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What is this? Post Photos of Mystery Items Here (vintage computers only)

ISA Communication card with a TI DSP chip TMS320C30GEL

ISA Communication card with a TI DSP chip TMS320C30GEL

I originally posted this on VOGONS in March 2018, when I bought a job lot of three interface cards from an eBayer, who sells electronic testing equipment, but could not identify them. Two of the cards have been identified, but I still have this mystery ISA communication card with a TI DSP chip TMS320C30GEL that is yet to be identified.

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I am new to this forum, but I had been on VOGONS for a while, so I am wondering if anyone here could identify this card?
 
The TI chip is a floating point DSP. The IDT7024 is a 4Kx16 high speed dual-ported static RAM. The Altera chip is probably a CPLD for the ISA bus interface. On the connector side, you have optical fiber (probably 650 nm) transmitter and receiver modules.

My guess is that this is an OPM (Optical Performance Monitoring) card. At least that's my guess.
 
Thank You Tom for replying... this is one of the only things i have of my fathers (an engineer that worked for military) ... appreciate the info!!
 
Just picked this up for a lot less than the asking. No interior photos available as it was already packed. I googled and googled and could only find a single obscure reference to a 'System 9710' being offered in March 1978 or so. I hedged based on being only somewhat confident it was a computer. Hope I was right.

The seller referred to it as a "Micro Devices EP-1 System 9710". Anyone heard of it?

Auction link here.
 
I'm not sure that it's a computer at all. It looks a bit small and has nothing but an edge connector; not even so much as a "reset" button. It'll be interesting to see if it's anything more than a power supply.
 
It’s in a box marked SASI-HDC.

94511ECF-544D-434D-82B7-EF58571C2F1A.jpeg

Googling SASI suggests it was a predecessor for SCSI. What would this card be for?
 
Looks like a ST-506 to sasi board. I think I used to have one, but I don't remember out of what.. Might have been a eagle computer?

edit.. (I should refresh my browser before answering.. I left this one open for awhile..)
 
Last edited:
jafir said:
It’s in a box marked SASI-HDC.

View attachment 65947

Googling SASI suggests it was a predecessor for SCSI. What would this card be for?
Click to expand...

SASI is basically SCSI before it was formally standardized. I used to use one of these with my Atari ST to connect an old 60Mb MFM drive to the Atari.

I believe that the original concept of SCSI was that you would have controller boards like this on the SCSI bus managing multiple drives. Usually this type of board could control two MFM drives which is why SCSI has LUNs.
 
SCSI is supposed to be a "universal" bus, where more than one controller as well as devices can share the bus. In addition, there are some devices that can talk to other devices (mostly found in SCSI tape drives) without the intervention of the controller. The ideal is that as long as devices conform to the SCSI spec, specialized drivers aren't necessary. For example, most SCSI tape drives can be driven with the same basic command set. Similarly, tape auto-feed robots can be anything from a 4 tape QIC cartridge feed to one of those tape library robots that roam racks of tapes picking and sticking.

Although few consumer-level SCSI controllers support it natively, there is a define protocol for controller-to-controller communication.

It's also encapsulated in much of the current USB technology, such that, if I have a USB mass-storage device (MSC), it has to support the SCSI command set usually used for disks, even though the "disk" may be nothing more than a SD card stuck in a cheap USB reader. Same for ATAPI devices--it's basically packetized SCSI communicated via an ATA command.
 
I've also got a couple of SMS RLL-to-Mac SCSI boards. At one time, there was a substantial price premium on SCSI over ST506-interface drives, so it made sense to have a "go-between" board to interface cheaper ST506 drives to Mac. I used one of those boards with a separate board of "glue" to make the transition between SCSI and ACSI on an Atari ST. Worked fine. I've also got an Ampex SASI-interface board (full length ISA) that interfaced to a hard disk+tape box.
 
Very interesting. Thanks to everyone that answered.

Well I doubt I’ll ever own anything that needs this so I’m going to pass it along to someone that expressed interest in it.
 
Got to this thread after searching for ultra 160 scsi hard drive, actually I was searching for sata hdd and just stumbled upon a category of ultra 160 scsi hdd here. I haven't head about this before, are they still used, the storage doesn't seem to be high as compared to what i have seen in the sata hdd.
 
Ultra 160 or ultra 320 is usually server stuff, with SCA to allow for easier hot swapping. Are they still used? Sure, but not by anything current. There are lots of legacy servers out there in production. Most companies switched to SAS or SATA over 10 years ago. For example 8th gen Dell poweredge (2850, etc) had SCA scsi. 9th gen (2950, etc) had SAS/SATA.
 
TJ_Mossman said:
I was looking at some Urbexing forums and came across this system, which I presume is a typesetter.

View attachment 67150
https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threa...haslam-print-works-chorley-march-2021.127735/

Anyone know what it might be?
The building is due to be demolished, so if anyone wants it the clock is ticking.
I don't have room for it but would pull the Shugart 800s if no one takes it...
Click to expand...

Looks interesting. Lots of cards and a terminal, but could be most anything...
 
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