I need help with Control Data Corporation item identification

[ChrisC607]

I have a large collection of items from the home workshop of a Control Data Corporation engineer. Ron Buettner was his name. I would love to find anyone that may have known him. I also desperately need help identifying the items. I have a huge collection of interesting items. If anyone would be willing to help me out, i would greatly appreciate it.

 

[NeXT]

Well you can attach items to your posts here and we can take a shot at trying to identify them.
Welcome to the forum by the way.

 

[ChrisC607]

So the wirewrapped board in all of these is the same device. And then there are these double stacked card modules. The device has 2 slots that these modules plug into.

 

[ChrisC607]

I also have this big 3ft by 3ft device with like 200 of these single little modules in it. And amazing amount of wire wrapping on one side. Atlantic Research company on the black rectangles. Lots of CDC labeled parts on it.

 

[ChrisC607]

I have a 10 by 15 storage unit full of stuff. I want to identify all of it and catalog it for preservation but I really have no idea where to begin. I have tons of hand drawn design notes and schematics too.

 

[pbirkel]

I also have this big 3ft by 3ft device with like 200 of these single little modules in it. And amazing amount of wire wrapping on one side. Atlantic Research company on the black rectangles. Lots of CDC labeled parts on it.

Ferrite core memory with the absolutely cheapest (oops "cost effective") cover that I have ever seen. Works, BITD, but it's probably pretty fragile now.

And this is an impressive set of "cordwood" modules:

 

[ChrisC607]

the ferrite memory, the cheap cover says Atlantic Research company. From the little research I've done this is another military contractor I believe. I know Control Data Corporation did a lot of work for the military as well. This large item that has the ferrite core memory and all the cards in it, any idea what that is? It was mounted to the wall and it could be swung so you could access both sides. I honestly can't believe all this stuff was going to end up in the garbage. I saw the ad on Facebook Marketplace and I had no idea what I was going to go look at. It took me so long to get all the stuff out of there because I would get so obsessed over looking at every little item. The investor that owns the property was starting to get annoyed at how long it was taking me because I was like a little kid in a toy shop. I had no idea it was going to actually be something historically significant in the end. I have an entire storage unit full of stuff from his workshop. From what I can tell he was working on development and engineering as well as possibly field work. It'd be awesome if I could find somebody local to Minnesota that might be willing to help me go through and identify it all just so I know what it is. I also feel like this doesn't belong in my hands. I don't think I'm capable of preserving it properly. But I can't even begin to know what to do with it without identifying it first. I'm sure there's collector value in it, but I would rather see it remain local here in Minnesota and one of the different computer history museums or Institutes. Control Data Corporation was a major part of computing history, most people don't even realize. I still love to find anybody that knew Ronald buettner, either personally or just knew of him and his role in the company. He sounded like a really good man.

 

[Al Kossow]

You have 150 square feet of random stuff saved by an engineer.
"interesting" is a relative term

I do this for a living at CHM, you contacted us about this and we weren't
interested because in the state this stuff is now it is just mostly
ewaste.

The first thing I would do is go through all of the documentation and
see if there is some common thread to what is there. A collection of
hand-drawn schematics are not particularly useful to anyone if you
can't figure out what they are for. Nor are boxes of random printed
circuit boards

Atlantic Research was best known for their communications analyzers

 

[ChrisC607]

Why would you say that? I have done everyrhing in my power to preserve everything as it was found. Origininal containers, left everything as he had placed it. I have tried my best to protect it as best as I could. I was rushed to remove the items but I was still very careful to keep things safe and in order. Things are not in boxes, but rather the wood fruit crates as he had kept them. I have rolls of film. Customer engineering cdc 6601/4 circuit binder with engineers name on it. I have it in a storage unit to protect it from household. There was one water incident and a small amount of things got wet. Not all or half or even a third. Most is intact exactly as Ron kept it in his home. Same dust as there was when I obtained it. Maybe I misdescribed it when I messaged you guys. But I haven't even done an inventory of the items that got wet because I don't want to disturb their placement and I dont feel qualified to preserve provenance completely. I saved the items from the trash. It's hard for me to truly give a proper impression because I really dont know what I am talking about. I would rather leave it as is until I am able to find the right qualified person to go through it with.
Any suggestions or questions I am open to.

 

[Al Kossow]

Why would you say that?

Because I deal with triaging estate collections like this for a living?

I would rather leave it as is until I am able to find the right qualified person to go through it with.
Any suggestions or questions I am open to.

Good luck with your search then for someone with enough experience to know what is junk and what is worth preserving...

 

[Coalshork]

I have a large collection of items from the home workshop of a Control Data Corporation engineer. Ron Buettner was his name. I would love to find anyone that may have known him. I also desperately need help identifying the items. I have a huge collection of interesting items. If anyone would be willing to help me out, i would greatly appreciate it.

Hey! I'm from Minnesota and have a few friends in the scene. I'd be happy to go down and bring someone else with so we could get stuff sorted. My preferred contact is via discord, if you want to chat there my tag is @coalshark. Awaiting your response eagerly.