Magnavox 537, 535, 533, 515, 513, 2160A, 2160, 2080 & Philips 3576, 3575 - Page 627

WELL, I have two of them that do... Now... One of my first digital watches was a digilite that had red LED numbers, probably still have it somewhere.

I bought the 515h unit two weeks ago from Walmart.com for 248 dollars Today it would not power on so I returned it for a replacement. The pickup store said they could only refund my money and I could reorder. I came home and went to Walmart.com to reorder and they said they were out of stock. The next cheapest unit I could find was at Amazon.com for $449.99! The local Walmart store will not let me have my defective unit back even though it is still at the store. Walmart.com said they had no obligation to help me. I am screwed! If you have any unit at all, working or not, I would try to have it fixed or replaced by Funai and hold on to it. It looks as though it will soon be extinct.

hi cleartoland...

oh boy... CP/M... that's the OS i began with... along with 8080s, Z80s, and assemby language...

these machines have a couple of ' daughter boards ' in them... ( chuckle ) ...

sorry off topic... just had to toss that in...

rgds,
ron g...

I began with the RCA COSMAC 1802 in a Netronics Super Elf II Kit:

• 256 BYTES of Static RAM
• Four 7-Segment LEDs for the Address Bus
• Two 7-Segment LEDs for the Data Bus
• HEX Keypad
• You programmed it by entering 2-digit hex instructions, one-at-a-time
  i.e. 'F8', press LOAD, '01', press LOAD, etc...

Next step was a Digital Research Big Board with Z-80 and 64K of Dynamic RAM, which happened to be the 'Grand Daddy' to the Xerox 820. I programmed in Z-80 ASM and MBasic. I got so good that I DISASSEMBED the EEPROM on the 820 and re-coded it to accept Quantum 20MB and 40MB 8" HDDs, instead of the standard Shugart 10MB 8" HDD. I ran my first RCP/M BBS on four 8" floppies using a Z80 ASM 'freeware' package, written by a Xerox employee, that I heavily customized (i.e. I added 'Thread Following' amongst other things).

You learned a LOT about computers in the 'Early Days' when there was no 'Plug-N-Pray'!

Did you look at the PDF? I see that it has ONE view...

[quote=ClearToLand;21618817]I began with the RCA COSMAC 1802 in a Netronics Super Elf II Kit:

• 256 BYTES of Static RAM
• Four 7-Segment LEDs for the Address Bus
• Two 7-Segment LEDs for the Data Bus
• HEX Keypad
• You programmed it by entering 2-digit hex instructions, one-at-a-time
  i.e. 'F8', press LOAD, '01', press LOAD, etc...

Next step was a Digital Research Big Board with Z-80 and 64K of Dynamic RAM, which happened to be the 'Grand Daddy' to the Xerox 820. I programmed in Z-80 ASM and MBasic. I got so good that I DISASSEMBED the EEPROM on the 820 and re-coded it to accept Quantum 20MB and 40MB 8" HDDs, instead of the standard Shugart 10MB 8" HDD. I ran my first RCP/M BBS on four 8" floppies using a Z80 ASM 'freeware' package, written by a Xerox employee, that I heavily customized (i.e. I added 'Thread Following' amongst other things).

You learned a LOT about computers in the 'Early Days' when there was no 'Plug-N-Pray'!

Did you look at the PDF? I see that it has ONE view...

hi again... yes i did...

chuckle... z-80 was my best friend... i actually designed and built a small z80 based board.. sort of a universal catchall machine with serial and parallel i/o, and back in early 80s i worked for RCA selling those CDP 1802's ( among other stuff ).. never did anything with those, though...

ok, so much for off-topics... thanks for the memories...

rgds,
ron g

sure... no reason that could not work... the most time consuming issue is testing for a week or so to check results... of course, if i knew where the other end of the clock circuit was, one could lay a ( calibrated ) freq counter and dial it right in... also, during my tests, i've noted some wobbling back and forth within a small range, which indicates that even if one gets the thing dead on, it's going to move around a bit. my guess is that the whole thing is a bit temperature sensitive.

with that in mind, my tests were done with the cover ON the machine ( not screwed down ) in order to maintain a more stable temperature environment.

Analog I never tune on purpose, at least not to record. SD channels, QAM or ATSC, seem to never have the darkness problem that manifests so often on HD channels here. I wouldn't expect the problem to be in the tuner itself as much as in the downconversion process from 720 or 1080 to 480 for the outputs or writing to DVD or HD. I hope you find a way to improve the HD channels, preferably via adjustment rather than component swapping or adding. Even better would be Funai fixing it in firmware.

Those pix won't open simply by clicking on them. Context menu to open in new tab does work.

they open up fine for me ( left single click )... whatever browser you're using, or possibly what you have your ' file type ' handler ( windows or whatever os ) set to do with a jpg file might be causing that issue for you... i'm using firefox, i have little to no experience with later versions ( beyond rev 6 ) of internet explorer...

rgds,
ron g

hi mrmazda..

i suppose i kind of use the term ' tuner ' a bit loosely... some tuner modules dump out i.f., but others actually do have de-mod onboard. not sure what this one ( or any other digital tuner ) does. i supppose for a digital tuner, the best that might come out of an integrated module would be the equivalent digital form of de-mod. but i'm sure you're probably correct in your analysis. the down conversion process is probably at fault... digital as it might be, the process gets analog somewhere along the line and exhibits some sort of low bandwidth characteristic at dark levels ( drives me nuts, personally ). i do know that when i utilize an external OTA converter and deal with the resultant analog video line output from the converter, the Funai video does do a better job, as does my panny e95.

wish i had a blasted service manual for this beast ( not to mention an o-scope )

i'm sure i'll end up discovering that whatever adjustments ( 2 of them i believe ) there are in the tuner module will end up being for PLL and/or LO adjustment...

rgds,
ron g

Problems like this are typical consequences of incompetent web design, in this case, not unlikely to be browser sniffing. http://geckoisgecko.org/ explains to some extent, but the real problem is typically sniffing for a UA string rather than a UA JS feature. What happens here when I try is broken Ajax painting a curtain with a filename instead of an image, and an X to exit the Ajax. I'm not saying that is the problem here, as I haven't spent and won't be spending the time it takes to figure out. Simply opening the thread reply notification's link in a new tab loads up the error console with errors (among them, document.write), but trying to open the image with a simple click generates none.

Thanks for the help.

We've been aware on this board for some time now that Funai won't be making the machines any more, unless maybe someone (Wal-Mart?) asks them to do another run.

I'd suggest that you keep an eye on www.jr.com to see if they get any refurbs in, or that you just order a model 513 from Wal-Mart (they have plenty) and if you really need the larger hard drive, buy a 500gig drive and put it in yourself, then go thru the steps Wajo has provided for getting a new drive working in the recorder.

You might also want to apply the newer firmware so the 513 ends up operating with the features of a 515.

Combine a 513, a 500gb hard drive, and the firmware update, and you know what you get?

A clone of the 515.

Add a small UPS and you should get much more than 2 hours of backup if the power fails. I guess any surge supressor comes free.

Amazon now wants $450 for a 515H.

As for old, I was an OEM for MP/M-86 and that gave me source code for everything. Ever work with PL/M? Not fun.

rkg22,

I may just pull the cover off my digital tuner DVD recorder and compare it to the 515 I have.

Interesting about old school computers.

I date back to Machine Code

Both at work with a GP-4B computer built by Singer Link and at home the RCA 1802.

Mostly PDP 11/45 assembler as time went on before progressing to Fortran

Sorry for the Digression

Wow, I thought that you used an o-scope to determine the frequency of the oscillator and used the padding cap to come to a pre determined freq. You have really done a superb job to come within 10 puffs of perfect. Thanks for your work.
Cheers,
Bob

Too late for a "soft reset" and yours will be sold in J&R very quickly.


Can you try to install a clock back-up module on the 513, just like the one on the 515?

PLEASE?

do you mean ' remember my timed recordings ' or ' remember what time it is ' ??
remembering what time it is actually should not be THAT difficult... it would be a matter of locating the power buss that stays alive with the machine turned off, but plugged in. this is probably a 5 volt buss somewhere... add 2 diodes, a 9 volt battery, and a small ( sufficient for whatever current is needed ) 3 terminal voltage regulator ( with decoupling caps ), and the clock stays alive for however long the 9v battery lives...

rgds,
ron g

Geez... I believed it was a single circuit, and the "remember what time it is" will make the trick. A "remember my timed recordings" power back up is the goal, something like a tribute to the 515

Maybe someone in this thread have pics comparing the 515 and the 513 circuit boards?

hi profhat...

thanks for the manual link... this will help with my fiddling... i should be able to put together a print for clock backup and will post it when i've tested it...

a quick review of a couple of the schematics indicates that the device doing lots of stuff, including powering up the clock oscillator, is powered by a 3.3v regulator which is, in turn, powered by a 5v regulator... shouldn't be too difficult to install a battery backup gadget to keep the clock alive during power loss... not sure how much current the thing will draw and, as such, how long a 9v battery would last, but looks like it can be done if one is handy with a princess soldering iron...

rgds,
ron g

while there might be minor differences, for our purposes ( clock stuff, video improvement, etc ) they are essentially the same...

1. Quote:

   Originally Posted by rkg22
   
   ...oh boy... CP/M... that's the OS i began with... along with 8080s, Z80s, and assemby language...
   
   these machines have a couple of ' daughter boards ' in them... ( chuckle ) ...
   
   sorry off topic... just had to toss that in...
   
   .
2. Quote:

   Originally Posted by ClearToLand
   
   I began with the RCA COSMAC 1802 in a Netronics Super Elf II Kit:

   • 256 BYTES of Static RAM
   • Four 7-Segment LEDs for the Address Bus
   • Two 7-Segment LEDs for the Data Bus
   • HEX Keypad
   • You programmed it by entering 2-digit hex instructions, one-at-a-time
     i.e. 'F8', press LOAD, '01', press LOAD, etc...

   Next step was a Digital Research Big Board with Z-80 and 64K of Dynamic RAM, which happened to be the 'Grand Daddy' to the Xerox 820. I programmed in Z-80 ASM and MBasic. I got so good that I DISASSEMBED the EEPROM on the 820 and re-coded it to accept Quantum 20MB and 40MB 8" HDDs, instead of the standard Shugart 10MB 8" HDD. I ran my first RCP/M BBS on four 8" floppies using a Z80 ASM 'freeware' package, written by a Xerox employee, that I heavily customized (i.e. I added 'Thread Following' amongst other things).
   
   You learned a LOT about computers in the 'Early Days' when there was no 'Plug-N-Pray'!
   
   .
3. Quote:

   Originally Posted by rkg22
   
   ...chuckle... z-80 was my best friend... i actually designed and built a small z80 based board.. sort of a universal catchall machine with serial and parallel i/o, and back in early 80s i worked for RCA selling those CDP 1802's ( among other stuff ).. never did anything with those, though...
   
   ok, so much for off-topics... thanks for the memories...
   
   .
4. Quote:

   Originally Posted by JoeKustra
   
   ...As for old, I was an OEM for MP/M-86 and that gave me source code for everything. Ever work with PL/M? Not fun.
   
   .
5. Quote:

   Originally Posted by DonB2
   
   ...Interesting about old school computers.
   
   I date back to Machine Code
   
   Both at work with a GP-4B computer built by Singer Link and at home the RCA 1802.
   
   Mostly PDP 11/45 assembler as time went on before progressing to Fortran
   
   Sorry for the Digression
   
   

Since we weren't allowed to create a separate thread to discuss rkg22's 'Fringe Antenna / Mag Tuner' problem, where else can we digress momentarily

I read the 'New Posts' in the Mag FAQ at least once, usually several times, each day. But, if you go on a vacation, business trip, get sick and stay in bed and miss a few days, you'll have a FEW HUNDRED posts to read through (as someone recently pointed out ). I read MUCH of that thread, but not all. If I miss a FEW HUNDRED every now-and-then, so be it. No one will ever convince me that there are 18,804 valuable, ON-TOPIC posts there. If I have a Mag DVDR question, I have 'View Single Post' Post #1 bookmarked - it loads in a flash, since it doesn't load an entire page of posts. Then, I pick the topic I'm interested in, open it in a new tab, and go merrily on my way. IIRC, someone recently mentioned that the 'unwieldly' (especially for Newbies!) Mag FAQ and its related 'LINKed-to Posts' be broken off into a separate (IMO, possibly LOCKED?) thread / STICKY. Good idea IMHO! Another useful feature from splitting the FAQ and its related LINKs off is the ability to read (and MULTI-QUOTE) as many RELATED posts as possible without the distracting / interfering STATIC (and create PDFs - Re-thinking this, I can probably create PDFs the way it is now, using the method I used last night to create a PDF of rkg22's *EXCELLENT* Technical Information). That would mean keeping it UNLOCKed and trusting the community to comply with the polite request to:
As the regular DVDR Forum readers can easily infer, I've taken a REAL LIKING to creating PDFs, instead of printing to paper, of MANY of the posts / threads that I find interesting / useful. I recommend DoPDF:

• Small install
• Fast
• Creates SMALL PDFs, compared to Chrome which are usually 10X bigger!
• It's *FREE*!

More on this subject follows...

I usually begin my FAQs (I've written several) with:

TTA's Picks for Best Answers to Rechargeable Battery Questions:
but where discussion is expected, I use:

TTA's NiMH/NiCD Battery Charger Specifications Thread:
I propose that we create TWO new threads here in the DVDR Forum, where we're all 'friends' and already know one another:

1. Mag Tuner Problems With Fringe Antennas
   .
2. Customizing the 'Guts' (or 'Internals') of Your Mag DVDR - WARNING: VOIDS YOUR WARRANTY!

We're an intelligent groups of folks here. If rkg22 starts the two threads with:

1. The beginning of his Mag Tuner WFFF problem post.
2. The beginning of his 'Mag Internals' post (IIRC, the first post in my attached PDF).

We could each then, in turn, Copy-N-Paste our replies, in chronological order, in the new threads. THEN, we could continue the discussions WITHOUT all of the unnecessary OT apoligizes.

I COULD go through all the trouble of creating a poll, but then 'someone' would have the Mods *DELETE* IT, like my poll about the new tiny, hard-to-read fonts in the Mag FAQ.

Related LINKs:

• Re: Open Forum
• Re: Unwieldly Thread
• Recorder Market Is Unsettled Everywhere, Not Just USA/Canada Anymore

BTW, I *IMMENSELY* enjoy the new direction this forum has taken over the past couple of weeks with some REALLY GREAT TECHNICAL discussions!

Thanks!

J&R.com has ONE refurbished Magnavox 515 available for $199.99. As of Thursday 02/09/2012 12:40pm.

FYI...
dfw515

I despise PDF. I'm sure many must agree.

File this under "the right tool for the job."

Many of the testimonials in that link are referencing how poorly PDFs are presented, navigated and searched on the web or in a browser. They say "pdf is only good for printing". This is akin to saying "I hate ballpeen hammers because they suck at driving in roofing nails." What ClearToLand is referring to is a paperless office where instead of printing paper copies, he prints directly to pdf files stored electronically. I prefer to download all of my PDF account statements and bills, canceled check images, etc instead of receiving paper copies. If on the off-chance I need a paper copy, a quick search of my hard drive gets me quickly to the document I need, and then it is printed on paper WYSIWYG. pdf is also highly compatible with many OS's and printers as well.

Please go ahead and create whatever thread that you can discuss off-topic subjects to your heart content Sure, this is an open forum, but please stay on topic.

I had created a new thread in the proper section of the forum, with a link to the page of this (current) thread where the discussion started (so that new comers could find the beginning of the discussion) and that thread was quickly terminated by a mod and I was sent a PM to not do it again, and keep the discussion in the original thread (where the discussion was OT to begin with).

Well my 2 513 referbs from plant73 came the other day and I finally had time to hook one of them up tonight. A skip 079 showed 1 hour on the hard dive and the skip 123 showed the following FW.

Model: E2S02UD
DTV-S: 0x2B
FE: R60_001_000
BE: HD6A269727V1E
TT: T5011RDU@5

Looks like this one was never used. It also seems to have the latest FW.