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

falter said:
Seen this thing in my feed for a while. Thought it was maybe parts of a terminal? I tried looking it but nothing. Seller doesn't respond to inquiries. Not looking to buy as it looks rough, but curious as it looks like it has a 100 pin slot. Can't see a CPU. Maybe under the ribbon or maybe on a card that plugged into the slot.
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First thing I noticed is that slot looks wrecked. Second thing is it has a TMS-9918, dated 8136. That isn't the kind of chip you expect to find on something with a S-100 slot. There's also an 82S100 dated 8217.
Other notable chips are AM9517 DMA Controller, AM9513 System Timing Controller, NEC D765C floppy controller. The nearby floppy connector (looks like 50 pin) is also a bit wrecked. And yeah, no view of the CPU, probably under that ribbon cable.

It's just a weird mix. It would be interesting to see what's on those EPROMs, but it's definitely not worth five hundred US dollars. You don't get that kind of money by simply tossing the word "vintage" around.
 
Given that there probably exists no software for this thing and the number of "distressed" components, I'd pass on this unless the seller can come up with software and documents. We assume that it's going to be an x80 CPU board, but that's not visible. That TMS9918 is a video display processor, with fairly coarse resolution (256x192) meant for TV display. It's also not a lead-pipe cinch that the connector is, in fact S100.

This was nothing like anything that Molecular ever produced.
 
I stumbled upon the following mystery 40-pin CPU. The marking says CT429I, manufactured by Signetics. However, I cannot find reference to this chip in any of the Signetics documentation. The I-suffix indicates ceramic packaging, so I'm really looking for references to the CT429 CPU.
An internet-search turned up a post claiming that the CT429 is actually a Signetics 2650 microprocessor. This may wel be right. Why the different marking then? What are the differences, if any? Anyone?
6591554632dabe64.jpeg
 
syzygy said:
It is referenced as a 2650 here https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/2650/Signetics-2650AI.html#pictures
Lightening the pic..

View attachment 1269893

...you can see the CT429I as in yours. Yours has a stamped 'A' on the ceramic, rather than the B in the label - although the label above has the 2650AI...early version?
Also see https://www.budgetronics.eu/en/ics/...tics-cpu-8-bit-wit-keramisch/a-21293-10000143.
Hope it helps,.
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Yes, I believe you are right. Funny that all CPUs marked CT429I also carry the 2650 label except mine. And the label is printed in 'landscape' orientation, not 'portrait' as usual. Mystery case solved.
 
Anyone recognize these QBUS cards from this lot listing on eBay? Pictures are not all that great.

s-l1600.jpg

s-l1600-2.jpg

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Top row, dunno
Middle row, Ram?, dunno, early SGI framebuffer, intelligent 4 port serial?
Bottom row, 386sx motherboard, 4 drive MFM controller, ISA MFM controller
 
Google images helped a bit.

Middle Row, 2nd from left is an PDP DEC LSI-11 with the processor chips removed.
Top row far right is a floppy controller.
Top row 2nd left is a National Semiconductor NS23M QBUS memory card.
 
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twolazy said:
Ive seen one of these in person year and years ago when I used to install servers. If i recall correctly its the SMP configuration card for a multicpu 486 Altos server.
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I know I'm replying to a post from 10 months ago, but if you have any more information about multicpu 486s, please share it somewhere. I know such things existed because many old-timers recall using/installing them, but finding concreate information is practically impossible. Way back in the days of 2cpu.com finding a dual 486 was like the holy grail!
 
The SGI parts are a ZB3 Z-buffer option and a BP1 24-bit bitplane expansion for a Personal Iris series machine with GR 1.x graphics.
 
Hey, I finally got something to post here! Had this card for probably 2 decades, just found it in a box:

3ELwDyV.jpg


qwVbGn4.jpg


Put a flash card in the frame for size reference. Its as wide as a PCMCIA card but isn't one. I've no clue what this thing is for.
 
Searching "op4104001/3.3" brings up references to NEC Versa 486 laptop and some service manual diagrams which suggest it could take a card like this.
 
These were also used in some laser printers back in the day to extent memory.

I have a few of these cards as well. One bad thing is that they exist as 16-bit and 32-bit and there is no way to tell the difference from the card itself.
 
Hak Foo said:
Searching "op4104001/3.3" brings up references to NEC Versa 486 laptop and some service manual diagrams which suggest it could take a card like this.
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Did a quick ebay search for "NEC Versa 486 laptop" and saw pictures of a few with near identical cards in a special slot. So that solves this mystery.

Weird to think of a time when 4 megs of RAM was so expensive selling it in an expansion like this made sense.
 
I have no photos so I'm being highly illegal in this thread, but here I go anyway:

Around 1996 we saw an item at a car boot sale in Denmark. What we remember is that it had (fake) wood grain and a Sega logo on it. It might have been a cassette drive, but I'm not sure.

Is there any obscure Sega hardware with wood grain? If not, it might have been something else with a nice Sega sticker on it. So, level 2: is there any datasette drive with fake wood grain?

My final guess is that it might have been an Atari 2600 with a Sega sticker. Sega did release some 2600 games after all.

We've been wondering all these years what it was. No, we did not buy it.
 
I don't know what I was googling before, but now I found the Sega SR-1000 data recorder for their 3000 computer. That is a very likely candidate (and we should have bought it!). Does't explain the wood grain though. Home mod?
 
Nicolas 2000 said:
Home mod?
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This.

Adding woodgrain to things that do not have woodgrain is a time-honored mode. Especially if its something that dated to the 80s. Someone could easily have bought it, thought "this doesn't go with my wall unit, TV, a VHS drawers. Best slap some woodgrain on it".
 
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