Decisions you regret Was: Mystery IC: Allen Bradley 314B102

[Jon Elson]

On 12/16/2015 11:01 AM, Jay Jaeger wrote:
> Anywho, I was looking at a couple of 19" racks containing 
> an odd computer of some sort. Had this funny square 
> keyboard, and what looked like LINCTapes to me. Looked 
> kinda "home brew", using DEC Flip Chips. Well a couple of 
> years later I saw a photo of a LINC, and then it was "head 
> slap" time - I realized I had passed up a LINC. Could have 
> had it for $25. I fear it was probably scrapped. Sigh. 
A Classic LINC used "system building blocks", generally 
single-sided boards with an aluminum frame around the board, 
and a single-row 22-pin connector that was a separate piece, 
not a card-edge connector.
The little keyboard on the Classic LINC was made by Soroban, 
and it was indeed funny.  Each keystroke locked the 
keyboard, and when the program picked up the character from 
the buffer, the keyboard unlocked.  The delay was often 
heard, as LAP-6 spent 99% of the time refreshing the screen.

If it was real flip-chip modules with the little molded 
plastic handle, that would have been a LINC-8 or PDP-12.

Jon