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Restoring a Soviet-era analog synthesizer

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Re: Restoring a Soviet-era analog synthesizer

#21

Post by hexane360 »

myth_drannon wrote: post #13
khamisiyah wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make a counterexample, my grandmother had a Zil refrigerator she bought in the 1950's ( http://i.imgur.com/POw7U6R.jpg ) that worked for over 50 years until the late 2000's. It would have probably worked another 50, if we hadn't changed it for a modern larger and more energy efficient one.

It's not only Soviet built things would last longer. US washing machines, refrigerators made in 50-60s also last forever. The ones you buy now, the way the are made and painted will rust in couple of years and will be thrown to garbage in 5 years. And no, it's not because it's cheap to buy a new one, they are just simply bad.

It's cheap to buy a new one for the features. It'd definitely be cheaper to buy a washer with 2010s construction and 1950s feature set, but that's not what consumers (or environmental regulators) want. Likewise, a modern washer with 1950s construction would be outrageously expensive, not to mention material and energy inefficient. (Keep in mind that the operating cost of an appliance is a significant fraction of its total cost)

I'd also like to see a good data set of real prices of appliances over time.

Edit: Here's some examples of 1950s appliances: http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/50selectrical.html

Washer + Dryer in 1953: $494.90

Average monthly wage in 1953: $ 3,139.44 [0]

Average monthly wage in 2013: $44,888.16

So a 1953 washer+dryer cost the same amount of labor as a $7076 washer+dryer today.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_Indexed_Monthly_Earnin...

Re: Restoring a Soviet-era analog synthesizer

#22

Post by zerr »

khamisiyah wrote: post #8
pilsetnieks wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was plenty of awful Soviet tech, too - this thing has survived because it had some value, was well built and taken care of but you don't hear about the thousands of pieces of tech that were shoddily made cheap crap (though expensive for a Soviet citizen) and wouldn't last a year without repairs. Soviet tech had to be built for serviceability - people couldn't often afford new things and even if they had the mon…

To make a counterexample, my grandmother had a Zil refrigerator she bought in the 1950's ( http://i.imgur.com/POw7U6R.jpg ) that worked for over 50 years until the late 2000's. It would have probably worked another 50, if we hadn't changed it for a modern larger and more energy efficient one.

Still running strong. Mine is from 1940s.

Re: Restoring a Soviet-era analog synthesizer

#23

Post by flyinghamster »

agumonkey wrote: post #18
c-smile wrote: post #9

Yeah, that's where Open Source was born - in USSR. I do remember that each consumer device was sold there with its schematics, assembly/disassembly and installation instructions. And that was the law.

I think it was the norm at the time. Even toy Amstrad computers in the 80s came with Basic manuals. Manufacturers expected a lot more from the consumers, I guess because tech at that time was more a beautiful new thing rather than a product to sell regularly.

The Apple II also had schematics, and a listing of the Monitor ROM. Quite a contrast from the sealed-box-no-serviceable-parts-inside philosophy that they went to starting with the Mac.

Re: Restoring a Soviet-era analog synthesizer

#24

Post by agumonkey »

flyinghamster wrote: post #23
agumonkey wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it was the norm at the time. Even toy Amstrad computers in the 80s came with Basic manuals. Manufacturers expected a lot more from the consumers, I guess because tech at that time was more a beautiful new thing rather than a product to sell regularly.

The Apple II also had schematics, and a listing of the Monitor ROM. Quite a contrast from the sealed-box-no-serviceable-parts-inside philosophy that they went to starting with the Mac.

I wonder if Lenovo keeps the service manual tradition alive for thinkpads.

You know it's all consumer dynamics. People buy even without, then why bother.

Re: Restoring a Soviet-era analog synthesizer

#25

Post by varjag »

khamisiyah wrote: post #8
pilsetnieks wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was plenty of awful Soviet tech, too - this thing has survived because it had some value, was well built and taken care of but you don't hear about the thousands of pieces of tech that were shoddily made cheap crap (though expensive for a Soviet citizen) and wouldn't last a year without repairs. Soviet tech had to be built for serviceability - people couldn't often afford new things and even if they had the mon…

To make a counterexample, my grandmother had a Zil refrigerator she bought in the 1950's ( http://i.imgur.com/POw7U6R.jpg ) that worked for over 50 years until the late 2000's. It would have probably worked another 50, if we hadn't changed it for a modern larger and more energy efficient one.

It a faithful copy of a decent General Electric fridge, so no wonder.

Re: Restoring a Soviet-era analog synthesizer

#26

Post by dom0 »

PoachedSausage wrote: post #16
ZenoArrow wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I do remember that each consumer device was sold there with its schematics, assembly/disassembly and installation instructions. And that was the law." That's interesting. I wonder if there's a archive of those schematics/documents for Soviet consumer devices somewhere.

A lot of western instrumentation and test equipment used to come with full circuit diagrams and assembly info. The understanding was that your HP spectrum analyser or Tektronix scope cost so much money that if it broke then you would have it repaired, and to do the repair you need the circuit diagram.

Not any more, of course. It also deserves to be mentioned that lots of higher-end equipment used a lot of custom parts, and not always out of necessity (like custom µPs in HP multimeters, or stuffing solenoid drivers into unrelated hybrids ... and of course anything handling higher frequencies almost always used some custom chips or selected transistors hidden behind opaque part numbers).

Sometimes there are still schematics, Agisight still does it e.g. for low-end power supplies.

Re: Restoring a Soviet-era analog synthesizer

#27

Post by dfox »

trhway wrote: post #6
pilsetnieks wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was plenty of awful Soviet tech, too - this thing has survived because it had some value, was well built and taken care of but you don't hear about the thousands of pieces of tech that were shoddily made cheap crap (though expensive for a Soviet citizen) and wouldn't last a year without repairs. Soviet tech had to be built for serviceability - people couldn't often afford new things and even if they had the mon…

>Soviet tech had to be built for serviceability also there were significant sharing of tech between military industry and consumer (one can say that in many areas the consumer one was just a minor branch off the main military industry, kind of a USSR version of COTS). TVs and control boards of cruise missiles used the same electronic parts and were built using the same skills/processes - the consumer parts (like tran…

Just a datapoint: lots of czech(oslovak) devices contained large amounts of MH54xx military grade TTL logic, because it was more readily available than lower-spec MH74xx (and I believe that both soviet-made KL555xx-series and east german D1xx-series of SN74xx TTL logic clones didn't have different reliability grades)

Re: Restoring a Soviet-era analog synthesizer

#28

Post by dom0 »

zokier wrote: post #15

The upside-down mounted capacitors seem weird. They are particularly visible in the modulator board picture[1], but are also on other boards. Anyone know why that was done, or seen such assembly before? [1] http://i.imgur.com/VNEpWkS.jpg

Stress relief. Thermal / moisture expansion of the PC board (and this looks like shoddy phenolic paper) bends the leads a tiny bit and the bending forces go through the component. By making the leads longer, they are less stiff and require less force to accommodate, so less drift due to this.

It was a relatively common method in precision electronics.

There could be other reasons as well, e.g. if these were ceramic capacitors they might do that to avoid cracking issues. (Because ceramic capacitors drift a lot by themselves, a drift/precision explanation does not make sense)

Re: Restoring a Soviet-era analog synthesizer

#29

Post by rangibaby »

agumonkey wrote: post #18
c-smile wrote: post #9

Yeah, that's where Open Source was born - in USSR. I do remember that each consumer device was sold there with its schematics, assembly/disassembly and installation instructions. And that was the law.

I think it was the norm at the time. Even toy Amstrad computers in the 80s came with Basic manuals. Manufacturers expected a lot more from the consumers, I guess because tech at that time was more a beautiful new thing rather than a product to sell regularly.

I got a service manual for an old camera and it is a fine, complete piece of technical writing, literally all the information one would need to fix any problem with the camera.

It dawned on me that in the 70s things needed to be that comprehensive because ... no internet!

Re: Restoring a Soviet-era analog synthesizer

#30

Post by userbinator »

hexane360 wrote: post #21
myth_drannon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not only Soviet built things would last longer. US washing machines, refrigerators made in 50-60s also last forever. The ones you buy now, the way the are made and painted will rust in couple of years and will be thrown to garbage in 5 years. And no, it's not because it's cheap to buy a new one, they are just simply bad.

It's cheap to buy a new one for the features . It'd definitely be cheaper to buy a washer with 2010s construction and 1950s feature set, but that's not what consumers (or environmental regulators) want. Likewise, a modern washer with 1950s construction would be outrageously expensive, not to mention material and energy inefficient. (Keep in mind that the operating cost of an appliance is a significant fraction of its…

I'm pretty sure those "average monthly wage"s are not exactly per-person. The average person in US certainly did not make >$500k/year in 2013.
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