7 May
2005
7 May
'05
6:33 p.m.
I have an unknown hex-height board which was included in a
miscellaneous lot of PDP-8A boards I recently purchased. But there
is no manufacturer's info except what looks like "K-3VO" in the
lower left corner, where there is a strange looking clamp-on
connector. Nothing is engraved on the metal "handles". There is a
Mostek 3880 (Z80 CPU) at the upper right, too. Date codes on all
the chips are '82 - '83.
Here is a link to a picture of it:
http://img2.imageweb.info/img2/6gj14927.jpg
and a closeup:
http://img2.imageweb.info/img2/aqw15714.jpg
Anyone know what this board is?
thanks
Charles
7 May
7 May
8:03 p.m.
Charles wrote:
But there
is no manufacturer's info except what looks like "K-3VO" in the
lower left corner,
That doesn't tell you anything about the manufacturer of the product.
It just indicates the flame-resistance of the PCB material, or some
such thing.
I don't even have a SWAG as to what that card is. I'm a little dubious
about it belonging in a PDP-8/a, but I suppose anything is possible.
Eric
8 May
8 May
8:10 a.m.
On 5/7/05, Eric Smith <eric at brouhaha.com> wrote:
Charles wrote:
Well... given that there are no connections whatsoever on the front to
the signals on the 'F' finger, and only a few (power and ground) on
'E', that resembles a hex-height OMNBUS layout. The fact that the
off-board connectors are by the 'F' finger is also suggestive of a
PDP-8/a OMNIBUS (Unibus cards would have a Unibus connector there; the
PDP-8/a chassis has a hole out the back, and no backplane connectors
on 'F')
The presence of the 2114s and 2016s (SRAM) plus the individual gold
coax connectors suggests to me that this is a frame buffer. Perhaps
you could hook an o-scope to one or two of the leads and apply
voltages to the board and see if it pumps out anything that resembles
sync signals.
Never seen this board before; I'll be curious to hear what you find.
-ethan
But there
is no manufacturer's info except what looks like "K-3VO" in the
lower left corner,
I don't even have a SWAG as to what that card is. I'm a little dubious
about it belonging in a PDP-8/a, but I suppose anything is possible. 
1:20 p.m.
I don't even have a SWAG as to what that card is.
I'm a little dubious
about it belonging in a PDP-8/a, but I suppose anything is possible.
Well, IIRC, there was some kind of connector/clamp just above the 'F'
edge connector fingers. If the board was put in the normal 8/a box,
there'd be access to that connector through that hole where you connect
the console cable, etc.
So it might well be for an 8/a
-tony
4:37 a.m.
Well, I cannot tell exactly what it is, but there are lots of clues:
Not Qbus, it's a hex board. Well, I have actually seen some custom
backplanes that are six wide and use qbus cards, but that is pretty rare.
Very few external connectors that I can see. Probably not disk/tape.
At least three types of memory, although I cannot read the numbers. It
looks like a bank of 8 dynamic memory chips, then three static ram and
finally an EPROM. I'll bet on the top edge is the Z80, but the I/O chip
next to it (if that is what it is) would give some more clues.
It would be good to see if the crystal is divided for various baud
rates, and if the connector on top has 8 bits or is serial. the missing
chip on the upper left might be serial i/o. best guess, some sort of
intelligent slave serial communications I/O processor.
But it's just a guess.
Joe Heck
Charles wrote:
I have an unknown hex-height board which was included
in a
miscellaneous lot of PDP-8A boards I recently purchased. But there
is no manufacturer's info except what looks like "K-3VO" in the
lower left corner, where there is a strange looking clamp-on
connector. Nothing is engraved on the metal "handles". There is a
Mostek 3880 (Z80 CPU) at the upper right, too. Date codes on all
the chips are '82 - '83.
Here is a link to a picture of it:
http://img2.imageweb.info/img2/6gj14927.jpg
and a closeup:
http://img2.imageweb.info/img2/aqw15714.jpg
Anyone know what this board is?
thanks
Charles
7169
days inactive
7169
days old
4 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
-
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
charlesmorris＠direcway.com -
eric＠brouhaha.com -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
trash3＠splab.cas.neu.edu