Those connectors were made by MEZ and their type numbers are imprinted in the bakelite from front side (it's 55667 for the first one, the second one isn't very visible in the video). Sadly, no one really lists the type numbers when selling so finding it by that is going to be impossible. Even in Slovakia, they are very rare.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Perhaps another option would be to look not for connectors, but for FS-1501 cable which I think has greater chances of success.

@rogervanbommel1086

6 ай бұрын

@@ChernobylFamily or ask a company like semtec(they specialize in making all kinds of connectors)

@gelo1238

6 ай бұрын

@@rogervanbommel1086 yo

@emilschw8924

6 ай бұрын

What about 3D printing? Would that help?

@rogervanbommel1086

6 ай бұрын

@@emilschw8924 nope, you can’t 3d print a connector

I used to work in IT and it never ceases to amaze me how intricate older equipment can be.

@alexturnbackthearmy1907

6 ай бұрын

Ah, older times, where machines were as capable as they were designed. And then modern electronics era begun...

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

So right.

@monad_tcp

6 ай бұрын

@@alexturnbackthearmy1907 modern electronics are very capable, the problem is software, software is shit nowadays because programmers don't know how to make good software anymore, or ever knew to begin with as the never-ending stream of Eternal September for new noob programmers, its ridiculous the average age (in experience) is 3.5 years.

@alexturnbackthearmy1907

6 ай бұрын

@@monad_tcp I dont say they are NOT capable. In fact they are so capable, that you can easily (compared to analog machines) completely change all its functions. Imagine if you would need to re-build your entire computer to install a new program.

@narmale

6 ай бұрын

@@alexturnbackthearmy1907 you mean like how apples are getting? lol!

Opening up the case to that tape reader was honestly heartbreaking. Yet at the same time I have about forty chickens so know how dirty they can be. that is honestly amazingly clean compared to how bad it could have been.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Yes, my grandma had chickens, remember that... experience.

@user-me6td1up1m

6 ай бұрын

Fortunately, it looked like it was stuff that could be cleaned out with compressed air and lots of patience. No leaky capacitors or water damage. Good job!

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

@@user-me6td1up1m there are a few questionable capacitors on the stabilizer board, but so far they work, though we'll need to replace them for sure.

@user-me6td1up1m

6 ай бұрын

@@ChernobylFamily that’s understandable, looking at the age of the item, I suppose. It would be very unusual to find pristine capacitors after so many years.

Wow! Congratulations on the success of your SKALA documentary video! I really enjoyed it, so I'm glad a lot of others got to see it too. As for your paper tape reader, I think you've done a great job restoring it, so I really hope it can read the data from the tapes successfully!

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it! Yes, we will make the adapter within next couple of months - as soon as we find those connectors.

This is a real treat, thank you!!! Chicken coups are where some of the best equipment ends up. On youtube there is a video about the restoration of a 2" videotape machine (giant machine) that was left for dead in a chicken coup. I think it was in worse condition then this one; the guy gets it working perfectly and then upgrades it, and it's running tapes for restoration right now.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

I start to think maybe chickens try to make some retrocomputing as well, but having just wings they cannot achieve much...

Дякую! Дуже цікавий гумор:) In fact one of the best Ukrainian/English tech channels. Thank you and Слава Україні🇺🇦✊❤️

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Не ви перший хто так каже про цей гумор... дякую ))) Героям слава!

I subscribed mere seconds into this video. I've loved the stories behind Chernobyl even before the STALKER games, and now there's a KZread channel dedicated to Chernobyl tech? Found a new rabbit hole

@ChernobylFamily

5 ай бұрын

Thank you! Check our other videos, we have an epic one released recently :)

Your punch tape reader looks a lot like the ones that used to be on the old Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machining and turning centers I used to work with back in the 80s... Our shop even had the typewriter that would punch out each line of G Code programming onto the paper tape that we'd load into the machines... Starting in the 90s and extending afterwards, downloading from the programming computer in the office to each CNC machine via cable (and eventually wifi) made the paper tape and optical readers obsolete, and the newer machines no longer had them...

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you for sharing!

Thank you so much for your efforts =) I love learning about older computer hardware, and it's nice to hear about systems from outside of the US and UK that I usually learn about

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

We are glad to share some knowledge! :)

although these chickens made a big mess with that machine they did an excellent job with the punch tapes

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

))))

As first viewer i will tell you, i cant wait for new parts. Nice work. Thank you to giving us this excellent channel.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you!

Congratulations on the restoration! I really like seeing restorations of old computers. Big hug from your Brazilian fan Marcos.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you very much and greetings from Ukraine!

I'm sure the chickens left a dreadful smell too - that dust from chicken coops is horrible too. But, my goodness, what a transformation! Thanks for showing us this old beauty. The fat briefcase looks intriguing - portable computer? I'm looking forward to that one. Thanks again, God bless you all there and much love from Northern Ireland.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you! Smell was almost gone :) As for the briefcase, well, not a computer, but a computer related thing, which is very, very rare.

@MarkMcCluney

6 ай бұрын

@@ChernobylFamily That will be a great vid. Very clever marketing!

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

@@MarkMcCluneybut first I need to get to one museum where stands the Thing that briefcase is connected...)

@volo870

6 ай бұрын

​@@ChernobylFamily If that briefcase launches nuclear missiles - we may agree on one big red medieval fortress, where those nukes belong! 😉

Hahaha the shot when he ate the chicken made me subscribe. But seriously. This was very interesting. It would be amazing to see a running program made with the tape. That is asking for a lot I suspect. Really cool stuff though!

@ChernobylFamily

5 ай бұрын

It was tasty :)

Beautiful restoration of this reader and very fun too. Many thanks for your work. Greetings.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Glad that you liked it!

Love punched tape! Watching it stream into the collecting bin is magical. :)

@ChernobylFamily

Ай бұрын

It really is!

Tape moves so mesmerizing ! I have similar Tesla capacitors in my amplifier.

@dukenukem8381

6 ай бұрын

I hope someone will 3d print a logo for this machine and help you guys !

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

The best!

@dukenukem8381

6 ай бұрын

@@ChernobylFamily Looking similar kzread.info/dash/bejne/m5iHt8Ocos2fgpM.html

Wow, congrats! I saw one FS-1501 on OLX a couple of years ago. I'm having vague plans of building homebrew transistor-based computer and such mechanical devices are very cool for input.

@konserv

6 ай бұрын

The restoration process went pretty well! 👍

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you!

Very cool! You did a great job restoring it, it looks excellent. I'm amazed at how fast it is! I didn't think a tape reader could run that fast.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you very much! Actually as one of commenters explained, this was really fasterst in the world, but in a meaning of a data stream it produced, not rolling. There were even much faster rolling mechanisms.

In the same manner as the Apollo and Soyuz type computers using non-digital electronic computing, this computer is mind-boggling.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Yes:)

Wow, fantastic work. Appart from the missing tiny front cover, it looks brand new. Seems to be of serious build quality too. As for any piece of technology you save on this channel, I wonder how many survives, and works as of today? I mean, works in their intended use, not as a perch or nest for chickens...

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you! Surprisingly this and PL-150M punch have the greatest chances of be used even today. Many CNC shops that run specifically old CNCs use them as must-have devices. Then, absolutely for sure RKb4-1eM radiometers are used (in the Zone). For other tech... I am not sure.

For the connectors, I think you can measure the dimension and thickness, and buy compatible spade connectors that are currently available. Draw a converter board according to the original pinout and solder the individual connectors to it will solve reliability issue. You can choose either to adapt to a standard connector (like a DB one) or to solder the cable harness directly to the converter board. I've done this to an avionics connector before, for driving a clock from a Boeing 737.

@marekvojta9648

5 ай бұрын

or even using modern technologies as 3D printing, to make own could be good think

That paint workshop did a beautiful job! Cool of them to paint it for ya, too.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

For them we are just some mad couple :) but we'll bring to them future devices, that's for sure, as the quality is impressive.

I love your channel, and I wait for every video of you. Just please change the light, my brain is getting crazy watching double rings of light reflecting in your eyes :)

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you for being a fan! Yes, it is a known problem, actually annoys us during editing as well :) As soon as we will have a budget to buy something better, we will surely do it. If you wish to donate, use any of the links in the description.

Colossus has the fast tape reader, capable of reading over 9,000 characters per second but is limited to 5000 for safety reasons. No tape reader that I know of is as fast or faster.

@kraklakvakve

6 ай бұрын

@@ChernobylFamily One of my elder colleagues took great pride that Czechoslovakia had the fastest tape reader in the world. He explained that although there were faster readers, they could work fast only in a block read mode (could not start and stop at each character, when stopping from a read they needed some length of tape to slow down, losing characters), but our models were the fastest in the world in start-stop mode (they could stop & start at any time without losing any characters).

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

@kraklakvakve wow! Taking my words back, this really makes sense!

@edgeeffect

6 ай бұрын

But when this one was made, Colusus had already been "disposed of" and was, sadly, reading "no characters at all" per second and also, officially, didn't exist.

@zounds010

6 ай бұрын

@@edgeeffect yep, in the 1970s Colossus was still a secret.

I do not know why these videos bring such joy to me.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Oh... thank you!

@carpespasm

6 ай бұрын

Perhaps because it's some very knowledgeable folks sharing some (for the english speaking world at least) pretty obscure and hard to learn things in a concise and loving way. Also they're literally saving machines from mouldering in chicken sheds to do it while their country is getting shelled by perhaps the biggest bunch of assholes in the world.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

@@carpespasm thank you. The only thing that makes us both sad, is that due to that biggest a******s we cannot really show-and-tell much about the Zone itself, where we know every corner and can share way more than about any of those tech things you see now. So we have no other option that do deal with lab-condition tech (this channel) and archive documents and media (patreon). However, we very much would love to make kind 3-hour video of walk in Pripyat commented and explained, because after all we did that things since 2009 sometimes >20 times per month.

вже й забув, що раніше існували такі девайси, дуже цікаво, очікуємо продовження, дякую вам

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Раді! Далі буде!

That is super fast! Great restoration of this tape reader. I enjoyed your videos!

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you!

I know that these videos are very difficult to produce due to the scarcity of this hardware, but I really hope they can continue up to possibly a fully functional system. Thank You.

@ChernobylFamily

4 ай бұрын

Thank you! We are working in that!

As always. A wonderful video

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you! Cheers!

Looks amazing, great job!

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you! Cheers!

I like how you got revenge on the chicken.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

It was yummy, actually.

as soon as you shorted it out an ad played about scammers......the timing was perfect

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Really? LOL. I mean, YT places ads automatically.

@joshuaryanferguson3702

6 ай бұрын

@@ChernobylFamily most of the times it gets annoying

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Unfortunately, yes. But if we won't place ads, videos will come way rarer - each piece of this tech is expensive as a private jet, figurally speaking...(((

@joshuaryanferguson3702

6 ай бұрын

@@ChernobylFamily i bet, finding that stuff that used to be run a blown up reactor must be hard to find an get

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Identical stuff. Anyways it does not make it easier.

I wish ‘80s computer magazines had code you could run through a tape reader. I spent a lot of time manually typing stuff in on my C64.

Interesting video, excellent work, thank you!

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it!

Incredible ! Great video , most impressive .

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you! Cheers!

@johnnyzippo7109

6 ай бұрын

Cheers M8t!

It looks like a rather nice piece of equipment!

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Yesss!

В молодости пользовался фотосчитывателями СП-3 и FS-1500. И перфоратором ПЛ-80.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you for sharing!

subscribed. Simply amazing.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you! Check our previous episodes - we have much interesting our here :)

1:53 "SKALA is not a binary computer...it uses 24 bit words." :D Just being pedantic but since since each of those bits can only hold one of 2 values (0 or 1), which led to the use of BIT as a contraction of 'Binary digIT', it IS a binary computer. Octal, Decimal, Hexadecimal etc., are just alternative ways of representing exactly the same value as represented by a group of binary digits, in order to make them easier to use by human brains. An EXCELLENT video nonetheless and a great job on the restoration!

@ChernobylFamily

Ай бұрын

Thank you :) noted :)

Раз уж пошёл разговор о перфолентах, вспомнилась конструкция из журнала Радио (апрель 1987 год). В статье описывалась приставка к программируемому калькулятору - в качестве носителя информации в статье предлагалось изготовить как саму перфоленту (точнее ленту длиной, ограниченной размером имеющегося листа бумаги), так и считыватель и перфоратор.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Hm... I'll check that one. Thank you!

Superb. It would be brilliant hooked up via RS232. I will have to watch the tape punch video soon. I think that it could be a portable teletype inside that case.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

We will work on the adapter as soon as we find those connectors. No, it is not a teletype :)

fantastic video! thankyou so much, a lot of effort to clean that up!

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you!

You could use a stiff paintbrush to clean PCBs and other hard to reach places. It allows to clean dust and dirt from under components.

@ChernobylFamily

5 ай бұрын

Frankly, that is exactly what I did; but that dust was SO compacted that you'd need to literally scratch it out.

Nice restoration work :)

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you!

If you cannot find any connectors of that type, turn to 3d printing community, either FDM or Resin. the result will be amazing and you'll have spares

Colossus tape reader could read 5000 characters per second

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

In regards of this, will copy the comment by one of our viewers: "One of my elder colleagues took great pride that Czechoslovakia had the fastest tape reader in the world. He explained that although there were faster readers, they could work fast only in a block read mode (could not start and stop at each character, when stopping from a read they needed some length of tape to slow down, losing characters), but our models were the fastest in the world in start-stop mode (they could stop & start at any time without losing any characters)." This device has a 1.5 mm stop distance.

I just use an oven at 60 C for retrobrighting. I found light to be too uneven in the results, and heat works evenly.

Amazing!!! Thanks

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Glad you liked it!

Thanks for amazing video's. I saw one set connectors being sold. 4 days ago

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you!

wow, finally its working !!! you could use Arduino mega with level shifter ics to control and read data from the punch. cheers

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thanks for the tip!

My aunt Violet worked at Ballistic Research on the Eniac. She lived in rural Pennsylvania. All her neighbors were Amish. There were chickens everywhere randomly laying eggs in weird places. She built them a nice chicken coop but they seemed to prefer hanging out in the big pine trees in the yard. She retired after 50 years in the army and raised goats. I guess what I’m saying is this isn’t the first time I’ve seen cool mid-century computer hardware full of dirt and hay and chicken feces.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you for sharing...)

Awesome restoration! The FS-1501 surprised me with its performance (speed, size of the device, and sound during operation)

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Yes, it is very well built, so it became perhaps the most popular option. They were used literally everywhere where was a punch tape.

@ddogg14

6 ай бұрын

@@ChernobylFamily I can see why! Well documented too for repairs

This reader tends to break the tape when it stops. Slower models were much more reliable. To avoid stops, try to start the tape and react to interrupts from the reader rather than starting and stopping it after every byte. You also need a loop of tape with all holes punched to tune the sensitivity of the signal amplifiers.

@ChernobylFamily

5 ай бұрын

Thank you!

Wow, this shows that stuff was built to last. Ok, it was not super high tec but man, solid as a rock!

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you! Well, every time I open something and see Czechoslovak "TESLA", I feel a relief - "that has chances to work"

@Gameboygenius

6 ай бұрын

@@ChernobylFamily I have to agree about TESLA. If you see Swedish RIFA capacitors, run away, or at least replace them before powering on. I'm from Sweden and I wish the quality of our old capacitors were better, but sadly I can't deny the truth.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

@@Gameboygenius thanks for sharing, good to know.

excellent vid

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you!

I just asked few friends if they have this connector. I believe it will appear eventualy.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Super thanks! Likely, they are not THAT rare, but it is easier to find things when their p/n is known. ZPA's blueprint numbers are 4-4-01063 for K1 and 4-4-01009 for K2.

@janpolak9270

6 ай бұрын

@@ChernobylFamily At first they reminded me sockets for polarised relays. They are ALMOST identical, but they have only 16 pins (4x4). If I find one I will definitely let you know.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

precise. Like Soviet RP-4 and so.

I noticed their is an image of a tape on the side of each page of the manual. I wonder if there are any easter eggs hidden there.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

That would be really epic if so. And I'd expect there a hidden anti-soviet message. You know, 1968 events were a pretty dark thing in their history.

If you can't find the connectors, you can probably just use individual standard spade connectors for each pin!

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Yes, and that's exactly lead to that BOOM you can see in the video :))) I mean, yes, possible, but this device is vibrating pretty much, so they can move and short something.

@ct92404

6 ай бұрын

​@@ChernobylFamilyI wonder if some kind of replacement connector could be made with 3d printing?

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

@@ct92404 Perhaps, but to position 20 pins that they are really holding may be The Quest.

Oh yeah... that's certainly made in Czechoslovakia... nearly every component branded "Tesla".... Niiiice. ........ oh, you said that too.:)

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Tesla when it was still the right one :)

@edgeeffect

6 ай бұрын

@@ChernobylFamily YES!!! :)

@edgeeffect

6 ай бұрын

@@ChernobylFamily YES!!! :)

Can you explain the tape roller - I have one at work, obviously left from long ago and always wondered what it was used for exactly.

@ChernobylFamily

5 ай бұрын

It is a device that rolls with the same speed or faster than a punch tape machine or punch tape reader. You place it as a receiver for processed tape, and it has a coupling which provides a bit loose holding of the tape roll (say, if reader stops for a few seconds, the roller's rotor can continue rotation, but the tape roll on it will not move). This way it provides constant tension, makes a ready to use roll, and prevents tape flying around.

Seen one FS 1501 for sell in bazos cz I think, but the connectors looked the same as yours

Those connectors look like Siemens relay sockets - Maybe you can source a compatible plug with Siemens branding?

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Yes, I had this idea as well, but with soviet RP-4 relays, but all those relays usually have 4x4 connectors and here they are 4x5. Though we got a few offers from Czech and Slovak people, so likely we will have original ones. Nevertheless, mega thanks for you hint!

How can I decode these tapes? I have some readers like this and another ones and a lot of tapes. I can read the holes visually, but how do I know what symbol does a line correspond to and if I can even find there something meaningful?

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

You need to check the storage algorithm of the machine which encoded those tapes. Then, if you read them with a reader, you can get raw data which has to be parsed based on that algo.

@ROFLlt

6 ай бұрын

I don't have a reader ready-to-go, so I was thinking of typing the codes manually into a PC. I'm not sure where are those tapes from, some might be from CNC machines, some from SM1600 or other mainframes from that era (I found some together with some SM 6204 readers/punchers) and some from a computer factory together with some programmable chips. I wonder if they contained any readable text, like "error". If not, there is no point trying to decipher them.

Are we sure it's photoresistors and not photodiodes or phototransistors? In my experience with only cheap CdS photoresistors, they are very slow.(250+ milliseconds response time.).

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Hm. Seems you are right. In documentation verbally they are described as photoresistors but i just checked by the part number and those are phototransistors. It seems to me that manufacturer made a mistake in translation (the manual is for the ussr, so it is written in russian, but with many language mistakes, which is more than ok, actually).

You never disappoint after I click.🎉

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you...!

Amazing! 😀

@ChernobylFamily

Ай бұрын

Thank you!

welcome back welcome home

That reader was FILTHY, but thankfully undamaged. It could have been worse for it; at least in a chicken coop it was out of the elements. Adrian Black did a resto on a VIC-20 or C64 that looked to have been left partially exposed and had oily filth caked on both inside and outside of it. But after a clean up and replacement of a few parts it came right back to life!.

@ChernobylFamily

Ай бұрын

Cool!

Hey, can you make a video where you explain how the ccr (Central control room / the grid control room) works? Because I would like to hear about it

@ChernobylFamily

5 ай бұрын

Good attempt, comrade major! :)

@Philipovich

5 ай бұрын

More precisely ccr 2 because I'm trying to make a chernobyl simulator but some knowledge from ccr1 can also be used 👍

That looks pretty great for having sat in a chicken shed for two decades. I think you got lucky there!

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

At least, chickens were tasty.

A touch faster than my Sagem TX20 telex machine reader. Those connectors look similar to the ones on Siemens Kleinpolrelais - Relay - T. Rls 64a Bv 3402/1 | eBay well the flat blade pins, not the alignment posts, so maybe a socket for a Siemens relay will get you part of the way.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you! Will check that!

World's fastest punch tape reader? The Danish computing pioneer Regnecentralen (Danish for "Calculation Central") sold their RC-2000 beginning back in the early 1960s: As the name suggests, it could read 2000 characters per second. 😎

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

As one of commenters explained, the question of speed is not in a number of characters, but a method of their streaming and the speed of start-stop operations which prevented any data loss during reading. Here inertia of the tape during stop is 1.5 mm if the device is properly regulated (yet jt is not)

Seems to be a trend for tech to show up in agricultural locations this week, been watching a series this week of someone restoring an amiga stored in a field on another channel. A thought for those proprietary connectors, if you knew someone with a resin printer, they may be able to make a replacement faceplate, that you may be able to retrofit onto the existing plug, or it looks like the manual had a bit of a wiring diagram. It may not be too difficult to recreate a compatible board/cable. (Just looks like the pins are spade connectors, so all you’d need to do is make a compatible shell, slot a bunch of spade connectors into it and wire it up,

@Underestimated37

6 ай бұрын

Ok yeah did a bit of digging, the connectors were just basically faceplates and you had to wire them yourself to suit the computer that it was going to, and the manual has the wiring diagrams. So in theory if you had accurate measurements, and someone sufficiently skilled in CAD, they could take the drawings from the manual and using the measurements recreate the plugs, and someone could print them in a resin printer, which has sufficient ability to produce tiny features, you could make a whole new plug without much major effort. For the plug itself you’d have the socket with spade connectors on each pole, inserted into the plastic (no risk of arcing that way) run the wires back to a small project box which you can then break out and breadboard the proper wiring for the connector. I’d design the plug to actually have a backplane slot in and over the spade terminals completely, to secure them in then screw closed from the back, give enough room that a wire can be fed through to each one though it; you end up with a rock solid connector and room to properly wire stuff up then.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

I have a feeling that a substantial part of those restoration videos actually being presented backwards from the actual process, if you understand what I mean. In our case chicken shed was just a coincidence, normally we find stuff like this by metal scrappers. Good point about connectors, the thing however is that we just love to keep things authentic. For now a few commenters reached out with a few options of original connectors, so seems we will go that way. But thank you for amazing ideas!

@Underestimated37

6 ай бұрын

@@ChernobylFamily no stress, mainly thought it would help if you couldn’t find originals, seeing as the connector seems to be something bespoke they cobbled together for this.

@JCGver

5 ай бұрын

@@ChernobylFamily Now you got me looking how hard it would be to do bakelite at home. Making the molds wouldn't be that hard (especially for a small run, so I'm not dealing with making molds out of tool steel) once I have the dimensions. If you're happy enough with original looking reproductions, all I need is either a CAD model of the connectors or technical drawings of them. I'd have to replace the spade connectors with whats avaible today, and make them out of epoxy. The counter connectors wouldn't be that much harder to design from that point

Omg, where can I find this picture of the whole system that you showed at the beginning of the video?

@ChernobylFamily

3 ай бұрын

Available as a huuge poster (link below in the description) and also explained in details in our documentary about SKALA

@RRsalin

3 ай бұрын

​@@ChernobylFamilyThanks a lot, Incredible work!! I will be ordering soon

I bet there is a hidden message in the manual where you can see the decorative pinholes.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

I would not be surprised if there would be something like "Freedom to Czechoslovakia!". Which would be more than understandable.

6 ай бұрын

@@ChernobylFamily I think it's obvious at this point that you need to investigate.. ;)

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

@MariuszGabrielKaminski actually, you've made me interested

owwww that is crispy :S

Where can I get the poster from?

@ChernobylFamily

5 ай бұрын

kzread.infoUgkxqZ9-jsxGtvlyBXpDIBDLx4d5nLW1Hf0D Check this post on our community tab, there is all information.

That is 50x faster than the Teletype we used at the old radio telescope! Slava Ukraine

@ChernobylFamily

2 ай бұрын

Glory to heroes! And now, tell more as actually my wife is astronomer by grade :)

@scowell

2 ай бұрын

@@ChernobylFamily As a young man I worked at the University Of Texas Radio Astronomy Observatory (UTRAO) in 1978. This was an azimuth telescope that did a sky survey in 365Mhz. I was a night observer, lots of coffee! The computer was a Data General Nova, it used TTY paper tape *after* a front panel switch boot loader... then loaded 9-track tape for the main observations. It used vacuum tube amplifiers! Also it used giant helical antennas. You can still see the interferometer cross at 30.110484° -103.904783° in the west Texas desert near the town of Marfa (named for the Dostoyevsky character). All the old electronics were bulldozed and buried in-situ but you can still see a concrete ring where a Grote Reber-type antenna az-el mount was set up for testing the giant bifilar helical 365Mhz antennas. Later I worked for another radio telescope, the Very Long Baseline Array, at the Fort Davis location ( 30.634722° -103.945016°) which still exists. I hope someday to visit your country when Russia has been liberated and all is well. Love your content.

Does it really use photoresistors? I would have thought they'd be too slow!

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

It appeared there is a mistake in the manual. It says these are photoresistors, but when I checked by the part number, it appeared those are phototransistors.

@mellertid

6 ай бұрын

​@@ChernobylFamilythanks 😊

I will ask one of my friends, he has like garage full of old soviet era stuff. I think I saw there even older type of isotope reactor, not sure tho, not en expert. Will ask him for the part. Thanks for amazing video.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you!

You could try 3D printing connectors if its not too complex geometry.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

It is not that complex, but we'll go to it as a last resort, as to position inside 20 pretty massive pins is quite a task. And just to find them also, as those have a but unusual size and pitch.

Chicken coops are improper storage areas for things Czechoslovakian. And electronic hardware. (Except chickens. That's ok.)

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

))))))))

What caused the short circuit that cut power to the lights?

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Pins on that 4x5 connector are numbered from top right town and then to left. So pin 1 is ground, pin 6 which is next is tape transport start, but pin 11 which is next to 6 is -30V. So given there is a narrow pitch and I had the device standing in a quite inconvenient angle, I accidentally touched pin 11 together with 6. Which blew the fuse, but before it shut down the emergency switch of all lab. I have to say, the bang was much louder than it is on video :)

@j7ndominica051

6 ай бұрын

Modern circuit breakers can be too fast. I had this problem too with a power supply whose fuse did not blow.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

I am not sure if it is that bad given that after all we have fragile tech saved :)

I would be worried about it ripping the tape. It's so fast!

@ChernobylFamily

5 ай бұрын

It is an understandable concern - well, for this that tape roller should be used, it makes it work much better

Hello Im from Slovakia and id like you to help to find that exact same outputs and inputs of the connector . Unfortlenetry i dont have the exact same one Nethier to this type but im sure i find one in here and if i find i send it to you.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you! Maybe the easier way would be to look for the actual FS-1501 cable.

I grew up in the 80's and used to using magnetic storage mediums like cassette tapes and floppy disks. I never thought that paper tape could be used to program a computer or to store data. Seeing this tape reader in action made me wonder how programming with paper tape works or how a program is written using it.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Similar as it would be a magnetic tape, just the density is lower. But still, the density and speed of processing of a punch tape is WAY better than of punch cards.

That is such a cool restoration Alex - my thought would've been to powder coat the case but I see you took got the pros to re-spray it ... looks great. It's also good to see all the socialist "shibari" is intact! ;) /Brett

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thanks 👍 Yes, they made a powder coating, which is very good because to position that cover you really need to apply some force thus powder coating will withstand that.

Cool, but we need a backstory! 1. What function did this thing have in the chicken shed? 2. Where was it stolen? (I mean it was obviously stolen, as only several thousand were made for state-owned enterprises). 3. How you happen to know that this thing was, without owner's knowing what this thing was? 4. Do you often scavenge chicken sheds? Is a chicken shed a good source of retrocomputing components?

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

)))))))))))))))))) 1. A doorstopper of some sort. 2. From some NII, obviously. 3. Because the owner is very focused on chickens, and I am very focused on punch tape readers. 4. Chicken shed mining is a very unpredictable and somewhat risky job. However, sometimes those chicken lay golden eggs, like in this very case.

11:50 made in cheslovak??? Wait i am from cheslovakia....so this machine made by TESLA ???🤔 Nother question did you hear about the cheslovak tesla PMD85??? Its a chealovak intel8080 homecomeputer ?👍

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

I'd say it was designed and assembled by ZPA Košíře, but components are TESLA. Yes, I heard about it, but never had it in my hands.

4:21 By my standards, that unit is in good condition 😅

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

:))))

How to get the poster????

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

check this post, there is everything kzread.infoUgkxqZ9-jsxGtvlyBXpDIBDLx4d5nLW1Hf0D

Wow! I am impressed with your cleaning methods and I am sorry about the K1 and K2 connectors. The only parts that is using with ceramics which withstand the usage of electricity and heat from light bulb sockets. But hey! I got a idea: why don't you find the pottery worker and ask them to make a mold to create K1 and K2 connector by making a ceramics where the blade which connects with wire and it should be good to connect it. Good idea? By the way, I would love to have a SKALA poster for me and my daughter. We saw the movie a few years ago and my daughter was in disbelief seeing it. We know our Great-Grandfather from Russia which is modern day Ukraine. A POSTER THAT I WOULD LOVE TO BUY IT, PLEASE?!?!?! 🙂

@ChernobylFamily

5 ай бұрын

Thank you! We managed to find the original connectors, so we'll replace those. As for posters, happily will send you one - please write a follow-up e-mail to chornobylfamily@gmail.com and I'll give you the details.

what I am curious about, is if the strong radiation at Chernobyl, erased all the Magnetic system / Date tapes from the Skala computer system? I know strong magnetism would, but not sure about the high level and type of Radiation that escaped in the explosion.. . . .

@Gameboygenius

6 ай бұрын

That should not be the case. A nuclear explosion (as seen from an atom bomb) can cause an electromagnetic pulse, which might damage electronics or magnetic media, but that did not happen in the Chernobyl accident, or any other nuclear power accident. A nuclear explosion requires highly enriched uranium, and a very specific procedure to set off the bomb. Instead, the explosions that happened at Chernobyl were a steam explosion, followed by a hydrogen explosion. Nuclear materials were then released into the surroundings, which would emit alpha, beta and gamma radiation from the decay of nuclear isotopes, but this should not affect magnetic tape. If magnetic tape was damaged at the plant it's more like to come from physical, fire or water damage following the accident. I don't know any details surrounding that though.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Here are three things: 1) if something is at ChNPP it is not always contaminated and radiation is not always elevated. The power plant is insanely huge (we have a video about that!) and only a part on its very edge was affected badly 2) that was not a nuclear explosion, but more a dirty bomb-like, so there were different effects 3) speaking specifically about Skala of Unit 4, between computer rooms and damaged reactor there are many walls and rooms; that was a great shield, so although there got some contamination via vents, actually all tapes of SKALA #4 were removed and data from them dumped to assist in the investigation. About radiation conditions in that early post-Chernobyl epoch check our Patreon series "Chernobyl-88", there are very detailed reports we translated to English.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

@@Gameboygenius exactly.

Do you know the pin layout? And if the cable is 1 on 1? Or with connection inside? The casing should not hard to design. And the cable can be what ever😅 ot is this to easy thinking? Sorry

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

The cable itself is 1-1, but pinout depends on a machine. The pinout of the punch tape reader we know. Good ideas, not an easy thinking at all. Just those connectors are somewhat sturdy, so better to find original. Well, thanks to a few commenters this likely will happen soon :)

Thank You! This was genuinely interesting as always! I hope Your girlfriend is doing well!

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

My wife is doing well, writing much on Patreon and making Chernobyl lectures...) Just you don't see her here that often because she normally is the person who is holding the camera :)))

@sheep1ewe

6 ай бұрын

Glad to hear that! Just let me know if You want me to help finding new equpiment for the scientists on the laboratory!

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Thank you! Well, as I know now the situation already stabilized there, there are some cases like office computers needed for other organizations there, but this we can generally buy here quite cheap when we get funding.

@sheep1ewe

6 ай бұрын

Ok, old computers i think would be easier to fix.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

@@sheep1ewe that is more about buying stuff like Core i3-i5 of 6...8 generation rather than fixing the old stuff.

the connector remind me connector for polarised relay

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Yes, had the same idea, but those are 4x4 and this is 4x5

You don't see these around anymore that's for sure

@ChernobylFamily

3 ай бұрын

Except one case, probably: very old CNC machines. They also used those readers and also PL-150M tape punch machines (we have a video about)

@jakeeves5935

3 ай бұрын

@@ChernobylFamily I have one of these and the other one you mentioned they came from the Kursk power plant Wich still operates rbmk 1000 reactors and is the oldest nuclear power plant in Ukraine Smolensk also operates rbmks

Thank you for.... please make a video of how we make safe from atomic reacter.

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

Please clarify what you mean specifically.

@biswajitpradhan9667

6 ай бұрын

I mean that how we provide a safety nuclear reactor with out any hazardous problem.and if any problem occurs we should control it.then it will be helpful to human being.... today we move 20 th century...but we are not safe...on our discover...we got collapsed on our invention....

@ChernobylFamily

6 ай бұрын

I actually can say that modern reactors are very safe. What we are talking about in the context of Chornobyl is prehistoric sh*t.

In meiner Firma haben wir eine Elektronikwerkstatt. Sie Waschen ihre Leiterplatten mit warmen Wasser und Spülmittel und trocknen sie in einem Wärmeschrank. 😅