The monthly “Flea at MIT” featured an abundance of vintage test equipment. We even bought some.
Cambridge, Mass. — The monthly Flea at MIT swapfest took place on September 15 in the Albany St. garage, and EE World was there. As usual, all kinds of vintage equipment, such as tools, oscilloscopes, musical instruments, and books, were on sale. This time, test equipment was in abundance. At other times, such vintage test equipment might be rather scarce, but not this day. Here’s what we saw, what we bought, and why.
The final 2024 swapfest takes place on October 20.
Power supplies
 HP and Lambda bench power supplies |
 B&K Precision Model 1670 triple-output DC power supply |
 50 kV power supplies made by Bertan Associates, Syosset, NY. The company was acquired by Spellman High Voltage. |
Oscilloscopes
 Tektronix TDS 794D 4-channel oscilloscope. A digital oscilloscope with a floppy-disk drive is considered new at the swapfest. Would you call this “vintage” test equipment? |
 Tektronix 454A 2-channel analog oscilloscope. That’s typical at a swapfest. |
 HP 1720A analog oscilloscope, 275 MHz |
 B+K Model 1477 analog oscilloscope, 15 MHz |
 Healthkit by Daystom analog oscilloscope. All tubes, no transistors. We bought it for $5 to use in a teardown. Hopefully, it’s in good enough condition to apply power, but we’ll keep a finger on the power strip’s on/off switch. |
RF equipment
 General Radio 720-A Heterodyne frequency meter. IET labs acquired much of the General Radio product line. This link takes you to the operating instructions, schematic, and parts list. |
 Marconi Instruments TF 2370 110 MHz spectrum analyzer |
Meters, counters, and signal sources
 Tektronix CFG280 11 MHz function generator produces sine waves, square waves, triangle waves, TTL pulses, and sweeps. |
 Philips PM 6680 programmable timer/counter operates at up to 225 MHz. Click here for the data sheet. |
 HP8112A pulse generator. We bought this for $20 to use in a future teardown. First, we’ll download the service manual for instructions, schematics, and parts list. |
 General Radio 1230-A DC amplifier and Electrometer. Get the manual from IET Labs. |
 Cen-Tech digital multimeter. We’ll open the case and show you what’s inside in a later article. |
 GPIB cables. How else can you connect your vintage test equipment to a computer? |
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