TI 980B picture

From: James B. DiGriz <jbdigriz_at_dragonsweb.org>
Date: Wed Mar 20 09:49:17 2002

Ethan Dicks wrote:


> As for the TI 980B, with the exception of the very scary, undocumented,
> rack-mounted 2-square-feet of prototyping board that was cabled into
> the DMA slot, it looks very clean. I have no idea what this peripheal
> was supposed to do, and since it was stored at a high-school electronics
> shop (which is being cleaned out this year which is how I got the TI
> in the first place), it's covered in bent pins and broken wires. I also
> know there are several missing chips (they came in the bottom of the
> box - some jumper blocks with jumper resistors and a few 74181s, at least).
> I doubt I'll ever be able to discern what this homemade peripheral ever
> did, so I expect to photograph it and recycle the chips into other
> classic machines (there's some Motorola RTL chips on there! Perfect
> for my attempts to replicate a DEC W706/W707 if I ever get that far).
>
> If I can get my camera happy making closeups, I'll see about adding some
> pictures of the CPU and memory boards to the pic of the front panel.
>

You've got me curious now. A comprehensive set of shots are definitely
in order. I'm also getting a heavy vibe that you shouldn't go plundering
the board without determining what it does, who built it, and why,
first. Just a feeling that whoever built it may be wondering what became
of it and might be willing to underwrite a lot of component purchases in
order to reacquire it.

It's always a possibility with a one-off or prototype like this. Dunno
why I'm getting such a strong feeling in this case, but I am. Maybe I'm
wrong, but I wouldn't go stripping that board just yet, if it were me.

Thanks for the update and the pic.

jbdigriz
Received on Wed Mar 20 2002 - 09:49:17 GMT