PC Board Identification

God I used to love working with the engineers when I was a kid at my dad’s employment location. I wanted to actually be a plotter when I was a kid. Like be the printer.

Anyway.

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Apprehensive-Page899@reddit

Based on the 29030 and the JRL silkscreen, I'm guessing a printer control board. Either an internal board for a postscript printer or a RIP

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For clarity, "PC" also means "printed circuit" (as in PCB = printed circuit board). So there's nothing wrong with asking "what PC (i.e. printed circuit) board is this?". However, folks are accurate that it doesn't look anything like a PC (as in Personal Computer) board.

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festivus4restof@reddit

Printed Circuit Board has its OWN acronym. PCB.

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bio4m@reddit

Its not from a PC.

Its some kind of industrial board

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i_design_computers@reddit

PC Board is short for Printed Circuit Board not Personal Computer. This is definitely a PCB.

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festivus4restof@reddit

Ummmm NO.

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RFC793@reddit

PCB is short for Printed Circuit Board. A PC Board is a board for a Personal Computer.

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WingedGundark@reddit

It has nothing to do with PCs, it is from some industrial/embedded application. AMD chip is a 32-bit RISC microcontroller/cpu and it has few Altera CPLDs.

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i_design_computers@reddit

PC Board is short for Printed Circuit Board not Personal Computer. This is definitely a PCB.

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WingedGundark@reddit

Why shorten partly, and not like you also did and is the usual way: PCB?

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songoffall@reddit

This is not a PC board. Likely some industrial automation device. Lots of CLPDs and an AMD RISC processor.

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RepresentativeCut486@reddit

FPGAs Chipset, as hardcore custom as it gets.

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hougaard@reddit

First thing to do is to dump the ROMs, which will probably answer most questions.

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Educational_Bee_6245@reddit

Dosen't like a PC Board. It's probably for some specialized embedded system, considering all those Altera chips which are probably FPGAs. Also AM29030 is not a PC Processor but a RISC Processor.

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i_design_computers@reddit

PC Board is short for Printed Circuit Board not Personal Computer. This is definitely a PCB.

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24megabits@reddit

I have seen people refer to PCBs as "PC boards" in the past, but replying to three different comments with the exact same thing isn't going to make people more likely to listen to you.

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WingedGundark@reddit

Those Altera chips definitely aren’t FPGAs, but CPLDs. Programmable yes, but much simpler compared to FPGAs. They are used as replacement for glue logic or asic chips, but they can’t be used as microcontrollers or cpus.

You can often find several CPLDs on these boards, unlike FPGAs.

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Educational_Bee_6245@reddit

Yes, was too lazy to look those chips up.

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molniya@reddit

It looks like this is a RIP (raster image processor) for a high-end electrostatic plotter or printer, and not a PC at all. First off, as you noted, the CPU is an Am29000, used in embedded systems but not related to or compatible with x86. If you look at the connector labels, there’s a floppy interface, but also a “Greensheet I/F” which was for connecting to Versatec-compatible plotters etc., and a “bi-tronics” interface that sounds like a bidirectional parallel interface from a similar niche. Lots of Altera CPLDs that are consistent with custom hardware interfaces, too. So this would have been the printer side that a computer would have sent a PostScript print job to; it would render the PostScript to a raster image and sent that to the actual printing device. Where did you find this thing?

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rakownz@reddit (OP)

Thanks for all the info this was at an estate sale in southern PA near Shrewsbury I bought a whole box of boards and PC parts and the previous owner had lots of old software and computer programming books as well.

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neighborofbrak@reddit

Hello there from Spring Grove.

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rakownz@reddit (OP)

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions and information I will list it on eBay as I really don't want to tear this up if it is indeed a rare item that someone would love to have or tinker with.

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Laser_Krypton7000@reddit

Sell it on ebay

I found the following:

"likely pertains to the manufacturer of medical, scientific, or bioelectrical impedance analyzers (specifically the BIA 103) originally based in Detroit, Michigan"

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Plaidomatic@reddit

This looks like a development board for the AMD29030 CPU. The combination of programmable devices everywhere and connectors for logic probes suggests that this is to help engineers build role-specific hardware around the 29030.

Please don’t destroy this board, it seems to be quite unique. Find a collector or museum who will take appropriate care of it.

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megor@reddit

Pcb indicates the now defunct manufacturer: JRL Systems, Inc. Graphics device controllers, graphics data translators, graphics printers, and network solutions. JRL Systems was sold to Network Technology, PLC in January 1997.

http://www.antarescapital.com/portfolio_tech.html

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rakownz@reddit (OP)

So best use for this would probably be to salvage the chips and scrap the PCB?

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rakownz@reddit (OP)

Thanks! Ya that totally makes sense it had none of the standard motherboard qualities like an input panel for power cord, mouse or keyboard.