Unidentified Circuit Boards - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: chrisward
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: June 09, 2022, 07:41:20 am
content: While tidying up, I've unearthed a set of 5 boards, which I obtained from an electronics surplus "junk shop" some years ago. I have no idea what it does and wonder if someone might recognise it. Two of the boards have a set of 4 AMD 2901 bit-slice processors on, two more are memory cards and I think the last has some I/O on it.I've attached a photo of one of the processor cards; The identity/mod record label says "carte" and the serial numbers are go up to 500-odd, so I wonder if this is French? - and they made quite a few of them. Module names are "CIPA" to "CIPG" (there's no "D" or "E"). Chip date codes are mid-80s.Anyone any ideas?

author: Black Phoenix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2022, 11:03:47 am
content: I've worked in telecommunications in Portugal and those cards and code name are kinda similar to the old BSC (base station controller) from Alcatel Lucent.But it was a short time that I service such equipments (back in 2010 they were being decommissioned when I started) so I could be wrong.

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2022, 04:34:36 pm
content: Size/connectors indicate VME board.Very common for Motorola M68k systems. Odd is, that 50% of the board is populated with AMD ICs.

author: chrisward
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: June 09, 2022, 09:08:21 pm
content: Hello, Thank you for your suggestion. I had wondered (indeed, hoped) that there was a standard bus somewhere, which would make reverse-engineering a bit easier. But the J1 pin-outs (ground connections - I haven't reverse-engineered the whole boards) don't match. [Shadowing the analysis Dave did with the voltage regulator about 2 weeks ago!] The J2 connectors, I have the backplane module for, and it's very much "point-to-point", not a bus.I agree, they are Eurocard size, so DIN connectors are most likely; I saw a few different systems using those at that time, though not connected with VME. The AMD devices is why I bought the two sets - I was trying to understand microcoded architectures at the time. (Hopefully, one to analyse, and possibly break, and the second one to see if I can get that one going.)Regards,Chris.

author: chrisward
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: June 09, 2022, 09:35:21 pm
content: To Black Phoenix, thank you for your suggestion (and apologies to Benta for not acknowledging him by name in my reply - I'm new to this system of communicating!). I had a look on-line (at Alcatel products) to see if I could find anything even remotely like what I have, but as mine predate the Internet by about a decade, not surprisingly without success. Hence posting my question here, hoping - admittedly a very long shot - that someone who watches Dave's videos (and also looks at this forum!) might actually recognise it. Because of the age of the boards (30 years), I would think anyone who ever worked with them would probably have to be near or past retiring age, which lengthens the odds even more.But, you say Alcatel-Lucent board naming is (was!) similar to that on my boards? Do you mean the "CIP" names or what I presume to be a drawing number, which I see on the "carte" labels*, they are all of the form "5111.199.5xyz", so I wonder whether anyone recognises that format for drawings with their company; perhaps I should have mentioned that in my original "posting", but I've only just thought about that (and gone back to the boards to look at them again!)(* at least, that's what we did where I worked at the time, though in the silk screen or top/bottom copper layers.)Regards,Chris.

author: Neomys Sapiens
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2022, 10:17:43 pm
content: The only match for the number structure was at a Swiss company dealing in industrial spare parts and unfortunately it was only listed as 'generic' and belonging to the product group 'NC'. Although this could be of significance - see below. Also many hits for 5111-199-xxxxx (1 digit more) parts from Philips, all belonging to a computer system? called M4R.Now VME is not the only bus system using double eurocards and VG-connectors. There is Multibus II and there are loads of proprietary systems. For example, an earlier high-end PLCs from Siemens (S5-150S) used the format and one CPU variant was based on 4 bit-slice units, although from a different manufacturer. Generally, bit-slice processors were used in a lot of industrial control applications. The detail of the mechanical format with no front panel suggests to me more a CNC system than a PLC - which is coincident with the information above. But that number could be a wrong lead, of course. Nevertheless, this is the area where I would suspect the card comes from.

author: chrisward
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: June 09, 2022, 11:34:05 pm
content: Hello N.S., thank you for your detailed description. Indeed, the "925 module for S5-150S/U" uses 6 AMD 2901s (date code 85, so from a similar era). [From a search, I found this page:https://www.ebay.com/itm/234234681691?chn=ps&mkevt=1&mkcid=28.] I never realised they were used in this scenario! So, that widens my view of possible uses.Though references to manuals in German ("carte" is French?) - and I see the connectors have their name  on - so I doubt if mine - which are frustratingly anonymous! - was/were made by them.And as for CNC systems, wow! Researching that area is going to make for some interesting reading, assuming there's anything available that describes the insides of those (old) systems.Indeed, after some thought, the latter does seem more likely: as there is no non-volatile storage (as a PLC would have?) - early CNC systems used tape input, which could have been read into one of the memory banks (the other being "working memory")?That does seem a good possibility. (In my ignorance, I'd assumed those sorts of systems would have used "off the shelf" devices - 68000, 80x86, etc.)

author: Neomys Sapiens
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2022, 02:20:01 am
content: Sorry for being unclear about that - I'm 100% sure that the card is not from Siemens!

author: chrisward
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: June 10, 2022, 11:45:30 am
content: Hello again, N.S.No, no need to apologise - I was just "thinking aloud", and used it as link between the Siemens item you described - a good example of a similar item - and my observation that there's nothing anywhere on the boards to indicate who might have made them.I don't think the boards in the equipment I was involved in, in those days, had markings either [defence electronics, so I don't have any information now!], though the "box" containing them did - which latter, of course, I don't have for the boards in question.The odd thing about the whole "system" is the minimal I/O that I can see. I guess it's going to have to wait now until I can spend more time on it - I'm in the middle of moving house at the moment (hence it being "exhumed" from the back of a cupboard!), so that is the main priority at the moment. At least I now have some useful suggestions to keep in mind, when I get round to "reverse engineering" it: a project to keep my mind active.Thank you to you and the other people who responded to my question.