Unpunched INTV boards

[BSRSteve]

I have a small pile of these that CMart said he had never seen before. Anyone else?

[intvnut]

Cool!  Looks like these were almost fully manufactured, and stopped short of the final cuts to put them in a cartridge shell.  

 

For the folks that haven't dealt with PCB manufacturing, a little background. Typically PCBs are made in a big panel, and then scored/v-grooved, or drilled/routed to form smaller PCBs.  The drilled/routed ones have some small bridges of material, called tabs, that keep them hanging in the panel.  A panel full of PCBs ends up looking something like this.

 

 

It looks like @BSRSteve's boards were mostly, but not completely, removed from the panel.

 

You can see in BSRSteve's photos that there's a small bridge of material with no solder-mask that remains between each board.  (Solder-mask is the green protective layer.)  Those are called tabs.

 

If you pop open a regular cartridge, you'll see a couple rough spots on the outer edges of many Intellivision cartridge PCBs.  Those were likely from tabs like these.  My guess is that whatever manufacturing automation they used must benefit from feeding boards 4-up like this.  I don't know if that would only apply to populating the ROMs and wave-soldering, or if whatever machine stuffs the cartridge shells also benefits (assuming it was machine automated).

 

What that also means is that we have a new frontier in variant collection!  The two outer boards in each group of 4 has its outer edge routed smooth.  Those will only have breakaway tabs on the left or right edge.  Thus, we now have "left tab", "right tab", and "left & right tab" board variants!  

 

You can see left-tab and right-tab variants already on IntvFunHouse...  (The upper two boards on the left.)

 

[+wongojack]

Neat!

 

I bet you could use those unpopulated PCBs as something to help clean out dirty cart slots (if they can't be used for homebrews).

[Rev]

I don’t even see a revision number or manufacture on these. 
 

Recently I’ve been documenting all the different PCB types by manufacture and variants. Soon will post my findings.    More variations than you may think going through thousands of boards. 

[BSRSteve]

40 minutes ago, Rev said:

I don’t even see a revision number or manufacture on these. 
 

Recently I’ve been documenting all the different PCB types by manufacture and variants. Soon will post my findings.    More variations than you may think going through thousands of boards. 

Here is some more info on those boards for you:

[Rev]

1 hour ago, BSRSteve said:

Here is some more info on those boards for you:

That brand is a new one. I’ll enter it into the upcoming Intellivision Circuit Board Database. 

[+cmart604]

On 8/11/2020 at 2:16 PM, Rev said:

I don’t even see a revision number or manufacture on these. 
 

Recently I’ve been documenting all the different PCB types by manufacture and variants. Soon will post my findings.    More variations than you may think going through thousands of boards. 

Nerd. 

[colormesticky]

On 7/29/2020 at 6:54 PM, intvnut said:

It looks like @BSRSteve's Thus, we now have "left tab", "right tab", and "left & right tab" board variants!  

You monster.

[intvnut]

14 hours ago, cmart604 said:

Nerd. 

[Rev]

48 minutes ago, intvnut said:

That’s the understatement of the century. 

[+cmart604]

2 hours ago, intvnut said:

Even I haven't gone that far. ?

[Intymike]

This is based on which English saying?
 

A big pot yells at a small kettle?
 

 

[BSRSteve]

15 minutes ago, Intymike said:

This is based on which English saying?
 

A big pot yells at a small kettle?
 

 

The pot calling the kettle black

[Rev]

2 hours ago, cmart604 said:

Even I haven't gone that far. ?

 

[Intymike]

7 hours ago, BSRSteve said:

The pot calling the kettle black

seems to be like the German: „Wer im Glashaus sitzt sollte nicht mit Steinen werfen.“

 

If you‘re sitting in a glas house, you shouldn’t throw stones.

[BSRSteve]

4 minutes ago, Intymike said:

seems to be like the German: „Wer im Glashaus sitzt sollte nicht mit Steinen werfen.“

 

If you‘re sitting in a glas house, you shouldn’t throw stones.

We have that saying as well (more or less), and it is not QUITE the same. Pot calling the kettle black is specifically that whoever is the pot is just as guilty of what he is accusing the kettle of. While the glass houses is really don't "Throw stones" if you have ANYTHING to hide.

[+JasonlikesINTV]

There's a saying that goes "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." Okay. How about "Nobody should throw stones." That's crappy behavior. My policy is: "No stone throwing regardless of housing situation." Don't do it. There is one exception though. If you're trapped in a glass house, and you have a stone, then throw it. What are you, an idiot? So maybe it's "Only people in glass houses should throw stones, provided they are trapped in the house with a stone." It's a little longer, but yeah.

[Intymike]

4 minutes ago, JasonlikesINTV said:

There's a saying that goes "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." Okay. How about "Nobody should throw stones." That's crappy behavior. My policy is: "No stone throwing regardless of housing situation." Don't do it. There is one exception though. If you're trapped in a glass house, and you have a stone, then throw it. What are you, an idiot? So maybe it's "Only people in glass houses should throw stones, provided they are trapped in the house with a stone." It's a little longer, but yeah.

 

that reads almost like a bible quotation.  

[Rev]

I think we can all agree on one thing. Cmart is the mega nerd. And I’m just a regular one. Haha!  

[Rev]

Not to take over Steves thread too much. But here is an interesting PCB I found in my search through 1000+ circuit boards. 
 

So far only 1 found like this. Oh my! A rare circuit board variation? 
 

SYL 11 V1 Revision E 7159.    Is it a Sylvania branded board?  Shiny gold ?
 

 

Edited August 14, 2020 by Rev

[wolfy62]

40 minutes ago, Rev said:

Not to take over Steves thread too much. But here is an interesting PCB I found in my search through 1000+ circuit boards. 
 

So far only 1 found like this. Oh my! A rare circuit board variation? 
 

SYL 11 V1 Revision E 7159.    Is it a Sylvania branded board?  Shiny gold ?
 

 

Now I need to open up all my cartridges to see if I have one of those! ?

[BSRSteve]

1 hour ago, Rev said:

Not to take over Steves thread too much. But here is an interesting PCB I found in my search through 1000+ circuit boards. 
 

So far only 1 found like this. Oh my! A rare circuit board variation? 
 

SYL 11 V1 Revision E 7159.    Is it a Sylvania branded board?  Shiny gold ?

It's more on-topic than the pot calling the kettle black.....

[intvnut]

4 hours ago, Rev said:

Not to take over Steves thread too much. But here is an interesting PCB I found in my search through 1000+ circuit boards. 
 

So far only 1 found like this. Oh my! A rare circuit board variation? 
 

SYL 11 V1 Revision E 7159.    Is it a Sylvania branded board?  Shiny gold ?
 

 

Wow, a board with 1979 ROMs, but no RF shield.  (7947 is the date code: 1979, work week 47.)

 

Somewhere in my storage unit I have a few dozen bare boards.  If I come across them, I'll try to remember to photo them for the PCB database.

 

Are you also cataloging the ROM numbers you find?  e.g. RO3-9504-107 / RO3-9504-207?  The 3-digit code identifies the contents of the ROM.

 

And yes, SYL is likely Sylvania.  Makes sense as they were an early manufacturing partner.

Edited August 14, 2020 by intvnut
Add comment on Sylvania.

[+Lathe26]

All this talk about unpunched PCBs and there is an easy retro fix for that.  Just contact Mr. T and he can fix that problem.  Heck, he'd probably punch them for charity since he's just that cool of a dude.

 

[Rev]

6 hours ago, intvnut said:

Wow, a board with 1979 ROMs, but no RF shield.  (7947 is the date code: 1979, work week 47.)

 

Somewhere in my storage unit I have a few dozen bare boards.  If I come across them, I'll try to remember to photo them for the PCB database.

 

Are you also cataloging the ROM numbers you find?  e.g. RO3-9504-107 / RO3-9504-207?  The 3-digit code identifies the contents of the ROM.

 

And yes, SYL is likely Sylvania.  Makes sense as they were an early manufacturing partner.

I hadn’t planned on documenting the actual ROMs themselves. Just the boards. But now that I know what that date code is.....hmmm. 
 

Any special dates or anything I should be watching for?  I have another two giant boxes of PCBs to sort through.