy you decided to attempt a repair.

@ddee2501 4 жыл бұрын

So glad you restored it, classic piece of electronics history.

@JonasClark 4 жыл бұрын

This display is mind-blowing. And then, without a manual, you repaired it. Wow. Just... wow. And nowhere else can I learn about this obsolete, obscure tech. Fran, please never stop making this stuff. Can't find the video I was going to comment on, but the haters can seethe all they like. You've run a great company, making products so cool that some people collect them. Your tour of the Wanamaker organ was, for an organ nut like me, astounding-- nobody else on KZfaq goes inside the console, gets into the chests, watches them restore pipes. You just keep being your amazing, talented, cool self, and if someone else has a problem with it, that problem is all and only theirs.

@bmcquillan 4 жыл бұрын

Hmmm... 40 plates = 26 letters, 10 digits, Outline box, "+", "-", and (I'll bet) Blank. If no plates are selected, light goes through both end masks and show a lit grid, which is why a separate Blank plate is needed.

@benhetland576 4 жыл бұрын

@Bill McQuillan: At 3:25 I count 22+22 springs, so presumably 43 or 44 plates (if the 1st lowered spring on the left is not just a dummy like the extra half spring above it), and only 40 plates accounted for as per your description. A blank (fully blocked) can also be created by having front and end grid plates where only one of them can be shifted/selected in relation to the other, but probably both easier and better to have a separate blank plate as you suggest. Also, mounting the grid mask plates outside the springed selection mechanism would be quite possible, but only adds manufacturing complexity. Adding 1 front and 1 back grid gives 42, so still 1 or 2 unaccounted for ... maybe up to 4 grid plates for better mask alignment?

@benhetland576 4 жыл бұрын

At 1:56 plate count = 42 including back and front masks.

@davemccann7446 4 жыл бұрын

Blank would need to be a plate as the unused numbers are fully lit. The front and back masks would likely be required to minimize off angle light.

@olderasdirt 4 жыл бұрын

The first and last plates are essentially static - they have no valid address and act as light guides. (I have a few of a latter version of this display).

@cgoad 4 жыл бұрын

Fran. So glad you figured that out and so QUICKLY! Great job. I love seeing old electro-mechanical oddities being brought back to life! That's now even more "1 of a kind"! Congratulations.

@betta67 4 жыл бұрын

I saw that just after 5:44 when you started trying the bits... I'm so glad you solved it. Keep 'em coming.

@Noodleude 4 жыл бұрын

A full multi character display with these would be a thing to behold.

@CarloRoosen 4 жыл бұрын

Oh wow there is something very special about this device. The design is so elegant. Glad you made it work again.

@antonnym214 4 жыл бұрын

A good engineer can design something super-complicated, but a GREAT engineer can design something simple! Holy crap! It would have been easier to make a simple slide-show wheel (Remember the old ViewMaster toy?) and have it rotate the correct slide into view of the projector.

@mick7909 3 жыл бұрын

when you first looked at this display and said you wouldn't try to repair it, my heart brok a bit... I'm glad you decided to have a go Fran.

@DaisyAjay 4 жыл бұрын

Thanks for making these videos Fran, they fill the hole left now I can't visit my engineer friends. They're just like you. In fact, one of them looks almost exactly like you. They almost exclusively repair vintage valve amplifiers, but if it's obscure; they love that stuff. I wish they'd watch your videos, but they are too busy with repairing random stuff.

@prozacchiwawa 4 жыл бұрын

This is really a beautiful device. Digital displays from the pre-digital era are really fascinating.

@clairelawson9079 3 жыл бұрын

I just can’t stop smiling everytime I hear this intro song I WOULD PAY FOR A FULL LENGTH VERSION

@davidfountain6607 4 жыл бұрын

Excellent! Nothing feels better than bringing old tech back to life. Job well done!

@buschbohne001 4 жыл бұрын

Learning letters and numbers feels like sesame street all over again. :-)

@philosoaper 4 жыл бұрын

just imagine if that thing had used comic sans just to troll us from the past...

@timrattenbury4768 4 жыл бұрын

philosoaper let’s just thank god comic sans was made around 96 and not around this things time

@JWSmythe 4 жыл бұрын

You could always make new character plates with any font you'd like. Well, if you can find another one to buy. It'd be a fun project to make one.

@guppy360 4 жыл бұрын

I quite like the font this contraption uses. It’s very Cold War era

@joycetyner7643 3 жыл бұрын

@@guppy360 yes

@kamalmanzukie 3 жыл бұрын

wasn't invented yet jacknub!

@havarhen 4 жыл бұрын

Can you try with a more powerful bulb and put the diffuser back in place? I'd like to see how the characters looks like diffused.

@guffaw1711 4 жыл бұрын

I was thinking modding it with a big aquare LED. Also driving the bits with an Arduino.

@gcewing 4 жыл бұрын

@@guffaw1711 The light needs to be collimated, so a square LED wouldn't work. It needs a point source. A normal LED in clear plastic might be okay.

@isettech 4 жыл бұрын

@@gcewing A round 1W luxon star would work very well.

@jpdemer5 3 жыл бұрын

Just centering the filament on the parabolic reflector would brighten the display considerably.

@theannoyedmrfloyd3998 4 жыл бұрын

Someone capture frame grabs of the characters and make a TTF font.

@kbhasi 4 жыл бұрын

I feel it had already been sampled from another font.

@TheErador 4 жыл бұрын

Anyone else think of Thunderbirds when that particular 5 came up?

@bassybossy 4 жыл бұрын

@@TheErador That's why it looked so familiar! Just couldn't place :P

@computer_toucher 4 жыл бұрын

It's Futura Condensed Bold. I knew I'd seen it before, it's a lot in 60's tech stuff. Wasn't quite sure so I took Paul Stubbs' images (wonderfully aligned, Paul!) and ran montage BV\ ?.png -geometry x400+2+2 -tile x1 Bina-View-Alphabet-Montage.jpg And ran it through Whatthefont and FontSquirrel but it was time consuming to handle all the letters. Instead, I just searched the most popular 60's fonts, found a list, saw the F in Futura, checked again with Condensed Bold and voila. fontsgeek.com/fonts/Futura-Condensed-Bold

@ffmfg 4 жыл бұрын

I was thinking more like creating short animations that could be used by some customizable digital clock software. I was sure I've seen something like this where you could supply your graphics. But my google-fu failed me at this time. Or my memory is wrong. Anyway, you know how flip clocks are often found as widgets on desktops or on phones? I'm pretty sure this would have been at least 3x cooler.

@freddyburger5574 4 жыл бұрын

Phenomenal! So glad we got a 'deeper look' into this fascinating display! Thanks Fran, you're amazing!

@jack002tuber 3 жыл бұрын

Of all the bina view repairs I have seen, this is the best one

@moebius2288 4 жыл бұрын

I love you to pieces, Fran! I'm glad you changed your mind about trying to fix this thing ;D

@brettster3331 4 жыл бұрын

Thank You again Fran, so nice to see you got it working so well.

@ToddCorley65 4 жыл бұрын

Thank you for letting me share your joy in that repair. I am trying to imagine a wall of those clacking away at maybe an old train station and it is a lovely steam punkish image

@jondhuse1549 4 жыл бұрын

Excellent - glad you couldn't leave it alone!

@TheRealBobHickman 4 жыл бұрын

Thanks for doing this Fran, fascinating content. I think most of us were eager to see if it could be repaired and I'm glad you did it in the end.

@sbalogh53 4 жыл бұрын

2:05 A trick to counting those plates would be to use a needle and slowly run it along the edge. Just count the clicks as the needle jumps from one plate to the next.

@markpenrice6253 4 жыл бұрын

Or take a photo, zoom it, and put numbers on them in MS Paint ;)

@8bitwiz_ 4 жыл бұрын

I simply counted the springs in the first video.

@denismckenzie1991 3 жыл бұрын

Thank you for taking the time to show this to me. ❤️

@richardarmstrong3rd53 4 жыл бұрын

@Fran Blanche, You are awesome! Thank you for the video, keep up the great work and have yourself a great rest of the week.

@silasmarner7586 4 жыл бұрын

Smartly and elegantly done. Great video again!

@TheMusclepig 4 жыл бұрын

Well done Fran. Great video. Thank you for posting.

@greatwhite1958 4 жыл бұрын

What an amazing bit of kit. Designing it in the first place is no mean feat.

@aaronwadzinski5761 4 жыл бұрын

So satisfying! thanks for follow up and working through the fix!

@mdouglaswray 3 жыл бұрын

Great work deciphering this device! Good lab technique!

@RuneTheFirst 4 жыл бұрын

Wonderful video. Takes me back to the days when these were used on railroad arrival/departure boards.

@twistidclowns 4 жыл бұрын

Glad you decided to tinker with it. Really awesome to see such an interesting piece working

@lawrence5117 4 жыл бұрын

Marvellous stuff, well diagnosed Fran.

@Cheetorblz 3 жыл бұрын

Glad you decided to fix it!

@matthewchadwick7690 4 жыл бұрын

Fran, I think your 40th plate is just the Blank. 26 for the letters, 10 for numbers, 3 for +, -, and the border, and 1 for the blank. Just a theory.

@Wenlocktvdx 4 жыл бұрын

Wow, that is a cool display. Nice find Fran

@thesingularity6715 4 жыл бұрын

So... Apparently no Anti-Aliasing in those days... Still though... You are so lucky to find such an awesome piece of engineering history.

@kjamison5951 4 жыл бұрын

What a Frantastic result! Great job!

@JerryEricsson 4 жыл бұрын

Kind of reminds me of the 'belt sign' we had at the Army Recruiting Center when I was a recruiter. It had a 6 inch belt with holes punched it in to allow the light through, the belt ran in front of a green florescent lamp and said witty things about the Army, like Fun Travel Adventure ARMY and so forth. Not as complicated but it worked back in 1977.

@markpenrice6253 4 жыл бұрын

Like one of those scrolling LED signs, but with a physical scroller?

@michael8899aspen 4 жыл бұрын

glad you were able to get it fixed.

@zackcacciapalle6405 3 жыл бұрын

What a very cool yet impractical display idea!

@titanCrafter 4 жыл бұрын

Well Done Fran, Awesome job !!

@MarkSeve 4 жыл бұрын

Very cool display. good on you for repairing.

@matthewmiller6068 4 жыл бұрын

Wonderful! So glad to see you fixed it!

@randomelectronicsanddispla1765 4 жыл бұрын

I'm glad you fixed it. This is a very cool display. When you mentioned that someone said you were using the wrong sequence of operation, I think I can see what they meant. When you connect power to set the bits first, then the reset, you energise the coils for the teeter-totters before they can freely move. So the coil end is trying to flip, while the brass plate is still held stuck by the notches at the bottom of the character plates, which puts some twisting force on the rod linking them. I can see how it could be beneficial in the long run to do the sequence as follow: - Energise the reset to lift the plates - Energise the bit setting coils, hold it on - Release the reset to lower the plates - Then release the bit setting coils That would avoid putting any twisting forces on the teeter-totters and also avoid the brass plate scratching at the little knob between the high and low notch of each bit, at the bottom of the character plates. But those probably wouldn't have any significant effect on the life of the mechanism.

@SupraBdub 4 жыл бұрын

Thank you Fran!

@AvixkThePig 4 жыл бұрын

The mechanical binary "decoder" is the sexiest thing I've ever seen.

@chadcastagana9181 4 жыл бұрын

You seriously need to get out of that basement

@rip8641 4 жыл бұрын

@@chadcastagana9181 Basement life > real life

@railgap 4 жыл бұрын

O RLY?? Then you need to have a look at the Curta Calculator. Also check out the mechanical accumulator / register in early jukeboxes!

@Nevir202 4 жыл бұрын

Railgap Esoterica True. Have you seen Technology Connections vídeo on it?

@janglestick 4 жыл бұрын

very cool, this device is fascinating, something about this is super exciting to see you get into, thanks for going through it

@mikeoliver3254 4 жыл бұрын

Fantastic fix Fran.

@carlpassarellirealtor2671 3 жыл бұрын

Excellent! What a mind blowingly complicated device. But oh so cool!

@MrZeroPage 3 жыл бұрын

Wonderful! Great to see stuff like this. Well done and keep going Fran !

@ahettinger525 4 жыл бұрын

very cool that you got it working!

@bluechicken4866 4 жыл бұрын

Thank you for fixing this! So satisfying 😊

@randyrhodes7526 3 жыл бұрын

Great job on the fix !

@t0cableguy 4 жыл бұрын

Thanks for fixing it.

@medifckingtation3976 3 жыл бұрын

What an incredible display device! I wish their were more like it.

@vaderbase 4 жыл бұрын

I love the crt-look of the display.

@brassman5 4 жыл бұрын

What an amazing piece of engineering!

@celivalg 3 жыл бұрын

God, I really want someone to start producing these again as a vintage thingy, like the nixie tubes that are back in production because people find them cool!