Re: Help with mystery card ID?

[Mark Fisher]

In article <3obtrk$9dn@cello.gina.calstate.edu>, lacoss@cello.gina.calstate.edu 
(LA County Outdoor Science School) writes:

>I need some help identifying a card.  It came out of a IIe.  The only
>identifying marks I can find are what looks like a logo with the
>letters NPH enclosed in a round-cornered box.  This logo is on the
>card along with "Made in Taiwan".  The logo is also on a silver
>sticker, along with the number 7.  This sticker is on the largest
>chip on the board which is labelled MCM2708C.  There are 4 other
>socketed chips on the board, SN74LS377N, SN74LS00N, and two 74LS74A.
>The only other things on the board are various capacitors and
>resistors, and a 16 pin header.  The cable attached to the 16 pin
>header ends in a Centronics 36 pin plug.  This makes me think it
>might be a parallel printer card, but I'm not sure.  Does anybody
>have experience with a card such as this?
>

Yep, that's what you got. The 2708 is most likely an EPROM, so don't take that 
sticker off, it's covering a little window that allows UV light to erase the 
chip's memory! (Maybe not; the "C" may mean CMOS which would make it 
electrically erasable.) The cincher is the 74LS377, though; that's a latch, 
used to hold the TTL data signals to the printer high until the printer has 
read them. The more common chip used here is the 74LS375, which is only 
slightly different in operation, but this hints that 1) this is an earlier 
board, and 2) is probably a knock-off clone (that and the "Made in Taiwan", 
too).

You should be able to use this card to attach almost any of today's parallel 
printers, though it would be best to test it out on an old clunker first.

Fish   <'><