Name that Ware, March 2022

The Ware for March 2022 is shown below.

This is arguably only “half” of the ware, and the much less interesting half at that. If folks struggle to guess the entire function, I’ll edit this post to include an image of the other half of the ware, which will probably end up being a dead give-away.

Either way, I’ll eventually update this post to show the whole ware, because it’s a pretty interesting little device.

Edit— Eben Olson got about as close as anyone can get on the ware without showing the other half! So, I’ll reveal it now. I think in practice nobody could guess the exact model number since this this specific unit has been EOL for a while. Pretty fascinating bit of optics, I’ll have to say; there’s a lot of art in this device.

I’m guessing this is the sort of thing I couldn’t buy new in Asia right now without filling out a bunch of export control forms, given the harassment I’ve experienced trying to acquire other advanced test and measurement equipment lately. It’s exactly the type of technology that would be strategic to control in a trade war: it’s essential in the construction of semiconductor fab equipment, plus I wouldn’t be surprised if there was only one or two sources capable of producing a laser scale of this quality, compactness, and clean room-readiness.

14 Responses to “Name that Ware, March 2022”

  1. MagerValp says:

    That looks a bit like the old Mac AAUI connector.

    • willmore says:

      It does look like that connector, but that pinout is wrong. You can see one row of pins which are tied together (supposedly grounded) Those are pins 2, 4, and 6 which are not the same thing on the AAUI pinout, so that rules out this being some kind of AAUI daughter card.

      Those op-amps are also very much *not* ethernetty. They’re LMH6655 250MHz low noise dual channel op-amps which are an odd beast. Given there are eight channels worth of them, they’re either cascaded or used to convert from differential to single ended.

      The connector looks to have four signals on the one side and power, etc. on the other. Definately not ethernet.

      I think Eben Olson is probably closer to it.

  2. Looks like the AUI part of a 10Base5 Ethernet tap?

  3. Eben Olson says:

    Pulse oximeter?

  4. Eben Olson says:

    I haven’t found the right model yet, but it has a great similarity to Sony Laserscale linear encoder.

  5. Eben Olson says:

    Based on the connector, I’m going to guess it’s the amplifier unit for the BH20 Laserscale

    • jackw01 says:

      Knew it was Sony as soon as I saw it, they’re the only company (at least that I know of) that puts ISO 11469 material markings (the “>EP-GW<") on their PCBs. "EP-GW" indicates that it is epoxy with a woven glass fiber filling. There's a good document from HP explaining what all these codes mean, downloadable here: https://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/getpdf.aspx/c05228340.pdf

      • Eben Olson says:

        Thanks, I was trying to figure out what that stood for! Lots of people using it as part of their ebay product listing…

        I figured it was Sony because the 1-860-614-12 marking matched patterns from their other products, although I couldn’t find any hits for that number.

  6. Dev K says:

    Looks like analog VGA video output, some sort of converter?

  7. Dev K says:

    Oh man, my comment posted! Last time I tried was way back and the ware was an Intel Paragon supercomputer LED panel board and I knew it perfectly and my comments wouldn’t post and then nobody got it!

  8. Joe says:

    Looks to me like a D-Terminal component video connector, the pinout for YPbPr would also match. Seems this type of connector was used in video disc players and the like (HDTV, DVD, BD, D-VHS, HD-DVD) in Japan mostly. I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that this is the output board of some sort of player like the ones mentioned, or from an AV receiver.

    • Joe says:

      Oh, could also be from a Canon XH-A1 DVC HD camcorder or a Panasonic AG-HVX200 DVCPro HD camcorder. ^^

  9. willmore says:

    I’m going to guess it’s from a Sony BL55 Hologram Laserscale. There’s clearly a near side cover missing and that makes it much harder to match the outlines, but the parts that are there look right.

    I’m sure the cover is missing because we couldn’t see all the optical goodness in there with it in place and because it boldly says “SONY” across it.