Do you know what this is? Do you recognise it?

Name that thing....

I thought it might be fun to put up pictures of things and see who can name what they are. I have an idea of who will know what this is, but I might be surprised at those I don't expect to know who do.
-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), June 21, 2000

Answers

Cherri you may be dating yourself with this picture, if this is gear you are familiar with. See the test sockets for vacuum tubes? Im not sure what this devise is but Ive seen stuff like it in the E shops from my AF days.

-- The (fact@fan.attic), June 21, 2000.

a tube tester! (not a test tuber)

-- (you.are@very.old), June 21, 2000.

Test clips, a galvo, settings. A portable tester for an aerospace gizmo, circa 1970s. Can't read the brochure. Is it in Cyrillic?

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), June 21, 2000.

It's a WayBack Machine.

{Lars, great word there -gizmo- like to see ya work it into a pome}.

-- flora (***@__._), June 21, 2000.

..a defibrulator...??? :-)

-- Not now, not like this (AgentSmith0110@aol.com), June 21, 2000.

A "portable" radio?

-- David L (bumpkin@dnet.net), June 21, 2000.

-- (you.are@very.old), June 21, 2000.

Yea well maybe so, but it beats the alternative. Your answer says the same about you *grin*

-- Cherri (S@B.C), June 21, 2000.

flora, I accept the rhyme challenge.

Our Cherri had posted a quizmo
Containing a shot of some gizmo
One guy got upset that
He just couldn't get it
And had to ingest Pepto Bismo

-- David L (bumpkin@dnet.net), June 21, 2000.

A rock.

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), June 21, 2000.

The next species

-- Oxy (Oxsys@aol.com), June 21, 2000.

(What's a "tube"?)

-- I'm Here, I'm There (I'm Everywhere@so.beware), June 21, 2000.

Yep, it looks like a tube tester to me. :)

-- Stephen (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), June 21, 2000.

I am reminded of working in the appliance department of a discount store, during college summer breaks. The place had a tube tester, and customers used it once in a while, usually mentioning that they owned an older TV. (This was during the late 1970s.)

-- David L (bumpkin@dnet.net), June 21, 2000.

Looks like the device I use to extract money from slow paying clients. The American Bar Association used to sell them cheap.

-- E.H. Porter (Just Wondering@About.it), June 21, 2000.

[Notice: This answer contains irony.]

Stephen, how would you know. Didn't you once mistake a VCR for an embedded device.

-- David L (bumpkin@dnet.net), June 21, 2000.

David L.

By definition, a VCR is an embedded device :o)

Q7 and it's siblings are what made the above device obsolete.

-- Cherri (s@b.c), June 21, 2000.

I've never seen this item before in my life, but I do like puzzles.

I'd have to say a monitoring device of some kind. A receiver, not a transmitter. something that monitors the intensity or integrity of a signal. There are no headphones, so an auditory signal is eliminated.

The dial at the upper right of the console seems to be the sole readout. The item in the lid that looks like a microphone (but isn't) looks like the signal pickup device.

It's a tester for some electronic signal. Much more elaborate than a tube tester would ever be. That's a go-nogo device. This one gives a continuous readout (without recording it for later analysis). That means to me that the operator is probably intended to calibrate the signal, somehow.

I just don't know what the source of the electronic signal is. Whatever it is, this is an instrument for field testing, not factory testing. The dials look like they control filters for noise. The metal case and other visual clues strongly say pre-1975 to me. Maybe military use. If not military, then big corporation. This thing ain't cheap.

I'm done. I can go no further with this puzzle.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), June 22, 2000.

Okay *grin* Yes I am familiar with this "thing". It is a Military Tube Tester Model TV7D/U circa 1962.

I figured Stephen would know what it was, in his job he is probably still using one. Not this old though, at least I would hope not. And Yes, there was a time you could walk into a hardware store or even a drug store and find one for people to check the tubes in their TV's, sterios and radios.

This is a tube, also, unless you are using a laptop, the chances are you are looking at a tube. A cathode ray tube.

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), June 22, 2000.