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

[GearTechWolf]

I got this "ALU 011" board from AEG. Any idea what system that belongs to?

Could dump the roms and upload them for disassembly, they might provide further clues.

 

[Timo W.]

Looks like it has a DE-9 serial port (or a small number of signals carried via a similar cable), a bank of dip switches, and some screw-down wire blocks.

Right on one of those eurocard (?) connectors there is a sticker that reads "ALU011 Controller" and "CPU, MEM, MON". Just a guess, but the latter might mean that it is supposed to monitor something else OR that it has a low-level machine code monitor on-board.

I think the empty sockets near the EPROMs are either for RAM (memory) or some sort of Flash based on pictures of similar boards.

The 'A' in ALU is likely to stand for Automation and the 'U' for Unit. No idea what the possible meanings of 'L' are.

Thanks, but I know what the card itself is/does, my question was in what system it was used in, since it has two Eurocard connectors to connect to a backplane.

Anyway, AI says it was used in SPS systems. I guess I can use it for spare parts then.

 

[Istarian]

@Timo W. So what's an 'SPS system' in this particular case?

 

[GearTechWolf]

Thanks, but I know what the card itself is/does, my question was in what system it was used in, since it has two Eurocard connectors to connect to a backplane.

Anyway, AI says it was used in SPS systems. I guess I can use it for spare parts then.

Might as well dump the ROMs for posterity when you part it out, hey?

 

[Ruud]

I got this "ALU 011" board from AEG. Any idea what system that belongs to?

Curiosity: just not clear enough, what CPU does it have?

 

[RolexTM]

@Timo W. So what's an 'SPS system' in this particular case?

SPS is a Siemens system used for automation and very widespread in industry. Remember Stuxnet where some actors where sabotaging the Iranian nuclear program? That was an SPS system.

Edit: I guess there are more vendors than Siemens, since SPS is only short for „Speicherprogrammierbare Steuerung“ which loosely translates to „Memory Programmable Control unit“ but Siemens is by far the most widespread.

 

[Zare]

As far as I recall there was an option to serve a operations overview display from some internal web server, which was poorly protected.
Management people would use this to check the plants operation from home, over the web, over plain port.
Sort of an old school web CGI script hack.

 

[RolexTM]

The Stuxnet attack was far more complicated. Complicated to a level where it’s clear that the „actor“ was likely another nation IMHO.

 

[tech58761]

Figured this thread might be as good a place to ask as any.

Is there any place producing multi-conductor ribbon-style cable to order? This is the stiffer version that is often found soldered in between boards, as these were.

Second, how long were the glass-cased axial capacitors produced? I only remember seeing these most commonly in late 1970s / early 1980s electronics.

 

[jlang]

Is there any place producing multi-conductor ribbon-style cable to order?

Second, how long were the glass-cased axial capacitors produced?

The ribbon cable is still produced and readily available. By the roll. If you want 6 inches well that's a problem...
The glass encapsulated caps were replaced by epoxy encapsulation. Look for multi layer ceramic caps. I buy them by the hundreds. They are really cheap.

 

[Istarian]

@tech58761 As noted by others, you can (could) get ribbon cable by the roll, although it mostly comes in standard widths.

So 10 conductor 20 conductor, etc should be easy to find at any large electronics distributor (e.g. Mouser, Digikey, Newark, Jameco). Odd numbers of conductors may be available for smaller sizes, especially if they are commonly used for microcontroller programming/debug.

I think the "stiffer" variant is that way because the conductord all coated in one pass/single layer rather than each having it's own insulative sheathing. It may also be a different insulator material that's used.

 

[gorgestates]

I run an estate sale company and this couple moved from San Francisco in the 80s and took this with them. I am trying to find the value or even what it is.

 

[evanretro]

Appears to be a Memorex MRX/40, a mainframe from the 70s that competed unsuccessfully with the IBM System/360. Maybe one of the previous owners helped design it?

 

[Eudimorphodon]

I run an estate sale company and this couple moved from San Francisco in the 80s and took this with them. I am trying to find the value or even what it is.

It looks like it’s a chunk of the operating console for an MRX/40 mainframe. Bitsavers link:

http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/datapro/datapro_reports_70s-90s/Memorex/70C-625-01_7206_Memorex_MRX40_50.pdf

The Memorex company had a brief and mostly unsuccessful career in the mainframe computer business, attempting to build machines directly compatible with IBM’s smaller System/360 computers. (There were a number of companies that tried this in the 1970’s, taking advantage of IBM’s policy of the time of essentially treating their operating system software as public domain.)

The wires are all cut and the rest of the computer is gone, so it’s basically a paperweight, albeit an interesting one. This is probably a case of chucking it on eBay and letting the market decide, or you could contact a computer history museum and see if they’d be interested in a donation.

 

[clueless_engineer (Brett)]

Here is a post-Soviet КР580ВМ80А (Intel 8080A) based "computer". It's not of any Soviet design I recognise in my limited experience. I have lots of photos & a dump of the ROMs on my Github here, and a video here. I've not got it to boot yet as I need to sort out the power requirements: I have -12V regulators on backorder.

The case is metal and there are no factory or manufacturer marks that I can see.

The consensus at the moment is that it's perhaps a custom controller for either some sort of CNC machine or music system.



It has 2KB of RAM (КР537РУ10, HM6516-9) and 6KB of ROM (three КС573РФ2, 2716).

The ROMs give the only hint as to what it is for: they are labelled РИТМ КЛАВ, or RHYTHM KEYBOARD.

The main chips are:

• Р580ВМ80А (Intel 8080A CPU)
• КР580ВВ51А (Intel 8251 USART)
• КР580ГФ24 (Intel 8224 clock generator/driver)
• КР580ВИ53 (Intel 8253 PIT)
• 2 x КР580ВВ55А (Intel 8255 PPI)

They used beautiful (in my eyes) КМ-type capacitors which have survived intact ... they contain platinum, palladium and/or silver so are a prime target for scrappers.

There is an СНП58-64 (like DIN 41612 2x32 but with 2.5mm pin pitch) expansion connector but it's not accessible outside of the case indicating that perhaps this was some sort of Soviet computer design repurposed.

It has a 5-pin DIN for cassette and a 9-wire, very long cable that has been cut, perhaps off something larger & more difficult to move? The cable has four wires for power and I guess five wires for communication.

It has a КРЕН5А (7805 regulator) to generate +5V on board and I think it receives ±12V from the power wire. I'm guessing it generates the -5V required for the 8080 onboard as well from the +5V and -12V rails.

Curiously it has a QWERTY layout for the Latin characters rather than the more usual JCUKEN (which matches the Cyrillic ЙЦУКЕН layout) typically used on 8080-based machines of the period.

One final curiosity: it has a three digit display which is a first for me. Beside this is a small speaker.

 

[hunterjwizzard]

I run an estate sale company and this couple moved from San Francisco in the 80s and took this with them. I am trying to find the value or even what it is.

I can't guess at the value but it is so cool looking I can imagine SOMEONE wanting it. I would love to have that. It'd make a great decoration. So cool.

 

[clueless_engineer (Brett)]

I run an estate sale company and this couple moved from San Francisco in the 80s and took this with them. I am trying to find the value or even what it is.

Definitely worth something to someone, shame that it's so bulky (greetings from Australia). Obviously it would be best if it could be mated with the corresponding computer and there might be one out there missing just this.
Otherwise it would be interesting to disassemble and re-use the parts for their retro/vintage aesthetic ... you simply can't buy a computer these days with an "Emergency Pull" knob.

 

[Eudimorphodon]

Obviously it would be best if it could be mated with the corresponding computer and there might be one out there missing just this.

It’s pretty unlikely; there’s an article on Bitsavers noting how the line crashed and burned after less than two years on the market with maaaabye a hundred units produced, that were mostly used for lease agreements. The article said they were going to offer lease-ers the opportunity to buy the hardware at fire sale prices if they would agree to getting zero support, maybe someone bit, but these machines listed at $90,000-$185,000, even if you got it at 90% off that was a lot of money in 1973 to pay for something that could be a paperweight the next day.

I’m going to guess the owner worked for the company (or knew someone who did) that saved this as memento when scrapping the lease returns.

But I guess you never know.

Otherwise it would be interesting to disassemble and re-use the parts for their retro/vintage aesthetic ... you simply can't buy a computer these days with an "Emergency Pull" knob.

Or use it as-is. It has basically the functionality of the front panel of an Altair 8800, it’d be a laugh to build a homebrew computer around it. If the OP would give it to me for shipping I’d take a crack at combining it with the weird vacuum fluorescent rack display I was given for a project like that. (But have shamefully stalled on for the time being because of “things”.)

The main challenge is it’s set up for a 16 bit computer, not 8-bit. Maybe an 8086 Altair-alike? Or a TMS9900?

 

[Ruud]

Otherwise it would be interesting to disassemble and re-use the parts for their retro/vintage aesthetic ... you simply can't buy a computer these days with an "Emergency Pull" knob.

Use another computer, RP, Arduino or PC for example to build a look-a-like that emulates the original Memorex.

 

[dorkbert]

What is this board? It's obviously a board by Franklin Computers for their Ace computers.
But its function is not apparent to me. It has no RAM, no IO connector of any sort, but it has onboard ROM.