Italy: The remains of a Bontempi factory contains 1/2" (9-track?) computer tape and various odd hardware

[MiaM]

I don't know where to really post this, as I don't know what machines they are for.

I just watched this video by "Look mum no computer", where they have a look at the remaining stuff at a closed down Bontempi factory. Sorry but I didn't notice where in the video they found computer tapes, but there seemed to be a whole bunch of computer tapes. Also I think there is a box of 8" floppies. At some point in the video they mention that they will hold some sort of flea market in October.

Early in the video they show a prototype board with two ZIF sockets where one seems to hold a MOSTEK 3870 with it's socket on top having a standard EPROM. (I think that the 3870 was the only chip ever that looked like that).
Also there seems to be various electronics stuff that might be somewhat useful for scavenging parts from. I didn't see something particularity interesting and/or valuable, but if I were local I would probably pick up some of that if the prices are low enough.

 

[daver2]

>>> I think that the 3870 was the only chip ever that looked like that

A few suppliers had chips like this.

I know the Zilog Z8 did...





Dave

 

[Bruce Tomlin]

There's also some 8051 variants that do that. The purpose of such chips is to allow external code while still using all the pins for their original microcontroller purposes. I actually have an 8051 in-circuit emulator which uses one inside, with a ribbon cable to connect it to RAM.

 

[MiaM]

Cool! But the EPROM placement seems to differ a bit (about two pins inwards away from the edge of the larger chip), and also the 3870 have round pins without any carrier. I might misremember what I saw in the video.

Btw, I haven't got any personal interest in the old big tapes, but I'm considering sending a mail and asking if they have any higher resolution photos/video of the brief section where they look at the tapes, and/or if they could ask the guy having the place to take a few photos of them (and also the 8" diskettes), in order to be able to alert other enthusiasts about their existence.
It's likely proprietary stuff on them, and they might also not be keen on sharing the content. But there could be some lost version of an OS for some obscure mini/mainframe, and there could also be technical stuff like microcontroller source code and/or cad drawings for the instruments they created.
(The companion video by the channel Hainbach talks about the history of Bontempi. Most of us in Europe probably just know the name from cheap toy instruments and boring stuff like organs that's powered by a fan and such, but they made cooler stuff and they were also an OEM for various other brands. Farfisa logos can be seen in the video I shared but IIRC they sad that they also made OEM stuff for Yamaha and whatnot.

 

[daver2]

Is this a better match?



The lower 24 pins are for the EPROM. The upper pins are for links to configure the device to emulate different variants of CPU within the family.

Dave

 

[MiaM]

I think that is the one.

 

[Rene_bdm]

Hi Daver2, MiaM. For sure the TMS7000 series, the 7742 had an Eprom version with 2732 Pinout above the ceramic. Back in 1990 I bought a Windowed Epromn version of that TM7742, with a 2732 Eprom styel memory. Had to make a converter socket so the pins would map as a 2732. Super cool era. Love your Mostek 3870