Name that Ware August 2012 (part 2)

September 10th, 2012

In a rare turn of events, I don’t yet have an answer for August’s ware. Many thoughtful comments were posted (particularly the ones about how the board is constructed — thanks very much for that insight!), but none are conclusive.

So, to help things along, I’m posting photos of other boards gathered from the same dumpster dive, assuming they bear some relation to the contest ware, and perhaps one of these can jog someone’s memory or at least narrow down the piece of equipment that they came from.

85,000 Watts of Pure Love

September 9th, 2012

Ever wonder what 85,000 watts looks like? Fear not, above is a handy visual aid.

This is the Robot Heart, which drove every night onto the deep playa at Burning Man and filled the desert with the cleanest, most powerful sound system I had ever heard. It was love at first beat — you can feel the bass in your chest from over a hundred meters away, and it sounds fabulous close-up. And the desert being a near-ideal infinite baffle, there are no reflections or echos to diminish the soundfield; you can still hear the clear and pure sound of the Robot Heart from almost a kilometer away. The best part is the whole thing is on wheels — it’s a rather surreal sight to see hundreds of people clad in fuzzy hats, LEDs, and EL-wire dance-walking along side the Robot Heart as it slowly migrates into the deep desert.

There’s nothing like watching the sunrise to the beats of the Robot Heart.

Shout-out to the Phage for being such an awesome and kind group of people to camp with. :) There’s no better way to spend a week camping in the desert than learning from a bunch of interesting and intelligent people.

Beers with Ian

August 24th, 2012

I had the fortune of kicking it with Ian Lesnet from Dangerousprototypes.com and having a couple of beers in my workshop while watching Curiosity stick its landing on Mars (massive props to the JPL and NASA engineers who pulled that off, btw!).

Ian took a video of the meet-up and with Chris Gammell’s help did a bang-up job of editing it. The interview is posted at his site, and in addition to giving a quick tour of my workshop we traded tips on soldering, sourcing, and survival in the Shenzhen electronics markets. Too bad the interview was done before my new laser cutter arrived…it would have been fun to engrave silly pictures on random household items!

Name that Ware August 2012

August 16th, 2012

The Ware for August 2012 is shown below.

This is yet another ware recovered from my childhood basement stash. Unlike the previous ware, I actually have no idea what computer this comes from. Clearly, an IBM of some type; probably an old mainframe, from the early ’80s. But these boards were rescued from a dumpster with no sign in sight of what machine it comes from. I’m hoping someone can definitively resolve the question of which machine this came from, and what function this particular board had.

I also had one other question I’m hoping someone can answer — why did all the boards from this machine feature a regular array of holes, as opposed to vias drilled on demand? I have my own hypotheses, but it’d be nice to hear from someone who knows the answer!

Winner, Name that Ware July 2012

August 16th, 2012

The Ware for July 2012 was a logic board and memory device from an Olivetti Programma 101. It still blows my mind that mechanical vibrations through wires were used as memory storage devices back in the day. I can still remember when I first opened the the delay line some decades ago, I wondered, “why did they stick an antenna inside a sealed metal enclosure?”. Not to mention, why would they have an antenna inside a computer like this. It was nice to revisit this childhood memory and resolve yet another small mystery of my youth.

The winner for last month’s ware is Markus, for correctly guessing the origin of the ware. Congrats, and email me for your prize!