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

[NeXT]

"Dial-an-ohm".

 

[Chuck(G)]

Looks to be part of something, however. What, we don't know.

 

[hunterjwizzard]

Well I messages the seller and he agrees its probably a decade box.

 

[MrAutomation]

I found this at the local second hand shop and it looked too interesting to pass up. It’s a slide rule to help with programming something, but I can’t figure out what that something is. It seems hand made but the amount of time that went into it is impressive.

It is named Instant Set and says on it Designed By Wall.

It’s apart into a few pieces since the glue let go but I’d like to put it back together and pass it on to someone who would appreciate it.

 

[tejones777]

I'm perplexed. But since I never give up, here's my guess....

This is obviously a tool to help manually decode/debug teletype-like serial messages for a US Army intra-departmental supply ordering system (USAIDSOS, unofficially known as "You Said Help?") tested briefly in the 1960's. It cost the taxpayers $142.8 MIL USD at the time, and was scraped and replaced by a much more complex and less robust system before it was ever fully deployed.

And since nobody here knows any better, I guess I win!!!

- Thomas "technology sleuth" Jones

(Even google was unable to help with this one.)

 

[hunterjwizzard]

If this is correct that would make it quite a rare piece of kit. Very neat.

 

[hunterjwizzard]

Also:

here's my guess....

And

This is obviously

Made me laugh.

 

[Eudimorphodon]

And since nobody here knows any better, I guess I win!!!

Bah. It’s clearly Air Force kit; it’s the manual backup to the CRM-114 Discriminator installed on all SAC bombers from the late 1950’s through the early 1970’s. I’m surprised one ever made it into the wild without being destroyed; if the Russkies had ever laid hands on this they could have used it to implement an evil communist plot to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids.

 

[MrAutomation]

And since nobody here knows any better, I guess I win!!!

Thanks guys, I’m finally getting some more info on this item.

I still have no clue what it is.

Although I am absolutely certain that it was designed and used by an employee of Aerojet Lockheed Rocketdyne when calibrating the control units of the Rocketdyne LR89 engine. Early designs of the engines included a GE designed and manufactured turbo encabulator, but for Rocketdyne the timing of the hydrocoptic marzlevanes was a problem. When the synchronization between the differential girdlespring and the ambifacient lunar waneshaft was lost there was found to be loss in thrust and an extra force put on the two main spurving bearings.

The solution was to put in a synchrodifferential controlled by a logarithmic analog shift register. The programming of this was done by encoding the pentadecimal shift timing codes in a magnetic phase-locked bearing surface. Since a phase-locked substance of this type is only programmable a single time, it was imperative to get it correct or risk having to scrap the entire assembly.

 

[Chuck(G)]

This is obviously a tool to help manually decode/debug teletype-like serial messages for a US Army intra-departmental supply ordering system (USAIDSOS, unofficially known as "You Said Help?") tested briefly in the 1960's. It cost the taxpayers $142.8 MIL USD at the time, and was scraped and replaced by a much more complex and less robust system before it was ever fully deployed.

The 8-bit/6-bit word mapping is a clue to TTY (5 and 7 level), but the "Shift Register" notation had me puzzled.

 

[lugnut2099]

Well then tell us:

What do you have hanging around now?
What are some of the coolest turn-ins you have seen?

Sheesh, I've written a response to this a dozen times, then got busy before I could post, and my drafts have all been eaten. In the sake of brevity and actually getting something posted, one of the more interesting things to me is one I'm probably about to put on the Bay today or tomorrow. I've been debating buying it myself ever since laying eyes on it, but it's just so impractical and ungainly... And the kicker is, it's probably way, way too modern for most of the folks around these parts! Ever heard of the Acer Aspire 9800 Series? It's a laptop from 2006 with a Core Duo, who cares, right? Right, except this thing happens to be sporting like a 20.5" display. It's the biggest, stupidest laptop I've ever seen by a long shot. Though while trying to research, I saw that Acer went and repeated this experiment years and years later with the Predator 21X, so I guess it's a direct predecessor of that monster in many ways and probably every bit as impractical.

PS - Is it okay to post a link to our eBay store here? There's honestly not that much up now that's especially exciting, and not necessarily a whole ton that's even vintage at the moment, but heck, you never know, and I try to post stuff every day. Also I should mention that basically all the prices you see are suggestions at best! They're all set to allow offers, and my boss seems to enjoy the back and forth for some reason. Anyway, It's here: https://www.ebay.com/str/nobleearthrecovery (And if this isn't allowed, uh... oops?)

 

[Chuck(G)]

The appropriate place to post items for sale is here: https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php#marketplace.18

You have some nice items there, in good condition. If I were in the market for something, I'd definitely visit your ePay store.

 

[mark0x01]

I think this is IBM, possibly System 3 something, but haven't found a match to confirm exactly.
The switch nuts have all been removed to disassemble it.

 

[Eudimorphodon]

I finally found something for the "What is it?" thread.

Was at the local old-weird-things electronics store today to see if they had the right size protoboard for a project (alas, no), and I spotted this in the "junk boards, as marked" box for $5. I bought it solely because of the 1793 disk controller on it, because those are running in the $12-$20 ballpark even from the Chinese chip merchants these days. What I didn't notice is the *other* big chip on it is an AMD 8088.



In addition to the 8088 it has the usual 8284 clock generator, and it also has an 8253 PIT and an 8251A UART. I don't see other "PC compatible" parts like an 8259 PIC, and it otherwise appears the CPU is set up for an embedded minimum mode application, so I'm guessing this isn't a CPU card, it's just a "smart" disk controller. But... for what? Does this look familiar to anyone? Silkscreened on it is "Copyright 1982 ONE/D", but neither that nor the "FCF088" on the top turn up any straightforward Google hits.

Unfortunately whatever ROMs it might have had are gone; it has three 2Kx8 SRAMs, that's it for memory.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Looks like a multibus CPU card. Doubtless most of the RAM resides on a different card. What does the other side of the board look like?

 

[Eudimorphodon]

Looks like a multibus CPU card. Doubtless most of the RAM resides on a different card.

Oooh. Yeah, it does look like a multibus card. Oddly it has *nothing* on the second connector, though? Looking at the pictures here that seems to be odd, anyway. There's a Matrox video card that doesn't have any?

Does Multibus use inverted bus signaling? (Like, I think for instance, the TRS-80 Model II does?) There's a 74LS240 near the bus connector, wondering if that's data...

What does the other side of the board look like?

Not really interesting, thus why I didn't take a picture. The only markings are "PWB-05-C1", which I'm guessing means it's the "B" side for "PWA-05-C1" on the front. There's also a small <NTI> makers mark.

 

[Al Kossow]

I think this is IBM, possibly System 3 something, but haven't found a match to confirm exactly.
The switch nuts have all been removed to disassemble it.

View attachment 1290656View attachment 1290658View attachment 1290657

something 9 track related. that is the order of the tracks on a tape

 

[Al Kossow]

a file-based disk controller

 

[Chuck(G)]

Does Multibus use inverted bus signaling?

Yup. Data is inverted on the bus.

 

[Chuck(G)]

something 9 track related. that is the order of the tracks on a tape

That was my thought--except it doesn't seem to be: