Just as the vast majority of political discussions on the internet end with one person invoking the name of Hitler, when people talk computers on the internet there’s a good chance the discussion will turn into a contest to see who has been messing with computers longer.
Most people think if they went into a Radio Shack in the 1980’s and saw a computer for sale they were some sort of alpha geek. If you’ve seen these debates -or if you’ve been in one of these debates- you might like this week’s Tech Tuesday.
Today we get to separate the graybeards from the wannabes. And put 50 bucks in the graybeard’s pocket.
As I’ve gone thru my career I’ve saved a piece of technology every 4 or 5 years as sort of a milepost in our technological advancement. One day I’ll frame them or donate them to a museum or something. For example I have a 5 1/2″ 10MB hard drive that, at the time, was amazing.
This piece is a little older than that.
(Click for a closer look)
Do you know what this is? It might be worth 50 bucks to you.
I put both a tape measure and a dollar bill on it to illustrate the scale.
It’s 16″ wide and a foot deep!
More Below
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(Click for a closer look)
So here’s the deal. I spoke to Kevin and he said he’d give the first person to properly ID this hunk of computing history 50 bucks. And considering the age of this thing, if you remember it, I’ll throw in a box of dried prunes and an extra large box of Depends.
Take your best guess below. (Note: If this is drop dead simple and you know it before anyone else has even guessed, email me rather than drop it in comments. (paul at wizbangblog.com) I want it to last more than 20 minutes.)
And I’ll be pretty generous about awarding the prize.. (Hey, it’s Kevin’s money 😉 If nobody gets it exactly right but someone gets very close, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
Update: We really have a winner. The comments are still open but unless you knock my socks off with knowledge, I’m pretty much done. See my comment about 9:30ish.
“Soooo Lemme get this right…. You remember the exact part number of a board you soldered 20+ years ago….
OK let’s see… What is it from???”
That’s easy. It was from a COMPUTER. What, you don’t believe me? While I was soldering, we ordered a double-cheeze and sausage pizza from Dominos. You can check the records at the Dominos in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
DOMINO’S??? BLEEECH!!!
The pizza was kinda just warm when it arrived, not really hot, but we didn’t complain. So you won’t find a record of of our complaint in the Domino’s archives. But you can find our order of a double-cheese and sausage pizza, circa 1982. (BTW, Ann Arbor is where Domino’s Pizza started out — their basic business model back then was to deliver hot pizza to Michigan dormitories full hungry students that were sick of cafeteria food.)
Michael,
I was in a dormitory at the University of Michigan in 1982 and having grown up in Chicago would never have allowed myself or anyone I knew to eat that undercooked bread that Domino’s tries to call pizza.
The Cottage Inn had a much better pie and every tenth pizza was free which was very important to us poor college kids.
But, I guess if you didn’t know any better, anything was better than the dorm food — in the West Quad at least.
Go Blue.
Mesablue:
Thanks for confirming at least part of my story.
XYZZY is taught by math teachers the world around as a mnemonic device to remember how to do cross products.
OK_ so what is the story behind PLUGH and PLOVER?
I can only ID it as a memory card for an older model computer, probably along the lines of a DG NOVA or another 32-bit machine. However, I feel I can safely say that thing sold for a couple grand back when it was new. I was trying to figure out how large a block of RAM that was, and I admit I’m confused by the 8X19 array. Would you mind explaining that when the winner is announced?
John,
Plugh is supposed to have been randomly generated by Crowther and plover was added by Woods and refers to the species of bird.
IBM Displaywriter? I never looked inside, so I don’t know about the “EMC-2” thingie, but the dimensions sure remind me of the CPU of my beloved old Displaywriter. Used to cost around $10,000 in 1981. Later on, when offices were selling them for $600 a piece, a friend and I stacked up her garage with them. We never used them after that, but oh, the sentimental value! That was the word processor made (in)famous by Ollie North’s secretary during her testimony in the Iran/Contra hearings. And it had a “toaster” standing next to it for the 2 large floppy disks. We who knew all the shortcuts were loathe to change to PCs – so much so that even today I’m computer-savvy-resistant 🙂 Never got over them taking our Displaywriters away! Never forgave IBM for not keeping up and expanding its Displaywriter’s software into PCs. Boo hoo hoo, I’m crying all over again! Oh Paul, even if your pictures are not of the Displaywriter, thanks for the memories. (Actually, I’m not that old, it must have been a past life recall 🙂
Hee, well thanks to Paul, I finally got to see the insides of an IBM DisplayWriter – found it here – allegedly a 1983 version:
http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/displayw/scott05.jpg
(Since I’m still trying to figure out what “hot linking” really is, I haven’t added the “
Oops – forgot preview.
…haven’t added the “a h r e f” stuff around the above link 🙂
XYZZY?
What about ELI the ICE man?
Are you going to announce the winner? Cuz, I’m checking my mailbox, and I don’t see my money.
Actually, quite funny reading some of the attempts…
The board is a memory board for UNIBUS DEC systems…
now, as to whether it is for a PDP11/x4 or a VAX-11 is a good question…
I’m still looking for some docs for my EMC uVAX II memories…