What is this?
I have this little Apple gizmo and I have no idea what it is or what it's for. Here's a brief description of the gizmo:
It is a little printed circuit board about the size of a playing card. It has four little grey rubber feet on the bottom and four integrated circuits (IC's) on the top. There are three connectors on the top of the board as well. One is a 25-pin connector that says, "To SCSI Conn." The other two are 9-pin connectors. One says, "To Mouse Conn." The other says, "To Mouse Unit."
Weirdest little thing I've ever seen. It has the Apple Computer logo on it and has copyright 1986 printed on the bottom.
Judging by the four little rubber feet at the bottom, I would hazard to guess that this gizmo was never intended to sit inside a case.
What the heck is it?
it helps to see one...
Point well taken...
I'll take some pics in a wee bit and post them. They won't be very high resolution though; I'm taking the pics with a camcorder.
You can see the pics here: http://utoc.dyndns.org
Based on the simplicity of the design, I don't think it was used for much data (if any at all)... Perhaps it was a device that kept various accessories in testing clock synced?
almost a 25-pin Serial, to 2x 9-pin serial for a mac. also a printer board (imagewriter?) or event he laser Printer. It also might be an accessorie box that allows a certain product by apple to be hooked up
I think I saw one of those used on an Apple IIgs. It looked like an input peripheral connector as I saw an early graphing table hooked to it. and also a mouse. I think it is a mouse serial hub. kinda like how some macs has two ADB ports. So i am guessing it is an input hub for the early macs/Apple IIgs or Apple II
Wow... a real Apple Doodad... haven't seen one of those in years...
I could have used that a few years ago...
Somebody posted on a Google group that it is a SCSI loopback interface for testing the SCSI bus or something. Since that's the only information that's available on this thing, I'll have to assume that it's correct.
pics dont work.
if it is indeed a SCSI loopback card, then you might find more info on it here. however, I dont see any rubber feet on this one. -digital
hi! read on a french page that this thingy is a SCSI adapter... but no one explains from what it adapts to ???
The pics work, you get them by clicking on the "What is this gizmo?" link.
Apparently, sometime early this morning, there was a brief power outage and my server went down. It's back up.
Just a few observations, all obvious:
1. The SCSI interface is female. It won't connect to the back of a Mac directly (ie it can't plug into the female SCSI port on a Mac). Presumably it is designed to connect via cable to an external SCSI device (eg HD SC20, HD SC40 or possibly something non-disk) via a 25 pin D male to a 50 pin "Centronics" style port.
2. The mouse connector is a 9 pin D, similar to the Mac Plus or Mac XL.
3. The silk screen uses the early Apple logo (pre-Garamond). The device therefore predates the Mac SE, II etc.
4. There is a datasheet for the CD74HC373E latches. What are the yellow chips?
5. It isn't a user component. It is some sort of factory/service test unit. Presumably the feet are there to prevent shorting of the solder joints on the underside on a test bench.
6. Construction shows that it isn't a prototype or short run board. Apple made lots of them. Logically it was used to test a device that was made in significant quantities.
7. Another example of this board may exist. See:
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/fabrice.montupet/colapple.htm
Je me rappelle que Fabrice (l'auteur) parle anglais.
Phil
It turns out to be a SCSI loopback device for testing the SCSI connection. You are correct, there is a short (about 6 inches) ribbon cable that connects the device to a SCSI port.
There is also a short ribbon cable with two 9 pin connectors at each end. This cable was plugged into both 9 pin plugs on the card in a loop. I don't know if that's the way it is supposed to be connected or if it was just connected that way for neatness.
I remember a test set from Apple, way back in the Macplus era, that came with several adapters like that one.
It looked like some strange sort of portable computer without a display, but with lots of D-style connectors.
Even in the era of the the macplus, this thing was outdated, so I guess it was constructed for testing the original mac 128/512, the Lisa and maybe even the apple II. The SCSI card adapter was probably not used much. When I got into macrepair, this unit was just lying around the lab and had been replaced by software (mactest Pro).