Source of Vintage CPUs: Vintage Burglar Alarms

From: Patrick Rigney <patrick_at_evocative.com>
Date: Mon Apr 21 12:09:00 2003

Over the weekend I dissected two commercial alarm panels people had saved
for me. While I was grateful for the thought, I didn't give my donors much
credit for being discriminating. Boy was I wrong.

When I opened the first panel, the board inside had a 6805 sitting smack in
the middle of it. It also yielded a 2716, a 2764, a 6821, and a pair of
6116 static RAMs, along with numerous other Motorola-branded support chips
and passives. I thought that was a pretty cool find, especially considering
my short-sighted view of its potential.

Panel #2, however, seems to have been the real gem. The large board within
didn't look that interesting, just the usual myriad passives, and the panel
was clearly very old (looked 20 years or more). It had a daughter board
about six inches square and fully enclosed in shielding, hiding its
contents. I removed the board, stripped it of its shielding, and found...
an RCA CDP1806, two 1852s, an RCA-branded 6116, and three other support
chips. The label on the 27128 EPROM on the board says "(C) 1984".

Simple stuff, but I was jazzed. Classic computers are
everywhere... --Patrick
Received on Mon Apr 21 2003 - 12:09:00 BST