7 Jul
2005
7 Jul
'05
8:23 p.m.
Even where IBM cards of that era used
'commodity' components, they were
usually completely house-marked and impossible for a mere mortal to
figure out. This goes all the way down to resistor networks and
resistors/capacitors (except those few that have color-code bands.)
Yes, but it's easy to measure the value of a resistor or capacitor, and
even resistor networks can generally be figured out. HP used custom
house-coded resistor netowrks in some of their products and it didn't
stop me...
In the case of semiconductors, both HP and DEC (only transistors and
diodes AFAIK) used house-coded parts. But DEC printed the equivalents in
the printset (which is generally not too hard to find) and HP equivalents
lists have got out....
-tony