Just as the vast majority of political discussions on the internet end with one person invoking the name of Hitler, when people talk computers on the internet there’s a good chance the discussion will turn into a contest to see who has been messing with computers longer.
Most people think if they went into a Radio Shack in the 1980’s and saw a computer for sale they were some sort of alpha geek. If you’ve seen these debates -or if you’ve been in one of these debates- you might like this week’s Tech Tuesday.
Today we get to separate the graybeards from the wannabes. And put 50 bucks in the graybeard’s pocket.
As I’ve gone thru my career I’ve saved a piece of technology every 4 or 5 years as sort of a milepost in our technological advancement. One day I’ll frame them or donate them to a museum or something. For example I have a 5 1/2″ 10MB hard drive that, at the time, was amazing.
This piece is a little older than that.
(Click for a closer look)
Do you know what this is? It might be worth 50 bucks to you.
I put both a tape measure and a dollar bill on it to illustrate the scale.
It’s 16″ wide and a foot deep!
More Below
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(Click for a closer look)
So here’s the deal. I spoke to Kevin and he said he’d give the first person to properly ID this hunk of computing history 50 bucks. And considering the age of this thing, if you remember it, I’ll throw in a box of dried prunes and an extra large box of Depends.
Take your best guess below. (Note: If this is drop dead simple and you know it before anyone else has even guessed, email me rather than drop it in comments. (paul at wizbangblog.com) I want it to last more than 20 minutes.)
And I’ll be pretty generous about awarding the prize.. (Hey, it’s Kevin’s money 😉 If nobody gets it exactly right but someone gets very close, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
Update: We really have a winner. The comments are still open but unless you knock my socks off with knowledge, I’m pretty much done. See my comment about 9:30ish.
64-kilobyte chip memory boards developed for Prime computers
Bill,
Wow, $36,000.00 per megabyte of RAM!
I used to sell 10MB hard drives for $700.00 at wholesale and I thought that was a lot.
Solid state disk
I agree with man:
64 KByte memory for minicomputer using 4Kx1 DRAM IC’s
E=MC squared! Omigosh, it’s an atomic bomb! (A dirty bomb, too, from the looks of it).
It’s part of a UFO that you swiped from Area 51.
PDP/11-70 memory
Breathalizer at the Kennegy compound.
I’m going to go out on a limb that I haven’t seen anyone else venture onto yet, and say that its a memory or CPU upgrade for the Apple IIe. I remember installing one of those way back in the day, so I could play even more of the coolest games ever made.
That’s “Breathalizer at the KENNEDY compound”. Me Bad.
Its a Video Card circa 1983-1989.
couldnt tell you what the hardware is…but what you said was a dollar bill looks more like a twenty to me….no wonder you conservatives have fucked up the deficit and couldnt estimate the cost of the Iraq war and almost shortchanged the Veterans Affairs budget…thank god you wont be able to touch Soc Security now…
16k of PDP-8 memory.
Cache memory card for a WANG VM
This is a SERVER!
It may be a calculator board but I can’t recall any using this board.
OK I got it’s a part for the Bull Express5800 server.
It is an EMC 1 Mb (megabit) upgrade RAM module from 1985.
We used to have boards like that on our National Semiconductor C1700 & C1800 series processors. They were used in grocery sites to run the cash registers. Looks like 1-2 Mb memory boards. Probably 1Mb. I would be surprised to find that is is from a video game machine. Pac-Man or one of the shoot-’em-up games.
Remember folks the most complete answer wins.
YES you can say “It’s a computer part” and be correct.
But if someone comes behind you and says it’s an XXXX computer part from an xyzzy computer they win. KnowwhtImean?
BTW there is a buried hint in this message.
Too tired at the moment to try to figure out the hidden meaning. But have come back a few times, strangely intriqued by Debra’s sense of humor. My guess would have been the digital display from TED KENNEDY’s bathroom scale.
Buried so deep I can’t see it unless it has to do with the 4451 xxxx computer graphic.
I’ll just reread the lesbian article and look for hidden meanings there.
Hmm, a buried hint in that message, you say? … from an xyzzy computer…
Some kind of memory card from a PDP-10 running Colossal Cave Adventure?
just to let you know, if you still look @ these…
there is a computer museum in San Diego, California that would probably love this.
I’ve visited it with my father and he claims he remembers using some of the older computers in there.
(He used to work for the IRS way back when)
Memory card from a Commodore KIM-1.
Or as they were called back then — MOS Technology.
On the other hand, it does look an awful lot like this EMC Symmetrix 240-021-906 Memory Board.
Certainly hope that isn’t it, though — seems a bit off to be offering a $50 prize to identify a $12.99 item =)
Regardless, congratulations on finding a piece of hardware that you could put up for identification and not get an answer back within just a few minutes.
Shad,
I searched eBay for EMC2 and missed that — good catch.
Good job Shad it does look exactly like the EMC Symmetrix 240-021-906 Memory Board in the ebay picture.
I dunno, Shad; these guys http://emisolutions.com/EMC.htm want $300 for one.
The connectors look like a VAX plane, IIRC, and it’s definitely memory, so my guess would be memory for a VAX. Actually, was that a VAX or the Encore Multimax that had those connectors and snaps? Memory fading… (no pun intended).
Looks like memory from an old Datapoint Display Terminal…2200 maybe.
Actually, Jeff, DEC used those connectors for almost everything. UNIBUS boards could be hex boards, as could later OMNIBUS boards of the PDP-8/a vintage (a hex board wouldn’t fit into the earlier 8/e box). I suspect that other systems used hex modules as well.
OK Shad– You are indeed the master search engine user.
Now what pray tell is a 240-021-906???
BTW The cool guys don’t call it Colossal Cave
Mamory card, for sure.
Data General Eclipse series MV9000 or earlier, perhaps?
I myself have the processor daughterboard for an MV1000 in the basement, so I know whe’re you’re coming from.
My hands-on experience goes all the way back to DEC PDP-8’s! 🙂
EMC’s mainframe compatible solid state disk subsystem, the Orion
Advanced storage subsystems developed for IBM System/38 and AS/400 computers
Somebody above must have won by now, with all the clues it looks like a memory board from an old DEC/VAX mainframe.
Colossal Cave was originally written for PDP-11
Or the cool name — “Adventure”
Well, I don’t have it in me to worry about this one anymore, but I will give some advice to anyone out there who wants to keep digging.
You should be able to identify the brand of computer this went into by studying the latches on top of the card, and by the pitch of the edge card fingers at the bottom. By the pitch, I mean the varying distances between the connector banks.
Those are mechanical features that were used back then to key the modules to specific areas of a particular system.
OK folks we have a winner.
The judging was mighty subjective… A few people scared it and the “winner” scared the hell out of it without actually killing it. But he clearly remembers those days and that was the point.
As far as who won, the sprit of this contest was to give the person who actaully remembered the thing the cash.
One person cleary knows more than the rest of the contestants.
Don’t feel bad, there were many good guesses and some that we technically correct but saying “It’s memory” ain’t enough to pry 50 bucks from my hand — even if it is Kevin’s.
I’m leaving comments open, and to extend the fun, I’m not going to tip my hand just yet. I’ll probably post tonight or tomorrow.
BTW- Shad, you get the brownie points for best use of the search engine but while you actaully produced the best info, it was clear you learned it today. I assume you understand.
that wasn’t the cool name 😉
HP 1000
Wait, don’t make a decision yet. I knew I’d seen that thing before. I was called in after business hours to solder some cracked connections on an EMC Symmetrix 240-021-906 Memory Board. Can’t believe it took me so long to remember because, y’know, I got overtime and everything.
XYZZY is taught by math teachers the world around as a mnemonic device to remember how to do cross products.
Guess I found the wrong hidden message (KWIM).
Soooo Lemme get this right…. You remember the exact part number of a board you soldered 20+ years ago….
OK let’s see… What is it from???
I think it’s the upper board of a matched pair of verticolators in the main hestifanz frameout of a Colbanda 915X.
I have to admit that I am quite shocked that this post might break 100 comments.
I’m still pondering whether thats a good thing or a bad thing.
WTF? Why does that have to be good or bad?
Why are you even shocked? It was interesting and people enjoyed it.
Why do I have this mental image of dozens of dudes all sitting in creaky computer chairs with worn-out seats, with bottles of piss stationed nearby?
::running away::
;-P