Sam Ismail wrote:
Ok, here's some of what I arrested into the
custody of my collection
yesterday.
A zero-emission Mac 512K. This is truly bizarre. Its a normal looking
Mac
512K until you look closer and notice there is a second built-in floppy
on the right-hand side, oriented vertically. The brightness knob is
missing from the front and replaced with a little square that is the same
color and texture as the rest of the case. It was moved to the back.
The power cord is not detachable like on a normal Mac but is instead
permanently attached. The external disk drive connector is gone, and so
is the slot where you can insert a security cable; its covered over.
Opening this thing is half-past a bitch and a quarter till a pain in the
ass. I finally get it open by removing all the screws on the DB-9
connectors on the back and find a totally shielded interior. The disk
drives and motherboard are encased in aluminum. The monitor has a gold
foil pasted to its entire exterior. The video cable is shielded inside a
heavy duty stranded shielding, as well as the cable going to the second
disk drive. Even the DB-9 connectors have extra shielding around them.
It was made by a company called Systematics General in Sterling,
Virginia. Anyone know anything about these?
It sounds like a tempest computer. While someone else on the listserver
probably has more to say, as I recall they were designed to be able to run
classified material with zero emmisions so the information couldn't be
tapped from outside the machine. Nice find!