What to do with this card?
Posted by Ilikestuffandthingz@reddit | vintagecomputing | View on Reddit | 23 comments
I run across these upon occasion, what looks like one of those pc on a card jobs. Should I just harvest the chips / memory? There’s a few FPGAs under the stickers (Altera). Are they (or any other chip) worth anything? I feel it’s too niche to sell on eBay in a reasonable timeframe and I don’t currently have a way to test.
eBay ad is not mine.
istarian@reddit
Well it's a 68000 system on an ISA card
Vinylmaster3000@reddit
Huh, so that's what explains the FPGA part
Academic-Airline9200@reddit
Looks like it goes in an amiga.
Baselet@reddit
Uhh.. why do you think that?
Academic-Airline9200@reddit
Memory slots on the board is common on the Amiga. They had memory expansion slots on the scsi controllers. Some of the components look like something Amiga would do.
rpocc@reddit
It’s common for any SIMM slots on expansion boards since pitch between adjacent boards is too short to put straight slots. These are common things on AWE32 boards, Tekram and similar SCSI caching controllers, later videocards have right-angle SODIMM slots, etc.
Academic-Airline9200@reddit
I remember some really old IBM xt boards. Either you inserted a whole bunch of IC size chips or an expansion board but if I recall those weren't slanted. Later stuff implemented the slanted memory chips and slots.
rpocc@reddit
Some of older boards had those to let memory sit behind long expansion boards.
Baselet@reddit
Lots of cards for lots of platforms needed memory and used simms. Amiga cards would fir zorro slots and that connector edge is not zorro.
uid_0@reddit
I did a bit of Googling and it looks like you have a Waters BusLACE interface board for a chromatograph. This page has a description of it: https://www.chromatographyparts.com/product/waters-hplc-bus-lac-e-isa-interface-card/
Waters is still in business and has it listed in some of their support articles. https://www.waters.com/nextgen/us/en.html
Ilikestuffandthingz@reddit (OP)
Wow thanks for the sleuthing! I did know it was part of a chromatograph but could not find much detail.
rpocc@reddit
Partswise, Motorola 68K and helper chips could be valuable for making some clone of Apple, Amiga or similar things. SIMM slots are direct replacements for AWE32 cards, SIMMs are applicable for 286 machines, DIP switches are nice for general DIY, but in your part of the world you can obtain all of that NOS for pennies. You can try peel the sticker from CPLD and check if it’s GAL. In this case it can be reprogrammed if extracted from the board correctly. (Basically the same for all chips).
PLCC68 sockets are OK for repairing dumpster 286 boards with knocked-off parts. UV-erasable EPROM is also a good item but honestly, until you just put that under IR rework station, effort to extract all of that vs price for new/tested/stocked parts is very questionable. Maybe it’s better to try to sell it as it is until you actually need some of its parts.
NightmareJoker2@reddit
Just put it on eBay, check all the present listings and set your price at ~$10 less than the lowest “Buy it Now” offer. Make sure to tick the option, “buyer must pay immediately to purchase” to inhibit the trolls who will buy your item to get it delisted and the item number invalidated so they can sell theirs at a higher price, but then not pay and ask to cancel the purchase. Use the option of paying a percentage of the list price so eBay promotes your listing. Check back regularly to make sure you are always the one with the lowest price. Then just wait. Do not expect it to sell quickly unless you want to sell it for half of what everyone else is selling them for. It is good if you can verify it works and offer that guarantee to a would be buyer. If you expect to be paid a normal wage for the time invested in creating the listing and then some, stop trying. List more things, be the cheapest option and expect to wait a month, unless you know there’s a demand for it at a certain price range. Some things sell more quickly than others, because people have saved searches for them and eBay notifies them of new listings. Some things people just “watch” because they want it, but can’t afford it right now, too. If it isn’t something a hobbyist can use, sales prospects turn out very low. And the hobbyists will only pay the price of the parts they are interested in for the whole entire thing, too. Which in this case might be the Z80 and the memory modules. Possibly the FPGAs and CPLDs if they can be reprogrammed. Check what those sell for and if you list it for that price it will probably go fast. Though, be wary of the prices from sellers in China. They are your competition for all those who’d rather wait three weeks than pay $2 more.
-IGadget-@reddit
GPIB was fairly common in the industrial, scientific, and higher education communities. It is still in use on the backs of HP and Textronics test equipment. If Walters is still in business you might be able to find something from the internet archive on the card.
Trey_An7722@reddit
It seems to be some kind of "UniX workstation on a PC" card thing.
I doubbgt that it would be especially interesting as it is for anyone, especially without the SW.
IIWY I'd dissassemble it and make something out of the parts.
CPLDs might be reprogrammable, MC68000 makes for interesting DIY projects etc etc.
SenorPeterz@reddit
"SW"?
crc_73@reddit
software
SenorPeterz@reddit
What sort of hurry does one have to be in, in order to use an acronym for software? Baffling.
istarian@reddit
It's not new, that's been around for a long time.
Prior to the MacOS branding, Apple called their operating system for the Macintosh 'System N' where N was a positive integer. And they sometimes would use 'SSW 7.1' instead of 'System 7.1'.
crc_73@reddit
You might have some people seeking these out, as they might have older equipment that has been validated for particular procedures, and they might like to have a stock of parts if their system begins to fail, particularly if they are in pharma.
computix@reddit
It's a GPIB instrumentation interface card. Looks like it was used in lab/medical equipment. GPIB is a relatively common interface standard for lab equipment.
Most likely this card was used with specialized software that collected data samples to the 4 MB onboard memory for analysis. Waters still makes a system they call LAC/E, Laboratory Acquisition Control Environment.
earthforce_1@reddit
Well, if it's described as non working, then parts it is.
Ilikestuffandthingz@reddit (OP)
To be more clear, the first picture is the one I have. The second picture is not mine but describes what it is and gives an idea of what at least one person is asking for it.