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Restoring a Soviet-era analog synthesizer

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Re: Restoring a Soviet-era analog synthesizer

#31

Post by ZenoArrow »

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.

Yes, similar information used to be made available for Western electronics. In addition to engineering equipment, consumer electronics such as TVs and radios, and even computers had full schematics at one point.

As an example, can see hardware schematics in the Apple II Reference Manual found here:

http://www.applelogic.org/UserManuals.html

I'm mostly interested in the Soviet material as I'm assuming that because it was a legal requirement the types of documented designs will be more broad, but if you know of an archive of old Western schematics also, I would be interested in taking a look.

Re: Restoring a Soviet-era analog synthesizer

#32

Post by agumonkey »

rangibaby wrote: post #29
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.

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!

In college a teacher told us that before internet they had to wait a month just to have a reply with a catalog of papers from another university; then more months to get a print of their selection. Now they have the whole series in an hour. But for the consumer market this went the opposite way.

Re: Restoring a Soviet-era analog synthesizer

#33

Post by pandaman »

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.

While selling devices with schematics was a common practice everywhere, you are, interestingly, correct. The USSR had the government organization, GosFAP(ГосФАП, National Fund of Algorithms and Programs), which was enforcing sharing of code in the country. I recall reading in some memoirs that it effectively shunted software development as you had to register any software with it and it involved printing source code, filling forms and traveling to the physical location of the office and interacting with a number of officials for a number of days. And even if something got registered there it was for the version 1.0 and never had been updated.

Re: Restoring a Soviet-era analog synthesizer

#34

Post by enkid »

userbinator wrote: post #30
hexane360 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think he meant average yearly wage.

Re: Restoring a Soviet-era analog synthesizer

#36

Post by Stratoscope »

agumonkey wrote: post #24
flyinghamster wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, they do. Just google "thinkpad nnnnn hmm" for the Hardware Maintenance Manual, or "thinkpad nnnnn psref" for the "tbook-style" datasheet, where nnnnn is the model number.

Re: Restoring a Soviet-era analog synthesizer

#37

Post by rdtsc »

dom0 wrote: post #28
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 c…

I've taken a good amount of Soviet-era electronics apart and those capacitors (the red ones) crack very easily. I think they are ceramic.

In fact I remember being deliberately careful around them as they were easy to bend, when reaching in a tighter space to solder or adjust some variable resistors or capacitors.

Re: Restoring a Soviet-era analog synthesizer

#38

Post by hexane360 »

enkid wrote: post #34
userbinator wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think he meant average yearly wage.

Yep, that's correct. Doesn't change the math though.

Re: Restoring a Soviet-era analog synthesizer

#39

Post by flohofwoe »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #12
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 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.

At least for home computers, much of the schematics and manuals have been preserved through the dark ages of the 90's by home computer enthusiasts and put on the internet thankfully.

For instance (not Soviet, but East German): here are a few links to manuals and schematics for the East German KC85 computers:

http://floooh.github.io/virtualkc/p060_links.html

But this sort of detailed schematics 'coming in the box' was also common for Western home computers, and it's all preserved. The same for reference manuals of CPUs, and especially support chips. Without these, writing emulators would be much, much harder.

Re: Restoring a Soviet-era analog synthesizer

#40

Post by Aloha »

pilsetnieks wrote: post #5
Aloha wrote: post #2

I'd call this a servicing more than a restoration. The thing looks incredibly well built with an eye towards serviceability over ease of assembly - pretty much exactly what I would expect for a Soviet built appliance.

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…

Being well built says nothing to how durable the parts are that were used to build it - the parts might have been awful - but it was clearly designed to be easy to repair.
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