What card is this?

[joethezombie]

Time to show off my ignorance!  What is this card?  I'm guessing some kind of a disk interface?  Note the 4 LEDs near the connector.  Only clues are "Opus Buffer Memory 2 (OBM2)" and "SIEMENS PCB 1222822 REV 2".  My Google-foo has failed me.

 

[joethezombie]

I unscrewed the two halves of the card so I could get a peek at the innards.

The big guys on the business side of the card include AMD 29k and Motorola 56k.  I also see the Xilinx XC3030 FPGA and some LSI ASIC.  Any guesses?

 

[360alaska]

I think it might be a sound card?

 

[joethezombie]

Yeah, I think thats a good guess, the DSP56k was used a lot in audio applications.  Another clue, I found this logo:

 

[Unknown_K]

Well the card has printing on it from Siemens and Opus memory on the daughter card so I assume it is an old CAD card.

http://cpu-ns32k.net/Opus.html shows an ISA version.

 

[Compgeke]

CAD card could be it although if I had to take a wild guess I'd say it's for some sort of industrual hardware or data acquisition setup. Siemens made a lot of industrial equipment then (and now) and I don't see a lot of purpose for the external connector or LEDs on a CAD card.

 

[CelGen]

Some searching yields a pdf from 1992 revolving an "Opus board" with a NuBus interface installed in a Macintosh IIfx. It seems to indicate towards use as some sort of image processing engine that hung off Nubus but worked alongside the video cards and a network interface while being managed by the mac. It gives me MacIvory/transputer vibes.

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0ahUKEwijrYqX76_KAhVF62MKHeoZCsQQFgghMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.informs-sim.org%2Fwsc92papers%2F1992_0180.pdf&usg=AFQjCNH7q1AkmL2-ZJBbqsoAq9YvstI1CQ&sig2=ztn4ydqS6SdQMG6B8JO1Bg&bvm=bv.112064104,d.cGc&cad=rja

 

[olePigeon]

Cool looking card.  Could it have been used for an electron scanning microscope?  I've seen more than one microscope use a IIfx.

 

[joethezombie]

Thanks all, and the card was indeed pulled from a IIfx.  HDD was missing, so no clues there.  The history of the machine is unknown, so I guess we'll never know for sure unless someone drops by to identify it.  Thanks for the interesting perspectives!  One thing of note, the machine did have two portrait display cards, so CelGen's find seems pretty plausible considering it referenced the application as having multiple portrait displays, the Opus board, and IIfx.  Very interesting stuff.

 

[Unknown_K]

Isn't there a utility that shows what card description is in each nubus slot?

 

[ArmorAlley]

I my have misremembered, but isn't there a driver for the card built into the ROM of every NuBus card? I am open to correction on this. If it is correct, does anyone know of a utility that can download it? It may provide some clues.

 

[joethezombie]

I'll try to get it in a working system with SlotInfo running.

 

[joethezombie]

Well I finally got the fx up and running and SlotInfo reports:

Board Name: OPUS Card by the Europa Platform Team FEATURING Ed an

Vendor ID: Siemens Gammasonics, Inc.

Last Rev Date: 2/20/1990

Revision Level: Beta 2.00 Rev.1

Part Number: OPUS_A.0K_1

Serial Number: 0001

SlotInfo truncated the Board name.  I wonder what the entire string is?  Interesting info anyway.  I don't have a geiger counter.  I hope this thing isn't radioactive.

 

[joethezombie]

TattleTech gives a little more info:

Board Name = OPUS Card by the Europa Platform Team FEATURING Ed and Greg's Most Excellent NuBus Interface Chip

Board ID = 557

Vendor ID = Siemens Gammasonics, Inc.

Serial# = 0001

Revision Level = Beta 2.00 Rev.1

Part# = OPUS_A.0K_1

Date = 2/20/1990

Functional Resources:

 + Device sResource Name = Zulu Warriors Arise!

   - Device Category = 3 (Display)

   - Device Type = 3 (LCD)

   - Device Software Interface Type = 3

   - Device Hardware Type = 1

   - Device sResource# = $82

   - Driver Number = NA

 

[Paralel]

Gammasonics was used in nuclear medicine and PACS [picture archiving and communication system, is a healthcare technology for the short- and long-term storage, retrieval, management, distribution and presentation of medical images]

So, it was used in medical imaging in a radiology dept somewhere.

A very unusual find indeed.

 

[Unknown_K]

One of those cards you keep because of rarity but will never use since the software is extinct and you don't have the machine to connect it to.

 

[joethezombie]

Yup.  Just printed out this thread, placed the copy and the card in an antistatic bag, and into the bin of lost NuBus it goes, perhaps never to be looked upon by human eyes again!

 

[trag]

 I hope this thing isn't radioactive.

It doesn't matter if it is. It can't possibly be hot enough to harm you. The old "any exposure is harmful" has been shown to be a lie. Hermann Muller started it at his Nobel acceptance speech in 1946 despite the fact that empirical evidence up to that time led to accepted practice to be that low (substantial by today's misguided regs) doses could be ignored. Declassification of Muller's letters has shown that he had results of a good study (he praises it in his own letters) demonstrating there was no effect at low doses and many studies since support this.

Muller was an ideologue trying to stop above ground nuclear testing. Alternatively, he wanted to drum up more research dollars for genetics (his field). Also alternatively, he was in the pay of the Rockefeller Institute which wanted to discredit what could become a source of plentiful energy that would challenge oils dominance.

 

[olePigeon]

It doesn't matter if it is. It can't possibly be hot enough to harm you. The old "any exposure is harmful" has been shown to be a lie.

Yes and no.  Exposure to ionized radiation is a cumulative dose, so it would be relative to how much exposure you already have.  However, if you've had enough radiation already that this card would affect you, then you're already on your way out because you'll probably get more radiation from the sun by standing outside for about a nanosecond.