• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

What is this? Post Photos of Mystery Items Here (vintage computers only)

Mystery_Keyboard_Enclosure.jpg

What keyboard does this enclosure go to?
 
I agree it's pretty close, but why the little circle for the space bar space? how would a person use the keyboard inside of the enclosure? Must have been for a custom purpose, a museum or something.
 
billdeg said:
I agree it's pretty close, but why the little circle for the space bar space? how would a person use the keyboard inside of the enclosure? Must have been for a custom purpose, a museum or something.
Click to expand...

Yes, it was definitely for a public kiosk of some type that would not require any actual touch typing but more of a "press a key to select an item" with some minor typing. Looks like it might protect the keyboard against key cap theft/damage. You would only need a single hole for the space bar, if that was the purpose. This is also appears to be home-grown or low budget as there were dedicated keyboards for kiosks that could take any abuse/spill. A long time ago, I had built a kiosk but we went with a touch screen to eliminate the keyboard and mouse altogether and had the keyboard on screen, when needed.
 
Oh good! Perfect thread for me!

Apologies to the moderators of this forum, I am new here and was unaware of this thread until just now, sorry!

OK, I have been wracking my brain and exhausting my google-fu trying to identify several "computers" from a film shot in 1985-86 in the UK.

Unknown Ops PC Terminal.jpg
The above picture is of what I believe is a small computer with a flat panel membrane keyboard. The monitor may be placed upside down, however it has displayed an illuminated colour graphic once in the film which could be seen in a glass reflection.

vlcsnap-2016-03-21-17h02m03s528.jpgOps Standing units 6.jpgOps Standing units 3.jpg
These three above pictures are of two units that I'd like to ID, the "ticketing" computers at the rear of the room to the right side (in groups of 3) and the far back mainframes. The black and white image is of the opposite side of those mainframes. It was stated that they used British Airways ticketing computers and "BOADICEA" with the covers removed.

And finally this unit, which is also pictured in the image above marked as "L" and "X"
Hypersleep-Ops Unkown Unit.jpg

And then there is these keyboards:
(please note the red, black, white "laptop" keyboard has been heavily modified with new character graphics, switches and a radio shack microphone as an analogue stick)
Unknown Ops Console keyboards.jpgvlcsnap-2016-09-25-12h55m02s036.jpg

Thanks everyone!
 
How about this board? It came in a lot of other equipment and this was an odd board with a 68000 processor on it with memory. It must be dedicated for something but I just don't know. It is from 1986 judging from the ICs on it. I have a bigger picture here: http://vintagecomputer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Unknown-big.jpg


Unknown-small.jpg

EDIT: Never mind. It's an HP Laserjet Controller board. Never knew they were 68k based.
 
Last edited:
If you can guess what this is from, you can have it for P&P

IMG_20170518_200347.jpg
 
Yep, As far as i can tell that's what its from. But, now you've won the prize of paying the shipping to Canada:-)

Do you want it? if not I'll stick it in the For Sale section.
 
mR_Slug said:
Yep, As far as i can tell that's what its from. But, now you've won the prize of paying the shipping to Canada:-)

Do you want it? if not I'll stick it in the For Sale section.
Click to expand...

While I do appreciate it, it's probably not feasible to ship to Canada. Please feel free to offer it to anyone who may need it.
 
Here is an easy one. My avatar pic, what is it?
Though it is difficult to see the details due to the picture size,
the astute collector of fine old computer iron will know the name of this vintage piece.

Hint: it has a unique "identifier" name.
It also bears the names of three companies that were merging at that time. ~1977
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top