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Compaq "US Open System Board"

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diodenmann

Experienced Member
Joined
Nov 18, 2008
Messages
90
Location
Leipzig, Germany
Found this 486 EISA mainboard in a scrap lot:



I couldn't find useful information about it.
Where does it come from and who is Wayne ?
 
Does that really say "Kayne's World" on it in the middle, or am I mis-reading it?

Can you get some better pictures? One from directly above the board without a flash would be great. It'll help us read the various things on the board with better clarity.
 
I know what that's from!

In the '90's Compaq sponsored a LOT of sporting events, and provided 'high tech' solutions for doing things at these events. That board is from a scorekeeping machine that transmitted the scores in realtime via multiple modems to different media outlets. They had like 20 of the buggers set up for that... There was an article about it in PC world (I think) at the time.

Actually, no... I think the article was in Computer Shopper.

-- edit -- that's right, they also had "multimedia info center" kiosks set up. It could also be from those. Would make more sense for a 486 class machine.
 
Also get a closer look at the switch block. That is often the easiest clue to distinguish exactly which 486 EISA Compaq motherboard since Compaq often changed the size of the switch block when making a different revision.
 
I says "Wayne's World". It must have something to do with tennis, but I have no idea who could be meant.

Took a picture of the upper part... not the best daytime for taking photos with my crappy cam though


 
The movie did come out the same year that MB was built. Though it was a pretty cheesy movie. Maybe there was a cross-promotional deal with the film company?
 
Your pictures are good, but you are lacking parts of the board in them, specifically the area with the EISA slots on it.
 
Looks like it could easily have been a Proliant Server motherboard. Does it have a part/spare number on it? Something like xxxxxx-xxx?

Wesley
 
eeguru said:
The movie did come out the same year that MB was built. Though it was a pretty cheesy movie. Maybe there was a cross-promotional deal with the film company?
Click to expand...

Lots of Compaq boards had clever "names" and "figures" printed on them when they were actually still good, and still designed by Compaq, I am betting on a whimsical engineering department who were fans of the movie ;-)
Now their relatively modern stuff (pretty much SS7 and on) was designed and built by the lowest chinese bidder :-/ Though I have seen some of their enterprise class machines up to P4 era with the Compaq engineering flare.
 
Looks like it has lineage to the DeskPro DX2/466 machines I had a long time ago. Those were EISA, and had SCSI, and ran NT 4.0 rather happily. The boards were almost identical to the one here. Would love to have seen the case they were in if Compaq decided on using a stock Deskpro style case for these.
 
That third picture (of the back of the board) those are all Compaq part numbers. If you google the Spare PN you can find lots of people selling that board, though not much info on the thing.

This might help: http://ecsintel.free.fr/Compaq/PROSIGNIA/prosig.pdf

Looks like you can still get a PSU for it, the part number is 144206-001, and a google of that leads me to believe you can get it for somewhere between $50 - $100
 
Why is that freankin' Dallas RTC/CMOS Battery held by a wrapper?
-
About the PSU, if you found a datasheet you could easily work it out...
 
RWallmow said:
Lots of Compaq boards had clever "names" and "figures" printed on them when they were actually still good, and still designed by Compaq...
Click to expand...
Here are two of them.
First is from an ProLinea 4/66, the second from an ProLinea 4/33.
It was funny to see more of theese.
Frank
DSC_0224.jpg DSC_0225.jpg
 
Jack. said:
Why is that freankin' Dallas RTC/CMOS Battery held by a wrapper?
Click to expand...
The weight-to-pin ratio is high. The restraining strap will be the motherboard maker deciding to 'playing safe', which I expect was an easy decision to make considering the very low cost and effort of adding the strap.
 
The spares numbers on the back tell the tale of exactly what it is. Lots of text indicating a 486 Prosignia server (Prosignia was the "little brother" to the Proliant series)...still nice machines. I did find one image to match up to help confirm it:

http://uk.ebid.net/for-sale/compaq-143780-001-prosignia-486-dx66-sys-brd-122788193.htm

Best I can tell, the different part numbers were for different CPU's installed in it. Keep in mind yours doesn't have CPU installed, and would of course have to have one in order to work...along with matching jumper settings for the CPU in question. I could probably ferret all that info out of the old Compaq CD's I've got around somewhere...they have all the Maintenance & Service Guides and Parts listings...

Wesley
 
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