Four-Phase Systems IV/90

[pbirkel@gmail.com]

looks like someone ripped apart a system
the price is delusional

Vintage RAM White Ceramic Chip Boards for your Collection Or Gold Recovery | eBay

Gold Scrap Recovery. Should be fantastic recovery. Gold pins. Gold plated. White ceramic. Gold capped IC. We try to provide all known information. We'll correct it to the best of our ability.

www.ebay.com

Maybe not *that* delusional. Well, when compared to some other eBay listings that I've seen. $20 each for unique ceramic gold-topped ICs might be the art-market value. They are socketed, so perhaps someone might try to flip them individually and make a modest profit. Moreso if they bought all three boards ... and then dribbled out the ICs over many months. We'll see how it goes!

 

[NeXT]

I did get a response back from the seller. This is all he has. It didn't seem like he got these from a particular system or scrap lot.

 

[rlerner]

I'm sure you noticed since it was a while ago, or maybe you came up with a solution already... I've just read the entire thread and it is a great read indeed. Awesome to see so much effort put into restoring a system I've never heard of.

Anyways, for those push rivets that hold the front on, the picture isn't high enough of resolution but there does seem to be text on there that might help with locating a manufacturer or part number. I'm sure you saw that but wanted to make sure.

 

[NeXT]

You are correct. There is something there. Nylatch.

You can buy them still, but so far I've been unable to find a half dozen for a sensible price.
Speaking of which, seeing how the shop I bought the IC tester from closed up and the package disappeared in shipping it looks like I'm going to have to find another IC tester...

 

[rlerner]

Amazon seems to have them pretty cheap:

Panel Fastener: ($16.65 for six) https://www.amazon.com/Southco-NY-4P-43-4-50-NYLATCH-Two-Piece-Fasteners/dp/B076FXH3LK/
Panel Stay: ($13.23 for six) https://www.amazon.com/Southco-NY-4G-43-20-NYLATCH-Two-Piece-Fasteners/dp/B076FWF9CH/

I guess not exactly cheap, but I'm sure compared to what you're fixing $30 isn't terrible.

 

[tedmarsh]

Read through all the messages and incredible work you've done to resurrect this old IV/90. I was a systems engineer for Four Phase from 1984 to 1989. The IV/90 was the last Series 4 that Four Phase delivered, redesigning the system around 1982-83 as the "Series 5000". Sounds like you could use a Field Engineering Guide, which has the hardware engineering details for entering into self-test diagnostics for components, by inputting the execution addresses in the 24 switches and register selection switches on the front panel. There are a couple Four-Phase alumni groups on Facebook, there are some engineers and product development folks there that may be able to help - some of the alumni also have chips, parts and probably even microfiche (which is where we kept out documentation. Would be happy to help, or try to answer any questions about the system and it's use. I saw the NP/80 (my favorite processor!) and what looked like two of the first "sealed disk" technologies made by Fujitsu - I think they are 128, 256, or 512 MB of storage. The NP/80 handled all "new" disk storage (at the time, LOL), either the Fujitsu drives, or a model 8260, 60MB removable disk. There is only so many diagnostics that were ROM based, once going through those tests, you had to set the boot devices on the console, and boot up diagnostics. Oh the memories.....

 

[NeXT]

Therein lies a bit of a problem: I don't use Facebook so while early on I spotted and scrolled through as much of the Four Phase Alumni photos as I could before it told me to login I can't actually communicate with anyone there. My only real leads for information so far is Gil down in Arlington and a man named Ian up in Vancouver who also worked with them. I will gladly take documentation and anything else I can get my hands on but already scanned documents I strongly ask you send copies to Al Kossow. His plate is usually always full but there's always people willing to help. Right now I'm redesigning Kyle Owen's Documation card reader adapter to work for dumping stacks.

 

[NeXT]

The remainder of Gil's currently scanned schematics have been processed, dupe checked and sent off to Bitsavers, so that's the last of my local material done and 270 pages of schematics, layouts and cable pinout maps. No ETA for when any of that is live.

 

[NeXT]

A listing for another DT board and two Character Generator boards just ended on ebay.

The seller rejected a $150 offer saying there was more gold in the boards than that but holy hell, the bids took off at the last second (I really hate bidding on crap. Just take the offer you piece of...) and they sold for $351usd. Who the hell is that desperate for Four-Phase boards??

 

[cchhrriiss11]

A listing for another DT board and two Character Generator boards just ended on ebay.

The seller rejected a $150 offer saying there was more gold in the boards than that but holy hell, the bids took off at the last second (I really hate bidding on crap. Just take the offer you piece of...) and they sold for $351usd. Who the hell is that desperate for Four-Phase boards??

Chances are there's someone else out there trying to get one of these systems running as well.... maybe they're in the Facebook group
There's no way someone is paying that much money just to have something that looks nice to sit on the shelf (or to try to extract a few dollars worth of gold out of it). They're either restoring/repairing a system or a serious collector. Either way, it might be a good idea to reach-out to the seller and see if they'll put you in-contact with the buyer as how many other people (in the world) are dealing with these right now?

-Chris

 

[NeXT]

The seller made it abundantly clear they had no interest in making social connections, much less cutting me a deal when I initially offered.

 

[westveld]

Chances are there's someone else out there trying to get one of these systems running as well.... maybe they're in the Facebook group
There's no way someone is paying that much money just to have something that looks nice to sit on the shelf (or to try to extract a few dollars worth of gold out of it). They're either restoring/repairing a system or a serious collector. Either way, it might be a good idea to reach-out to the seller and see if they'll put you in-contact with the buyer as how many other people (in the world) are dealing with these right now?

-Chris

I think you'd be surprised.
Plenty of money in the ceramic gold versions of ICs that have much cheaper versions available (eg: Intel C4040)
The Four-Phase stuff might be too obscure for that, possibly.

 

[cchhrriiss11]

I think you'd be surprised.
Plenty of money in the ceramic gold versions of ICs that have much cheaper versions available (eg: Intel C4040)
The Four-Phase stuff might be too obscure for that, possibly.

I guess I was really lucky to get 32 New-old-Stock purple-ceramic/gold Intel 2107's for $200 back during the pandemic... used them to populate the 16K RAM board in my Wang WCS-20 / 2200:

-Chris

 

[Chuck(G)]

Those 22 pin DRAMs were made by lots of vendors. Intel, TI, NSC,... I have a bunch from Fujitsu. Used on a lot of mainframes.
My recollection is that 2107s were the first chip family in which radiation "bit picking" was observed.

DRAMs store data as an electric charge in the very tiny capacitance (femtofarads) of an MOS gate. A small amount of energy from an external source can forcedata errors by inadvertently dischargingthe capacitance. Such a problem subtlysurfaced for Intel in the mid-seventies. Ed Metzler observed soft errors in a 2107 (4K) system, and demonstrated a potential cause, radiation. We assembled a cave using lead bricks, ran tests, and ultimately proved that the source of energy was not from the cosmos, but from within the 2107 packages. Alpha particles were emitted from the radioactive decay of impurities in the package materials. The package factory was located downstream from a uranium mine. Even Gordon Moore become personally involved with this scientific project. The problem was ultimately corrected at the package vendor.

cf. Intel paper, Page 19

 

[NeXT]

I think you'd be surprised.
Plenty of money in the ceramic gold versions of ICs that have much cheaper versions available (eg: Intel C4040)
The Four-Phase stuff might be too obscure for that, possibly.

The biggest issue is that Four-Phase for all of their gold capped and white ceramic IC's they were their own proprietary products. Every other ceramic IC in these machines are other vendors like Intel and AMD but if it's gold capped odds are it has their die in them. From a collector's perspective unless you are specifically after the AL-1 for historical reasons that means the other chips don't have a lot of value beyond it's white ceramic and a gold cap and it's early. Other than that it's the gold diggers who are being unrealistic about the actual gold content in the cap and legs, but that's if you are the one making the price, BUYING at that price is what confuses me. All I can think of is there are still machines in service and soemone needs spares at all costs.

 

[commodorejohn]

Why on earth were gold caps on ICs a thing to begin with? Obviously not for conductivity

 

[cchhrriiss11]

Why on earth were gold caps on ICs a thing to begin with? Obviously not for conductivity

This is a great question -- I've wondered the same myself, there had to have been a good reason to justify the cost...

-Chris

 

[Chuck(G)]

Generally, the gold-capped ICs also had gold-plated leads. At least they didn't corrode.

 

[commodorejohn]

See, that part makes sense - and the ceramic package I'd assume was for heat dissipation. But the cap!?

 

[Chuck(G)]

Process, I suspect. If you're set up to gold plate leads, why change the process for caps? It's only microns anyway. There's probably as much gold in the bonding wires.