[rescue] UNIVAC looking awfully modern (ebay)

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 @ 13:14 -0700, Ron Wickersham said:

> On Fri, 20 Apr 2007, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> 
> > http://cgi.ebay.com/UNIVAC-circuit-board-scarce-and-as-new-gold-pins-more_W0QQitemZ160106706319QQihZ006QQcategoryZ74946QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
> >
> > Why does this UNIVAC board have a fairly modern surface-mount IC?
> >
> > Anyone know what this really is?
> >
> > My guess: It's a board from the bus of a stereo receiver.
> >
> > My Teac receiver has boards just like this in it.
> 
> with core memory torroids on it?    
> i think this might be a 40-bit register.
> if you look on the bottom of the board you'll see the IC is thru-hole
> with a fairly large footprint.   we had flat-pak devices that were
> serface-mount for both digital and analog parts but this certainly
> appears to be a plastic moulded device, but i'll bet it's considerably
> larger than the ones in your receiver...those two resistors are 1-watt
> size based on comparing

I guess I've just seen so much fake stuff, that I'm suspicous.

The original UNIVAC register boards were about 20 times the size of this
one, so you have to assume this is a UNIVAC shrunk by better processes
many years later.

Here's what made me doubt it:

The ad description says that the board has UNIVAC and the logo printed
all over it.  I don't see that anywhere.  It also says that the board
has Motorola and other early company names printed on it.  I don't see
them either.

Also, did Motorola ever supply parts for UNIVAC?

The torroids... I've not seen core like that. To me it looks like a
ceramic base wrapped in wire. I thought that was a noise filter?

To me, the IC pins are clearly surface mount, not through. Also, the IC
is not large, not sure why you say that. Judging by the ruler, it is
less than a quarter inch wide.  

The UNIVAC circuit boards I was able to find from the late 60s and
early 70s didn't look like this. They almost universally used card edge
connectors, and they had UNIVAC printed on them.

Anyway, it might be real... but not being able to confirm it combined
with the description and picture not matching made me look at other
things and see them as suspect too.

> with the glass-cased diodes. it's a bit hard to see things in his
> photo and with the thick conformal-coating over all the parts and
> solder. but you can see one connection from the square pad in the
> corner farthest from the plug-in connector has a separate lead that
> goes directly to the IC-like device.

Yes, hard to see... but not so hard that if the logo and brand names
were there, you couldn't see them.




-- 
shannon          | If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
                 |         -- Mark Twain