25 Jul
2013
25 Jul
'13
3:53 p.m.
Any of you old timers (or otherwise) know what these components were and
what they might have been used for? A keepsake from my wife's
grandfather's career with IBM. I'm guessing 1960s vintage, give or take.
http://imgur.com/PYJCrU0
Thanks,
Win
25 Jul
25 Jul
4:12 p.m.
Hi, Win:
I do recognize these, to a certain degree ...
Those are the little "tin cans" that IBM used, back in the early to mid
'70s, to enclose (encapsualte) their "medium scale integration" -- an
earlier generation, before the "LSI" (Large Scale Integration" chips
took over pretty much everything.
These were used in virtually all IBM products of that day, from
mainfames, to minicomputers, to control units, and even inside other
intelligent devices, like the disk drives and printers, etc., for the
"logic" on-board ...
Notice how IBM mounted them on a little card, with a little connector
... this was an FRU -- a "field replaceable unit" -- that if anything
inside any one of those "tin cans" failed, you just un-plug the whole
little card and replace the whole unit.
I have seen similar "tin cans" used in the IBM DisplayWriter, the 5100,
5110, 5120, the System/34 and System/36 models, and various IBM
System/370 equipment ... though usually on larger circuit boards
containing quite a few more "tin cans" than in this particular example.
This could also be an early form of IBM solid state memory (when IBM
replaced "core memory" with transistor-based memory), where you might
find a whole bunch of these little cards, all plugged into a larger
backplane to form a "board" holding 32K of memory, for example.
Hope that helps,
Mark S. Waterbury
On 7/25/2013 6:53 PM, Win Heagy wrote:
Any of you old timers (or otherwise) know what these components were and
what they might have been used for? A keepsake from my wife's
grandfather's career with IBM. I'm guessing 1960s vintage, give or take.
http://imgur.com/PYJCrU0
Thanks,
Win
4:53 p.m.
On 07/25/2013 04:12 PM, Mark S Waterbury wrote:
I have seen similar "tin cans" used in the IBM DisplayWriter, the 5100,
5110, 5120, the System/34 and System/36 models, and various IBM
System/370 equipment ... though usually on larger circuit boards
containing quite a few more "tin cans" than in this particular example.
The 5150 in at least some of the initial models, had boards that used
these. What comes to mind immediately is the floppy controller and some
of the early memory boards, as well as the "host connect board" of the
3270 PC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IBM_PC_Original_5.25_Diskette_Drive_Adapt…
http://www.seasip.info/VintagePC/Images/hostconnect.jpg
So used into the mid-1980s at least.
--Chuck
5:52 p.m.
On 7/25/2013 4:53 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 07/25/2013 04:12 PM, Mark S Waterbury wrote:
I'm sure there are IBM people here who might have seen it, but I saw a
presentation on the design automation system IBM used internally, and
it would have been hard to turn out any board designed by IBM and made
to that standard that didn't have the characteristic grid pattern and
these cans for quite some time. They had a system I saw I'm thinking in
the early 70's @ McAuto, but the same sort of technology was used thru
as Chuck says for a long time in almost everything. At least the
Systems group would have used it.
I'd not be surprised if anything not using it would be a contract part.
I recall hearing that the fact that the terminal group made the IBM PC
product off the System's groups radar was a reason you didn't see a lot
of it in the PC hardware. They had their own methods there, and used
that method less.
jim
I have seen similar "tin cans" used in the IBM DisplayWriter, the 5100,
5110, 5120, the System/34 and System/36 models, and various IBM
System/370 equipment ... though usually on larger circuit boards
containing quite a few more "tin cans" than in this particular example.
The 5150 in at least some of the initial models, had boards that used
these. What comes to mind immediately is the floppy controller and
some of the early memory boards, as well as the "host connect board"
of the 3270 PC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IBM_PC_Original_5.25_Diskette_Drive_Adapt…
http://www.seasip.info/VintagePC/Images/hostconnect.jpg
So used into the mid-1980s at least.
--Chuck
26 Jul
26 Jul
3:03 p.m.
Those are the little "tin cans" that IBM
used, back in the early to mid
'70s, to enclose (encapsualte) their "medium scale integration" -- an
earlier generation, before the "LSI" (Large Scale Integration" chips
took over pretty much everything.
These were used in virtually all IBM products of that day, from
mainfames, to minicomputers, to control units, and even inside other
intelligent devices, like the disk drives and printers, etc., for the
"logic" on-board ...
As an aside, IIRC the sense amplifier circuit in the original PC and
PC/XT keybaord used one of those metal-can ICs.
-tony
25 Jul
25 Jul
4:16 p.m.
On 25/07/2013 23:53, Win Heagy wrote:
Any of you old timers (or otherwise) know what these
components were and
what they might have been used for? A keepsake from my wife's
grandfather's career with IBM. I'm guessing 1960s vintage, give or take.
http://imgur.com/PYJCrU0
Thanks,
Win
Pretty sure they are S/360 "flip chip" cards.
http://www.vintagecomputer.net/ibm/360/
--
Dave Wade G4UGM
Illegitimi Non Carborundum
4:18 p.m.
Hi, again, Win:
Notice also the magnified circuit at the top of the circle? That's what
it looks like, inside each "tin can" ... on the little "chips" inside
...
See:
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/endicott/endicott-chronology/196…
and on that page, about half-way down, you can read about "Solid Logic
Technology (SLT)" -- that's what IBM called this stuff ...
And on the same page, search for "SDD" and "SMD" (as seen in the
picture) -- that stands for "System Development Division" and "System
Manufacturing Division", respectively.
Hope that helps,
Mark S. Waterbury
On 7/25/2013 6:53 PM, Win Heagy wrote:
Any of you old timers (or otherwise) know what these components were and
what they might have been used for? A keepsake from my wife's
grandfather's career with IBM. I'm guessing 1960s vintage, give or take.
http://imgur.com/PYJCrU0
Thanks,
Win
4:19 p.m.
These are Solid Logic Technology packages. They were introduced by IBM in
the mid-1960s. The insides, as seen in the top of your image, are small
silicon dies (diodes and transistors alike) mounted upside-down on a
ceramic substrate. This was one of the first big advances in hybrid package
design, and a lot of the techniques used nowadays in hybrid packages
evolved from research at IBM regarding SLT.
As for what the actual devices are, your guess is as good as mine.
Kyle
On Thu, Jul 25, 2013 at 5:53 PM, Win Heagy <wheagy at gmail.com> wrote:
Any of you old timers (or otherwise) know what these
components were and
what they might have been used for? A keepsake from my wife's
grandfather's career with IBM. I'm guessing 1960s vintage, give or take.
http://imgur.com/PYJCrU0
Thanks,
Win
8:16 p.m.
Any of you old timers (or otherwise) know what these
components were and
what they might have been used for? A keepsake from my wife's
grandfather's career with IBM. I'm guessing 1960s vintage, give or take.
There should be numbers printed on the big black (or very dark green)
hunk of plastic that enclose the contacts of the cards. Can you read
them?
--
Will
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