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

Grabbed 3 of these for cheap - I *think* they're an SBC of some kind? From the lack of solder mask, style of pads and traces and writing in the upper left I'm guessing 1975-1977 vintage. Also the use of the term 'Master Board'. Google is not helping me (or rather, I am probably not helping myself with Google)

Looks to have a 40 pin socket for possible CPU, 24 pin socket for ROM, an area for RAM...
 

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Looking at the board more closely, it seems like the 40 pin socket doesn't line up with most CPUs of the day - it has that ground at pin 16.

So now I'm wondering maybe some kind of graphics board? CG = Color Graphics? Would make sense with the RAM.
 
Maybe an old school UART in a receive only configuration with only connections to the RD1 - RD7 pins, and no connections to the DB1 - DB8 pins?

AY-5-1013 UART, Page 140 (Page 141 of the PDF)
http://www.bitsavers.org/components/gi/_dataBooks/1976_GI_Data_Catalog.pdf

1976_GI_Data_Catalog_Page-140_AY-5-1013.png

Code: 
Pin  1  VCC     +5V
Pin  2  VGG     -12V
Pin  3  GND     Ground
Pin  4  /RDE    /Received Data Enable (tied to GND)
Pin  6  RD7     Receive Data Bit 7
Pin  7  RD6     Receive Data Bit 6
Pin  8  RD5     Receive Data Bit 5
Pin  9  RD4     Receive Data Bit 4
Pin 10  RD3     Receive Data Bit 3
Pin 11  RD2     Receive Data Bit 2
Pin 12  RD1     Receive Data Bit 1
Pin 16  /SWE    /Status Word Enable (tied to GND)
Pin 17  RCP     Receiver Clock
Pin 18  /RDAV   /Reset Data Available
Pin 19  DAV     Data Available
Pin 20  SI      Serial Input

Pin 34  CS      Control Strobe (tied to VCC)
Pin 35  NP      No Parity (tied to VCC)
Pin 36  TSB     Number of Stop Bits (tied to VCC)
Pin 37  NB2     Number of Bits/Character (tied to VCC)
Pin 38  NB1     Number of Bits/Character (tied to VCC)
Pin 39  EPS     Odd/Even Parity Select (tied to VCC)

Rotated and flipped to have Pin 1 in the upper left in both the top and bottom images:

MasterBoardTopAnnotated.png

MasterBoardBottomAnnotated.png
 
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falter said:
Grabbed 3 of these for cheap - I *think* they're an SBC of some kind? From the lack of solder mask, style of pads and traces and writing in the upper left I'm guessing 1975-1977 vintage. Also the use of the term 'Master Board'. Google is not helping me (or rather, I am probably not helping myself with Google)

Looks to have a 40 pin socket for possible CPU, 24 pin socket for ROM, an area for RAM...
Click to expand...

You could start a whole thread where people can try to figure out what all of the chips on the board might be. An AY-5-1013 UART seems like a pretty good guess for the 40-pin chip. My guess is that the 24-pin chip is a character generator ROM, and the memory array is 4 banks of 6 2102 1Kx1 SRAMs. A 6-bit wide memory would be enough for upper and lowercase ASCII characters. 2 banks would be enough for an 80x24 display (1920 characters). The rest of the logic would be counters for the video display scanning, and for writing received characters into the next display position, shift registers for the video output, and multiplexers for the video memory address bus. The output bits of the SRAMs could probably be traced to some of the address lines of the character generator ROM. The output bits of the character generator ROM could probably be traced to some shift register logic. The address lines of the video memory could probably be traced to some multiplexers, and the inputs to the multiplexers could probably be traced to some counters. There would be a lot of guessing involved, and some of it might be very difficult to figure out with any certainty.
 
gslick said:
You could start a whole thread where people can try to figure out what all of the chips on the board might be. An AY-5-1013 UART seems like a pretty good guess for the 40-pin chip. My guess is that the 24-pin chip is a character generator ROM, and the memory array is 4 banks of 6 2102 1Kx1 SRAMs. A 6-bit wide memory would be enough for upper and lowercase ASCII characters. 2 banks would be enough for an 80x24 display (1920 characters). The rest of the logic would be counters for the video display scanning, and for writing received characters into the next display position, shift registers for the video output, and multiplexers for the video memory address bus. The output bits of the SRAMs could probably be traced to some of the address lines of the character generator ROM. The output bits of the character generator ROM could probably be traced to some shift register logic. The address lines of the video memory could probably be traced to some multiplexers, and the inputs to the multiplexers could probably be traced to some counters. There would be a lot of guessing involved, and some of it might be very difficult to figure out with
Click to expand...
Many thanks! I wonder if this is like a TV Typewriter/terminal board?

Wish my Google fu skills were better. I'm sure there's an ad for it in an old magazine somewhere.
 
falter said:
Many thanks! I wonder if this is like a TV Typewriter/terminal board?
Click to expand...

Well, an output only half of a video display. There are only connections to the receive half of the UART. If it was a full send/receive video terminal, there must have been another board with the keyboard interface and the transmit UART.
 
Greetings. I'm hopeful some of you can help in order to identify several computers, terminals etc. They were shown in different 70s/80s European movies.
I have a good number of them so I'll share the first ones now. I'll also write down the year of the movie as a temporal reference.


1 (1985)

1985_rec.jpg


2 (1976). Looks similar to the Honeywell 58 although the built-in keyboard and some parts of the desk seem to be somehow newer)

1976_imp.jpg


3 (1977). Maybe the tape unit at the back can be a clue about these terminals)

1977_pla.jpg


4 (1975)

1975_cre.jpg


5 (1980)

1980_sup.jpg


All for now. Any help will be much appreciated!
Cheers.
 
Those three built-in units at the end are probably props. Realistically how would you work three people crammed in together like that?

Also, want to share what movies these are from?
 
hunterjwizzard said:
Those three built-in units at the end are probably props. Realistically how would you work three people crammed in together like that?
Click to expand...

They indeed could be props, although I think individually they might be based on a real machine (or even be a real machine). Fact is they are shown in a low budget sci-fi movie (see below) so there is a chance that they're just fake computers for dramatic purposes.

hunterjwizzard said:
Also, want to share what movies these are from?
Click to expand...

Sure. These group of five pics are taken from Spanish movies. There is no sign of them at the Starring the Computer site, so it'd be great if they can be identified in order to send them the info. These are the titles:

1. El recomendado (1985)
2. La petición (1976)
3. Los placeres ocultos (1977)
4. En la cresta de la ola (1975)
5. Supersonic Man (1980)
 
eswan said:
The separate keypads on the 2nd and 5th look to have the same odd diagonal layout and scroll? keys.
Click to expand...

Yes they do. And actually thanks to you, now I find out that those keypads in picture #5 are taken from the Honeywell 58 "old" version:

www.superstock.com

1960s YOUNG WOMAN OPERATING A HONEYWELL BUSINESS COMPUTER ENTERING DATA ON KEYBOARD - SuperStock

Stock image 4186-17334979: 1960s YOUNG WOMAN OPERATING A HONEYWELL BUSINESS COMPUTER ENTERING DATA ON KEYBOARD
www.superstock.com www.superstock.com

As I said before, I guess #2 is a newer version of that Honeywell computer/control panel.
 
Bsith73 said:
1 (1985)

1985_rec.jpg
Click to expand...
This sure looks like something from ICL, but I can't find an exact match.
 
hunterjwizzard said:
Those three built-in units at the end are probably props. Realistically how would you work three people crammed in together like that?
Click to expand...
You wouldn't be able to have three or even two people in front of those terminals because the one person who used them would complain to high heaven that you're taking over his expensive, limited hardware version of a Gnu screen setup. :-)

This kind of thing is also used to this day for air-gapped systems running at separate classification levels, though that's likely not the case for this since typically the terminals or PCs would be labeled to make it very clear the classification level of each system.
 
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Gary C said:
found this


Doesn't help much though :)
Click to expand...

I don't agree :). I just have found some more links thanks to that image:

(an advertisement with a "VU com I" machine by Bell Canada, 1970)

And a second one:

Au travail - Travailler pour la Ville | Archives de Lyon

www.archives-lyon.fr www.archives-lyon.fr
(at the bottom, a French picture apparently taken in 1973; the machine monitor may be different, and the label reads: "cii RISCOPE 300")

And even a third one!:

www.linkedin.com

#ordinateur #informations #lesaviezvous #informatique #innovation | CGI Finance

💡 Le saviez-vous ? 💡 CGI FINANCE : une entreprise pionnière dans l’informatique en France 💻… 👉 C’est en 1972, qu'un premier #ordinateur intègre le siège du CGI : outil qui sert d'abord à répertorier les clients, mais qui devient très vite, un incontournable pour la gestion et la consultation des...
www.linkedin.com www.linkedin.com
(also coming from France; can't tell for sure if the text mentions any specific brand)

Edit: Just wow! (about the last link)
 
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