ID PC CARD Help ?????

[sky444]

I have a card that I need to find out what it is/does. Does anyone know a site where I can do this? If this pic goes through this is the card.<p>[ July 16, 2005: Message edited by: sky444 ]</p>

[sky444]

Pictures below<p>[ July 16, 2005: Message edited by: sky444 ]</p>

[sky444]

<p><p><p><p><p>[ July 16, 2005: Message edited by: sky444 ]</p>

[philba]

I don't know how much effort you want to put into this thing but if you don't get a more specific reference,
a) its got an 8085 processor on it
b) its got what looks like a socketed UVPROM on it (the one one with the sticker) which probably holds the 8085 program.
c) you could pull the PROM off the board and read it (many ways to do so, google is your friend)
d) there are lots of 8085 disassemblers out there (again, google is your friend). You could look at the code and figure out what it does.<p>Its also got an 8155 which is an old parallel I/O interface chip and a couple of relays so its some sort of I/O driver. What isn't clear is where are the pins to do the I/O.<p>Phil<p>by the way, they mis-spelled "control"<p>[ July 16, 2005: Message edited by: philba ]</p>

[rshayes]

It appears to be some type of controller board.<p>It has a processor on it (80C85).
It appears to have both an EPROM and some other type of ROM.
It has a dual UART (XR88C681).
It has three 12 bit D/A converters (DAC1232).
It has a quad op amp (LM124).
It also has a CMOS input op amp (CA3130).
It has a dual 4 position analog switch (MC14529).<p>The D/A converters could be used to set thresholds on analog inputs. Alternately, they could be programmed to measure input voltages using successive approximation.<p>The connector appears to be .156 inch pitch rather than .1 inch pitch. The most common size for these connectors was 44 pins. This one is slightly smaller, at 36 pins.<p>The main output appears to be the two relays.

[Gorgon]

Hi Sky444,
I think your pcb is made sometimes by Gems Sensors, and used in some kind of military equipment. Searching the Gems website does not reveal anything http://www.gemssensors.com/index.asp <p>But I found an old posting. "http://www.fbodaily.com/cbd/archive/200 ... 007.htm"<p>(I couldn't post this as an url, due to the parenthesis in the address)<p>If you look under description, you'll find the part number 140465-0107. You've got -0106, maybe an older version.<p>Thats how far I got with googling.
I suppose your pcb is a part of some sort of sensor equipment, maybe for the Navy.<p>TOK

[rshayes]

I think Gorgon is on the right track.<p>The date codes seem to indicate that this board was assembled in late 1997, around 8 years ago.<p>It does not appear to be military type construction. The link that Gorgon found appears to be an attempt by the government to buy the boards as a commercial item. The document states that the govenrment does not have drawings on the item. If it were military hardware, they would have the drawings.<p>The GEMS Sensors site is mostly various type of sensors. However, down in the fine print, there is a reference to remote monitoring products. They have several references to a "Messenger" series of remote monitors, but not many details. From the product descriptions, I would guess that the board that you have came from an earlier product in this series that has been discontinued.<p>The board that you have seems to have 4 analog inputs that can be selected by the MC14529. I assume that one of the D/A converters is used to form a successive approximation A/D converter to convert these inputs to digital form. The CSI part seems to be a 2K x 8 PROM capabile of being electrically rewitten on a byte by byte basis. This is porbably used for data storage. The larger EPROM is probably for the program memory. The interface seems to be RS-232 through the UART chip. There are two relay outputs.<p>The later remote monitoring units seem to have these functions with the addition of four more inputs and a telephone interface. The relays appear to be solid state relays in the later units.

[Gorgon]

I couldn't stop rummage around and found this website: http://www.remotepossibilities.com/library.htm <p>I looked through the manuals, but could not find any clues or references to the pcb in question. Maybe this unit is something else than the'Messenger' system, but what?<p>TOK

[Mike]

The odd part is that it's an ISA card...probably a hint that it is very old.

[hp]

Thats not an ISA card. ISA cards have alot more contacts on the edge connector that the card shown above. The gap on the edge connector is also too small to be an ISA edge connector.<p>Harrison<p>[ July 18, 2005: Message edited by: hp ]</p>

[philba]

yeah, I initially though ISA (aka original IBM PC bus) but as HP said, not enough connections. Also, the I/O to the outside world must be done through the edge connector. For anything analog, I think that's got to be a difficult design to avoid noise.<p>anyway, I still think the best bet is to pull the prom and disassemble the code. Unless some one finds actual documentation for it, of course.