[GreenKeys] [External] Interesting Piece eBay

[Jones, Douglas W]

From:  highpwr at bellsouth.net [highpwr at bellsouth.net] -- Tuesday, November 2, 2021 6:57 PM

> Anybody know what this thing might be, just curious.
> VINTAGE DIGITECH 2012-02 FREQUENCY ERROR COUNTER COLLINS HAM RADIO RTTY NIXIE
> https://www.ebay.com/itm/324851266001?hash=item4ba2a4f1d1:g:JKwAAOSwNOphbNVm

Looks like an RS-232 test generator.  On the right are 2 banks of toggle switches for entering the 2 characters of data.  You get to pick the baud rate -- any baud rate.  By default, ASCII, but I'll bet you can use it with shorter codes (extra 1 bits at the end of a character are just extra stop bits).  You can set it up to send a variety of tests other than the two characters from the toggle switches.  Looks like it would be fun to play with.  Built in the 1960s or first half of the 1970s, judging by the PCB traces and the small-scale integrated circuits.

The Collins badge on the back is an inventory control sticker, so this was presumably used by Collins in their factory or in their R&D labs.  Back when I worked at Collins, I loved shopping in their corporate surplus outlet.  You could get the most amazing things there.  This looks like the kind of thing that would have gone to surplus about then (mid 1980s).

            Doug Jones
            jones at cs.uiowa.edu