On Sun, 08 Aug 2010 15:19:07 +0000, Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:

N_Cook wrote:
Got a few no-name URCs from UK Poundland "pound shop" , badged as
Signalex , 81415, 10 in 1 . 1 GBP for all the functionality of a URC.
This type you can set it to flicker away to itself until it reaches the
end of a batch of codes.
Removed the 3.58MHz resonator (why so apparently accurate?) .

That's the NTSC color carrier frequency. Not only were they made in the
billions over the years (every US/Canada/Japan, etc) color TV had one,
so did every VCR, and lots of other things.

I'm sure they will still be around for a while because while digital TV
has taken over in the US, it has not in the entire world and anything
with a composite video input or output needs one.

They became the defacto standard for things like telephone dialers, and
many things that needed about a 4mHz crystal because they were so cheap
and plentyful.

One of the famous "blue boxes" (telephone hacking devices) was made by
taking a Radio Shack tone dialer and replacing the 1mHz crystal with a
3.58mHz one.

Toasters even had a 3.58 xtal in them. Phreakers were removing them and
replacing the xtal in walkie talkies so they could mess with drive up
window radio equipment for McDonalds, etc...



--
Live Fast, Die Young and Leave a Pretty Corpse