Where Have All the Schematics Gone?
This situation (lack of schematics) is powering the open source test instrument surge.Test instruments are an interesting space in the technology center mostly because they are never "obsolete." If they are operating to their original specifications and tolerances, they do the job just as well in 2020 as they did in 1960. As a result, test equipment can really hold its value well.I recently paid about $700 to have my HP Spectrum Analyzer from the early 90's[1] calibrated. I bought the instrument for $1,100 at auction, it's working range is 9kHz to 12GHz. So for $1,800 I have an instrument that, if I were to buy the current generation model, would cost me nearly $18,000 or 10x that price. Even a "cheap" Rigol that only goes to 6.5GHz would cost $10,000.So what to do when your sales are "one and done" ? It is a hard problem from a business model perspective.[1] EDIT: Turns out it is only 30+ years old, not 50+. Its an HP8596E "portable" (weighs quite a bit :-).