Old Technology

[Bob Ayers]

The first photo is of a photo of a silicon chip I helped develop back in the
80's. The state of the art in chip technology was 1uM (micron). Just for comparison, the state of the art in chip technology's geometries today (in production) is 35nM (35 nanometer, or 0.035uM).

The following photos are the module the chip is in, and the card that it is used on. The module is a 36mm pin-through-hole ceramic module. The card
is a Token Ring Adapter, which was a networking protocol, similar to Ethernet:

 

[fx408]

you sure your names not Bill, Bob

 

[Shran]

That is pretty cool. I think I actually have one of those cards laying around somewhere.

This is one of my favorite pieces of old tech:

 

[Mac]

Boy does that bring back old memories. I remember the electrical designers laying out by hand all the different circuit runs for a board at a ten times scale, not on the computer but on the drafting board. Any one ever seen or had to work with one of the old mechanical computers? When I started in the engineering dept in '72', they still were using one of them "Wang" contraptions with all the wheels and stuff. After hearing it run, you would know where the term "Number crunching" came from.
Dave