Can anyone identify what this board is/does?

[Tony Aiuto]

On Fri, Dec 1, 2017 at 11:05 PM, Brent Hilpert via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:

> On 2017-Dec-01, at 7:12 AM, Tony Aiuto via cctalk wrote:
>
> > https://www.ebay.com/itm/263005049078
> >
> > EBay listing for a "Soviet Magnetic Ferrite Core Memory Board". It looks
> > like 20 something gigantic cores and a lot of diodes. I am guessing it is
> > some kind of ROM, but it doesn't look like a rope memory. And maybe the
> > cores are not cores at all, but some sort of inductor. I've not seen this
> > before.
>
>
> That's very funny.
> It looks to be a core rope memory that hasn't been programmed.
>

I think that is the most likely case.


>
> Other organisations might be possible, but it looks like a
> pulse-transformer type of core-rope,
> where the cores are just for ordinary induction, not switching/memory
> cores.
>
>         - the matrix of black what-look-to-be diodes would be data-wire
> isolation diodes
>
>         - the little brown 'stools' are wire routing posts
>
>         - you can see the mulit-turn sense windings (bluish) already
> present on the cores
>
>         - above the cores are the sense amplifiers or 1st stage thereof
>
>         - there is one wire through all the cores, perhaps a test wire for
> core and sense amp response
>
> Each data-wire would start at one of the solder pins in the pin matrix on
> the left, weave through the cores to encode the data,
> turn back 180, then 90 degrees around one of the stools to drop down and
> terminate at the solder pin by an isolation diode.
>
> There would be another board for decoding the address to 1-of-x and 1-of-y.
>
> I didn't count precisely but it looks like it would be 256 words of 20
> bits.
>
> That might be a date code of 6847 on a cap (or is it 6B47?), so perhaps
> earlier than the listing-stated 1981.
>
> Actually, it kind of hints at it in the description: "With out Firmware
> ROM wire (empty slots)"
>

Ah, you read the description. I just looked at the title and saw "with the
firmware". My addled brain made the leap to a external firmware, which made
no sense. "firmware ROM wire" would be a clear case for rope memory.

On Fri, Dec 1, 2017 at 11:32 PM, Charles Anthony <charles.unix.pro at gmail.com
> wrote:
>
> The last picture has "ДЗУ-5". Some googling takes us to
> https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%94%D0%97%D0%A3
>
> "DZU is a factory in Stara Zagora , a major producer of magnetic disk
> storage devices (hard drives and floppy disks) during the rise of computer
> production in Bulgaria in the 1970s and 1980s, century. Today it is part of
> VIDEOTON Holding ZRt., Hungary [1] ."
>
> The article says it was a disk drive factory, but maybe...
>
> -- Charles
>

Given the cleanliness of the board and other things the seller is offering,
my guess now is that this NOS from the DZU plant.


Thanks, everyone.