The Ware for January 2022 is shown below.
This is another fine ware contributed by jackw01. I’ve cropped it to hide the connectors, which are a dead give-away, but I figure despite the cropping this has a very good chance of being quickly and exactly guessed. I always find this style of ware entertaining by the still-present debug headers and its top-shelf selection of components.
It looks like some networking appliance, given the ethernet switch and the PowerQUICK CPU, but 1GB of RAM is way more than you’d find in typical wireless access points or home routers of the era (~2006?).
My guess would be some telco equipment, either 3G phone or wired wide-area networks.
Is that a PCMCIA connector on the right?
I can’t find anything that suggests this is not just a smart/managed high-speed switch.
The LTC4259A is a quad –48V Hot Swap™ controller designed for use in IEEE 802.3af compliant Power Sourcing Equipment (PSE).
88E6083: low power fast ethernet switch
BCM5221 is a single channel, low-power,10/100BASE-TX/FX transceiver
MPC8347EA PowerQUICC II Pro is a next generation PowerQUICC II integrated host processor. The MPC8347EA contains a processor core built on Power Architecture® technology with system logic for networking, storage, and general-purpose embedded applications
ADM3202: High-Speed, 2-Channel RS232
I spot a couple of CF card slots (right and bottom right), with 50 pins and an ejector mechanism. At the bottom are a couple of LTC4259s, each of which is a quad PoE power injector (and the 88e6083 is a 10-port ethernet switch)
I didn’t get any great ideas off of this, an 8-port PoE NVR would need more storage than a CompactFlash card furnishes. I did find that there were some products like AdTran Netvanta that have ethernet ports and also a CF slot, but none seem to quite match the geometry of this PCB. I assume the CF card would be used to hold configuration or firmware updates or suchlike?
Last time I saw something similar to that it was an Avaya media server (part of a VoIP switch).
Notable things:
2 RAM slots,
Marvell 10/100 ethernet switch with QoS management
two 4-port 802.3at PoE controllers
2 CF slots (apparently one internal, one external)
Lattice LCMXO640C FPGA
a 168-port high speed board-to-board connector and a 28-pin low-speed one
I’d say we’re looking at a board out of a ~20 year old firewall or IPS.
I’d guess the internal CF card would store the firmware image(s) and probably config data, and the external one would hold any locally generated log data.
Cisco 1861
Could it be some equipement used in ADSL / Analog Telephony / E1 lines ?
The voltage and CPU architecture used seem to match for hardware like that.
Is it an ethernet demarcation device? More specifically it looks like something from the EtherHaul series? Maybe a RAD ETX- series device? Final guess is a PolyCom “hub” ie the central unit other polycom devices plug into?
Cisco something, probably a small business router (ASA series) or an IPBX
Cisco UC520 or another small model from the UC500 series.
Why Cisco?
Very Cisco looking board design.
Cisco loves SMART RAM.
Why a UC520 instead of some old ISR?
Separate card slots/CPU/RAM because one runs IOS and the other CUE.
Diag LEDs down the side.
Has a switch for 8 ports left of the CF slot and two standalone ports on the right.
Is a two story design as the daughterboard for the VIC slots connects to that big connector under the left RAM.
Its got a PoE PSE chip to power the phones.
The RS232 bits on the left is for console port.
The weird shape cutout is a sign its one of the small models as they need to jam the fan there at an angle to blow over the heatsinks.
You’re very close but I think this is actually a UC540 and not the UC520. The design is almost identical but slightly different. The daughtercard connector slot and the Marvell 88e6083 Ethernet chip is slightly different. Also – the UC520 had 256 MB of RAM.
We still have some of these out in the field. It was a good product back in the day. Office in a box.