Name that Ware May 2008

The ware for May 2008 is shown below.

I was originally thinking about just using the lower image only for the Name that Ware hint, but I decided it was a bit too hard to tell what it was from that alone, so I included a photo of a (carefully cropped) portion of the top side of the PCB. Hopefully I haven’t revealed so much that the contest is trivial, but there is still enough to make a solid guess as to what this is.

Thanks to everyone for playing and your patience with the tardiness of the competition postings. It’s literally Christmas in June when you’re in the consumer electronics business, so things have been very busy. Also, I will be in Amsterdam this weekend for the XBMC devcon hosted by Boxee. If you’re in the area drop me an email!

111 Responses to “Name that Ware May 2008”

  1. kju says:

    Ok, lets see what we have?

    – 48LC2M32 – 512kx32 (2MB) SDRAM
    – ADC1173 8-Bit 3Volt 15MSPS A/D Converter
    – Cypress CY 8L 27243 PSoC Mixed Signal
    – Freescale MC9328MXS (but marked with SC…) ARM-Core with LCD-Controller.

    So i believe the cutted off part of the top is a LCD screen. But unfortunately i still have no idea what this is. :-(

  2. kju says:

    I see that the Freescale Processor is used a lot for mobile media players, so my uneducated guess would be a mobile media player with touchscreen control.

  3. Dan says:

    Is it an Oki PCB?

    From a page listing “what’s inside the Mac Mini”

    Location: Drive Interconnect PCB
    Component family: Mechanical / Electro-Mechanical Electro-Mechanical PCB 1
    Manufacturer: Oki Printed Circuit
    Component description: 2 Layer – FR4, Halogen Free
    Markings: OPC 94V-0, 1298MD, 105H, APPLE COMPUTER, INC., 820-1660-A, 2004

    Although obstructed by shadows and writing over the top, a lot of the markings seem to match: OPC, 1298MD, what could well be “OKI” and “94V”

  4. Dan says:

    And just by way of total stab in the dark, as I continued frittering away my lunch break on Google Reader..

    Could it be this?

    http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/11/asus-eee-handwriting-pad-evokes-the-dreamcast-flannel-shirts/

    (just saw the shape and thought “aha! well.. hmm.. maybe.. ” :)

  5. Kurt says:

    From the form factor of the board it *does* look like some type of portable device that’s designed to fit into something the size of a CD player type casing… The big red button on the bottom confuses me though… Who puts a big red button on the bottom of their media player?

  6. Tuckie says:

    My guess goes towards one of those touchpad based midi music devices.

  7. Alun J says:

    Creative Nomad? That’s about the only audio device I can think of in that sorta shape. Red button could be a device reset.

  8. Erik says:

    It looks like the psone gaming lcd screen pcb, see the curve on the pcb.

  9. Shawn W says:

    Looks like a glucose monitor PCB. Like for Diabetics.

  10. Kobaj says:

    Hello, new viewer here, just saw this on hack a day and I think I know what it is. However, I think Kurt beat me to the punch line.

    I looks like a CD player, the four little rubber pads placed about look like stabilizers for the laser/disk reading motor. And the ribbon cables that send data too and from a small LCD/the laser.

    The only problem is it looks like its attached to a much larger hunk of plastic then the kind that would be found in a portable cd player…maybe its from a non portable cd player XD?

  11. Fitz says:

    DSP based guitar effects processor?

  12. It is a garage door opener. I can tell by the button in the center.

  13. richard says:

    cordless phone dont know witch one but those kind with the rounded end

  14. Chris says:

    It resembles, from shape alone, an old-style VideoNow player. In fact, that’s what I believe it’s from.

  15. Michael Witt says:

    Let’s see what we have here…
    The ADC1173 is a relatively old component, but the CIMTC variant is RoHS compliant, so it’s a newer board.

    I looked up 1298MD, and saw that it was part of a Mac Mini, but watched a video of complete disassembly, and saw no similar circuit board. There’s also no big red button anywhere on the Mac Mini, so my conclusion is that that number is a license number (something to do with the backwards UR). This does mean that I think the board was made by Foxconn (because they make the Mac Mini, and whoever makes that has the same license number as whoever made this).

    Foxconn makes a lot of things, so I went to their website, and found it interesting that one of the few products they offer was iPAQ parts. I have an iPAQ h5455, which is almost exactly the same shape as this board. The reset button on the back is in a similar location (albeit not quite the same), so that’s what I think the big red button is.

    Although there is no WiFi circuitry, that could be on a daughterboard. So my guess is that it is an older iPAQ (~3-5 years ago?) which is compatible with the iPAQ sleeves (which they don’t make anymore :'( ).

  16. John says:

    Im thinking some flavor of optical mouse… Mebby of the Apple one button persuasion… Iv seen something similar inside a Razer mouse and know that the Freescale is sometimes used for this purpose…

  17. Jesse says:

    I think that its off a mobile cd player and the orange button is actually is for the detection of movement to stop the cd to avoid scratching.

  18. fermicirrus says:

    looks like some kind of mp3 player

  19. Jesse says:

    Hmm, that one’s a stumper. I’m no expert, but is it some sort of audio recorder/media player? Yeah, you can’t store much in 2Mb, but who’s to say that there’s not another chip floating around somewhere? Or maybe a sampling device, or data recorder.

  20. Jesse says:

    Woah, I’m not the same Jesse that posted at 8.44pm, maybe shoulda chosen another name.

  21. Drew says:

    Barcode scanner? It’s the shape of the top board of a typical “gun” style scanner, and there’s a button on the underside for the trigger as well as an SMT LED that shines through to the top to indicate a good read. The connector next to the button would go to the PC interface connector/board, and the laser module sits on top.

  22. Shane says:

    Old palm device..?

  23. Mark says:

    John: That’s what I was thinking, but it looks too busy. On the other hand, the bottom would be a logical place for the button and the other picture looks like a centered LED. Seems like too much on the ‘bottom’ when it could go up top, though.

  24. joesnose says:

    im guessing sony watchman

  25. alex mccown says:

    ok my $ is on an lcd standerd computer monitor

  26. Mike says:

    part of a wireless mouse?

  27. altek says:

    I can’t name a brand or model, but I’m tempted to think it’s part of a universal remote control, perhaps one with a touchscreen LCD?

  28. Jason says:

    It kind of looks like the internals of a VMU (think Dreamcast).

  29. Gerb says:

    I’m thinking some kind of video baby monitor. That antenna looking thing in the upper right has me intrigued…

  30. Ryan says:

    Looks like a Blackberry from RIM… the main IC on there looks like the RIM logo…

  31. Marco says:

    While the components would seem to be overkill for a gaming controller, I’m putting my money on that. With analouge controls and program memory for button/movement sequences.

  32. CalcProgrammer1 says:

    I’m really thinking it’s a cell phone. No clue what model (not really into phones that much, only PDA’s and such) but the antenna sticking out of the top kinda gives it away. Phones would have processors (ARM based) with LCD controllers for an all-in-one design, analog-to-digital converters (microphone), Flash memory for storing the firmware, RAM, and an antenna. That one chip that you can’t read (the one with an I on it) is probably an Intel 2700G or similar (mobile graphics accelerator), my Axim X50v has one, though Axim PCB pictures show that the 2700g is a bit larger than the one in this picture.

  33. Jaiger says:

    i thinks its the Nomad MP3 player pcb you know that old ass 5gig one which required like 6 AA batteries lol

  34. Troyo Boyo says:

    is it a PCB from a wireless keyboard/mouse receiver?

  35. GD says:

    Drive Interconnect PCB, Oki Printed Circuit From G4 Mac Mini

    http://www2.electronicproducts.com/Apple_Mac_mini_-whatsinside_text-43.aspx

    1298MD as printed on board

  36. Paul says:

    Pokemon mini game console!!

    http://lupin.shizzle.it/?page_id=2

  37. Fabio Alves says:

    charger with wireless receiver, maybe mouse or phone…

  38. Ben says:

    That is the main pcb for a welch allen hand held barcode scanner.
    The first shot is the underside of the scanner with the single pushbutton.
    The second shot is at the rear of the IR beam sensor bar.

  39. simon says:

    either a freescale debugger or some sort of GPS device. maybe i dunno. could very well be a point of sale device or some linux powered device like a chumby or something

  40. Kaijuu says:

    The LED in the middle of the bottom picture is strange. The fact it is right in the middle of the board might indicate something. The Pushbutton at the upper picture is interestingly placed too.

    The top picture include a beefy processor and NOR memory/SDRAM, very commonly used design. The Bottom picture include a Cypress PSOC chip… capacitive sensing?

    The flat ribbon cable suggest a LCD display is involved, but there is another cable connector that is going nowhere, maybe a power supply.

    I don’t see any RF component, so I don’t think it is anything wireless. No high speed logic beside CPU/RAM/ROM either…

  41. simon says:

    GOT IT! (i think)

    SIDESHOW DEVICE

  42. Scott says:

    @simon

    lol

  43. Someone says:

    Obviously a device with a camera ccd chip (because of the ADC). Guess it will have a rather low resolution. So its a webcam (or a very low-tech digital camera) or a add-on camera for mobile phones, remember the time when not all mobile phones had internal cameras? Sony and Nokia build such things some years ago. Button e.g. could trigger still photo. Central LED indicates that device is recording.

  44. Tim says:

    Is it a blood sugar tester?

  45. Matt says:

    Is it the top half of an older cell phone PCB? The red button being the back side and the smaller picture showing the edge of where the lcd screen starts. The small buton cell is so the memory would be retained for when the call phone battery is swaped. My money is on the upper half of a samsung flip phone.

  46. Woot says:

    I think it might be some kind of digital alarm clock/radio and the red button is for snooze.

  47. klone says:

    Creative Nomad Jukebox 3 no doubt !!(20gb maybe) 14 pin ribbon cable for lcd, 4 rubber stabilizers for hard drive shock proofing and i dont think that red button is a button at all. could be wrong tho…..:)

  48. Rhyno001 says:

    It’s 100% without a doubt a pcb from some sort of mp3 player. Couldn’t tell you which one if I tried. Still don’t know what the red button is for.

  49. Wonko says:

    It’s a hand held barcode scanner..

  50. Joshua "Katysan" says:

    I think it may be an old digital camera, think circa 2002-ish. I’ve taken apart my fair share of cameras to make Nightvision devices for airsoft guns, and it looks almost like my camera, only not. I think I see a microphone on the top image, but as for the red button below it, (I think that’s a button) I am at a loss. Anyway, that’s my guess.

  51. IWorkForThePostOffice says:

    I’d go for the hand held barcode scanner as well.
    The chips as well as the PCB form just matches beautifully!

  52. Elia says:

    I think I know what it is, it is an Apple Mighty Mouse.

  53. Linux-till says:

    I guess it’s an Apple mouse with only one button :)

  54. God says:

    I’m liking barcode scanner. The more advanced models need to store data and have LCDs. The 48LC2M32 and MC9328MXS fit well.

  55. Tillin9 says:

    Hm… buttons, lcd, I’d wager some kind of mobile device like a cell phone or pocketPC. The black box on the bottom looks a lot like a GSM module, though could easily be something else. The board looks a lot like my AximX51v, but curved and slightly smaller. The ribbon connector on the side looks like that for a touchpad or keyboard. Since its larger than the one on my Axim, I’d wager its for a larger keyboard.

    All of the above points to a blackberry. However, the dead giveaway (why you’d only want to show the bottom is the RIM logo on the processor). The 2MB RAM and slower 200Mhz ARM9 CPU plus the curved PCB makes me think 6230 or 7230. However, the fact the CPU can drive a color LCD makes me think 7230.

  56. mesoiam says:

    The little red knob leads me to guess that it is the joystick controller from a Rio Karma

  57. Dave says:

    An old creative nomad mp3 player?

  58. Reddog says:

    Looks like a portable cd player. the 3 rubber grommets support and stabilize the laser mechanism.

  59. Gary says:

    From the shape/antenna/test button, I’d say it’s a remote-controlled whoopie cushion. Ahhh, the joys of cheap humor.

  60. Yann says:

    I’ll go for some sort of PDA. The back, not shown, is a LCD. The capacitive circuitry is for the film touch screen. The shape somewhat match that of a Palm, but I wouldn’t swear it is. And finally the LED at the bottom is for IR communication, IrDA was all the rage at that time, then came bluetooth…
    Red button is a reset button. Visible ribbon is for the LCD, unplugged one is for battery/dock connector.

  61. Joe Bleau says:

    I’m with Drew: I do think it’s a barcode scanner. Probably an HHP brand, as I think they use the Freescale CPU shown in the pics. (If I was at work I’d open one up and compare!)

    The high-speed ADC is a good tip-off that it’s sampling fast, and this doesn’t appear to have any video circuits.

    I don’t think I can narrow it down to a specific model.

  62. killbox says:

    I think its the controller board from a VideoNow kids “dvd” player

  63. davis says:

    It’s definitely a drive interconnect from a mac mini.

  64. Ataxicwolf says:

    I think it’s from the Apple Mac Mini as well. The 1298MD is a Drive interconnect manufactured by Apple, which just happens to be found in the Mac Mini.

  65. Diridi says:

    It’s the bottom printside of a Gryphon barcode scanner !

  66. Pavel says:

    Some kind of MP3 CD player? Maybe a Rio device

  67. David Gabler says:

    Does appear to be a image scanner.
    The bumps appear to be plastic mold that was melted down to hold the PCB down (no screws to come loose). The button is a single axis button. you pressit down nothing else.
    I am more inclined to say it is a 4000 series not a 3000 series. There is a lot of processing power there for reading simple bar codes. remember the cuecat? that read barcodes but needed no where near the CPU.

    More than likely a 4600r given the black plastic.

  68. David Gabler says:

    also given that the 4000 series reads 2d barcodes that I imagine would take more cpu than 1d But I dont know so I may be talking out my …

  69. Joe Bleau says:

    The HHP 5800 that I took apart was a linear scanner only, and it had the Freescale CPU. I’m not surprised that a CCD imager based scanner (even linear only codes) would need more horsepower than a Cuecat.

    I’m not seeing an RS-232 level converter. Maybe there’s another board that’s not pictured?

    As I recall, those visible heat-stakes connect the optic box to the PWB.

    Mac mini bits? What’s the reasoning behind those guesses? The chips just don’t seem to fit–fast ADC, ARM SoC, and tiny SDRAM?

  70. KiloVision says:

    I think it’s a CCD-based scanner as well. That riser coming off the top is the CCD. The chip on the bottom of the PCB to the left in the pic marked VHCT 125A is CMOS. The things that have me baffled are in the top-right of the pic of the bottom. Is the black component marked “24” a GSM module? What’s to the left of that? At first glance, my first guess was a battery, but after closer inspection it almost looks like the small motor used in pagers/phones for vibrate alerts.

    @David: Good call on the melted plastic stakes holding the PCB.

    To everyone who said it’s a Mac Mini: did you find pics or are you searching on the “1298MD” on the PCB? Check out pics of the Mac Mini board. This is definitely not part of a Mini.

  71. David Gabler says:

    @Joe can the freescale processor not do rs232/ttl?
    @Kilo yes you search for the 1298md and you get the pcb board for a mac mini. Maybe the 24 is the wireless option (not gsm)? The ‘pager motor’ looks similar to an inductor or something similar. Wireless is encrypted so maybe that is why the need for the cpu/ram

    Another note the freescale processer is ROHS compliant ;)
    Can not seem to find out much on the processor. Is it a customer ASIC?

    We are missing something to provide auditory or tactile feedback indicating a read was made though.

    The logo on the blurred chip next to the Freescale Processor looks familiar but I can not place it. the blurring on the chip is almost legible but when I stare harder it goes away :( Need a photoshop deblur tool!

  72. Daniel says:

    Hand Held Products 3800g: The black object in the upper right is a beeper, which is covered to port sound out the side of the scanner. The 4 pegs hold the sensor, optics and Illumination. The same processor is used in the 2D and 1D products and is used for image processing. There is no tactile feedback.

  73. Joe Bleau says:

    DG: Sure, there’s bound to be a UART or ten on the micro. But it’ll still need level shifting. The blurred logo looks like Intel to me.

    The black “24” box could very well be the beeper. I turn ’em off as a matter of course during setup, as they’re so annoying, but the HHP scanners certainly can beep.

  74. Mike says:

    That to me looks like it came from a Pac Man handheld console. They were made over 20 years ago, completely yellow, and the shape of Pac Man. I even have one somewhere I think…

  75. Ultatryon says:

    Its a barcode scanner for sure, Either Symbol or Gryphon.

  76. Hoax says:

    My guess would be a symbol/motorola 6700 series 2d scanner. Possibly modified to mount to a conveyor belt, scanning items as they pass under it?

  77. szenyo says:

    It is a Chestnut Hill Sound George device remote. Or not.

  78. Scapegoat says:

    Drive Interconnect PCB from a Mac Mini

  79. Eric says:

    That looks almost like a radar/laser detector for a car.

  80. The Moogle says:

    where is the message i posted earlier?

  81. Chris says:

    The circuit board hints at driving a display like an LCD and a imaging element. The very upper left hand side of the board looks like a pad area for a C8 GSM socket that was removed. The LED looks pretty beefy since they had to mount it through the board.

    My guess is a micro video capture/transmit device using GSM. Call it a wireless GSM remote camera.

  82. The Moogle says:

    my friend used to work for PCS
    the board is from one of thier scan guns
    he gave me all their fun prototype boards to play with when the company moved out of state

    go to fugabarba.com/adamisdumb/1.JPG

    the prototype of the board show above
    fugabarba.com/adamisdumb/2.JPG
    fugabarba.com/adamisdumb/3.JPG

    one of the first vertions
    fugabarba.com/adamisdumb/4.JPG

  83. Brian says:

    Almost all the way to right right in the big picture is an ISP1105 (if I read the imprint right), which is a fairly advanced but only low/full speed USB transceiver. Between that and the huge solder points in the other image, I’m guessing this is the motherboard in a monitor. The usb chip drives some convenience usb ports on the side or back of the thing. The board sits down in the pedestal and the led in the center of the lower image lights up the logo or something like that. Now if I could find a monitor with that kind of a footprint and a light feature in the center of the pedestal…

  84. william says:

    My guess is it’s a PS One LCD screen PCB.

  85. Gilberto says:

    It seems like a mouse. Apple Mouse, 1 button.

  86. Jesse C. says:

    I think it might be from an IDTech barcode scanner – like a model IDT 44xx. it’s the right shape, and seems to have the right physical features. The red button on the bottom goes to the trigger button on the scanners grip, and the LED on the top shines through a transparent bit on the top of the body to indicate a good read. The ribbon cable on the center bottom is for the KB/RS232/USB interface (the IDT 44xx line supports all 3), and the other ribbon cable goes to the imager on top.

  87. Ben Abraham says:

    This is the Drive interconnected PCB to an apple mac mini.

  88. sam says:

    It looks like The Moogle and the others are probably right–it’s some sort of barcode scanner. It’s unlikely through analyzing the board that this is a mass-market consumer product. It’s definitely not a cheap, made-and-designed in china product, and likely not of japanese origin. There’s a cypress PSoC on the back and an ADC, which seem to make a mass-market application unlikely (there seems to be more emphasis on flexibility rather than integration).

    btw, though capacitive sensing is a big feature of the PSoCs, it’s not necessarily the main reason people would use it.

    It’s definitely not a LCD or computer display controller of any kind, as it’s clear that the devices aren’t even close to being fast enough to do that (i’d expect a couple of custom ICs/fpgas rather than a uC)

    I also don’t see any components which might indicate that wireless is involved, at least on this board. The black thing on the top right appears to be a sound generating device of some sort; if it were a wireless device, i’d expect to see an antenna connector and aluminum shielding (not black plastic) on top of it.

    I don’t think there’s enough room that might be on the front side (not shown) for this to be a product with a very serious UI. Looks more like a peripheral of some sort that clearly requires at least some processing capabilities.

    No serious audio or audio processing is involved; it’s a uC, not a DSP, and I don’t see a single audio related component onboard. The ADC is not good enough for audio.

  89. Digital says:

    it’s either the creative nomad jukebox or the nomad jukebox3. more like the 3. The lcd on the nomad jukebox has the ribbon specifically attached to the top part of the board directly above the lcd. the 3 I am not so sure about the lcd workings. The red reset button is definitely part of the device.

  90. Digital says:

    wait, I don’t know about nomad now actually… after having a closer look at the picture you can see that there is no where for the drive to be inserted. If you know about the creative nomad line you’ll recall that it used a standard laptop hdd. There is nowhere for the drive to be connected in that picture. :(

  91. MaX-MoD says:

    The 15MSPS ADC (so does the PSoC) makes me think of a handheld mesuring tool, like an o’scope, ultra sonic range finder, industrial bus signals analysing tool etc….
    But wich noe in particular, no clue!
    I am quite sure it’s not media related: a codec is dirt cheap and more performant than this ADC for audio; the ADC could be used for video input, but the low RAM is pretty small for video processing.

  92. Parker Brown says:

    i’m going with a barcode scanner. more specifically, the kind at the library that only have one or two buttons, not the supermarket type that have multiple functions. it might have an lcd screen for quick reference (if it is the wireless kind, which i believe it probably is) of what you just scanned, hence the flash memory chips (used for sdram). i believe the bar that is barely visible in the bottom picture is the actual reader for the barcode, as the laser moves in a horizontal pattern, and is read by the light-sensitive bar.

    let’s hear it for kids like me who spent more time taking things apart than doing homework! whoo-hoo!

  93. Sony Alpha says:

    I agree with you.

  94. miked says:

    PS1 screen

  95. Tagraf says:

    I’m no expert, I think I may have seen it before, DriveCam may be similar to something like this.. There’s a black case surrounding around the PCB, it make no sense for a curve PCB inside the black corner edge.

    DriveCam is a camera inside with G-Force module, if the car crash it will then start recording before and after 10 second of crash.

    I’m probably not answering it right, I was just at a glaze on this picture.

  96. Parker Brown says:

    i think daniel is right with the 3800g barcode scanner. the specs seem to match up, and i have a hunch he’s right. i googled some of the numbers on the chips, but came up with nothing (seriously, google had 0 results!). wish i’d have thought of it first!

  97. Robert says:

    i’m guessing it’s from a portable dvd player.

  98. jim says:

    call 973 494 9568 for any hhp hand held barcode scanner models. we offer scanners at over 40% off reseller pricing.

    hhp 7200 7300 7400 7450 7600 7850 9500 9550 9551 7900 3800 4600 5800 2d linear

  99. Fred says:

    I think that is a Radar Detector.

  100. joathan says:

    it a part of a mouse

  101. Jonathan says:

    I think it is part of the circuit board to a Mac mouse. The one button, optical, whole click mac mouse that comes with iMacs. I don’t know the office name of it.

  102. Willem says:

    Nice Gatget!
    Powerfull ARM processor and a cypres psoc on board.
    Must be something with live video.
    Came acros the i-vu magnifier!
    Suits the Led, psoc for touch encoder and the video!

  103. Tolitzzz says:

    I’m not good in guessing…

    But I think the board seems like a board inside the hard disk…

  104. Luc says:

    Roomba mother board.

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  107. the Pokemons are very cute! i love all the cute pocket monsters~`;

  108. Bruce Nin says:

    I’m a civil engineer with the US Army and range finders are an obvious necessity for what we do. Of course with miliary clout comes military funds, so we have access to some of the most impressive range finder and equipment that money can buy.