Cifer PS502 dumb terminal: Looking for info + posting what I've got.

[Christoffer]

Hey!

I picked up an old British mid-1970's serial terminal yesturday, for about 15$.

It's made by a company called Cifer, and bears model number PS502, and a very low serial nr. in the 300's.
Besides a single image, I can't find any documentation on it. So whatever I find out, I'll post here, and if anyone has any info at all on these, I'd really appreciate it.

It doesn't work, in its current state, after 30+ years on an attic, but the digital circuit boards seem in very good shape. It had a faulty PSU, now fixed,
but there's still an issue with the CRT. Can't get a picture. It is a "real" dumb terminal; apart from some CRT driver stuff, and some RAM, all chips are either 74- or 54-series logic.
Character gen. is done in PROM's.
The keyboard unit seems to have been delivered by another British company: Alphanumeric Keyboards Ltd.
Here is a (not great) picture of the assembled unit. Switch tops fell off during transport.



And the logic boards:


I really hope someone knows this machine; there is NO info on it out there.

--Christoffer

 

[g4ugm]

The only Cipher terminals I ever came across were Z80 based. This must be real early in their life....
... so sorry I have no info either.

 

[Jaut_76]

The only Cipher terminals I ever came across were Z80 based. This must be real early in their life....
... so sorry I have no info either.

Resurrecting this old thread but I recently got myself a Cifer 2603 which is Z80 based. I have done some preliminary diagnostic and it doesn’t work and it could be pointing to the ROMs which is worrying as there is nothing and rewriting firmware for this is too much over my head.