Wierd military computer boards

High-res pics at www.electricstuff.co.uk/milboards.html
Update : Thanks to Jim Lanzafane for the following info :
Memories... Thats hardware I designed in the 1980's. It is part of the Military Vax Computer system (MILVAX). We took DECs full size multi cabinet VAX computer, repackaged all the electronics into hermetic ceramic surface mount devices, and double sided conduction cooled modules, all in a USAF ATR chassis. It ended up in everything from JSTARS aircraft, US Space shuttle payload experiments, and missile silos. I will look and see if I have scans of the original sales material and email you. Still have the prototype modules and unpopulated PCBs. And YES, VERY EXPENSIVE, even in 1980s dollars.

[@92Ranger4]

these are old navy defense radar boards. commonly called "goo-boards" by those who installed/maintained them, because when they were fresh off the assembly line, raytheon had a bad habit of shipping too quickly to their customer (us government)- which meant the epoxy these boards are dipped in didn't fully cure by the time they got to their destination, resulting in a "gooey board". all 4 would be installed into a modular circuit box that provided power, connection to a small monitor, and various other terminations. they were coated with an epoxy, because they are meant for use in wet/damp conditions, such as an outdoor harbor radar station, scouting boats, and in some cases- low-range, underwater submarines. the information the submarines recorded was broadcasted on a specific frequency, and received by a local radar station for recording/observation. i know all of this, because my dad spent 26 years in the navy, and he was a radar operator for 9 of those years. i showed him this video, and he explained what they are and used for. he said nice find!

[@josephcarey77]

92Ranger4 very cool, are you just an avid military computer/hardware person or did you have experience with these types of boards?

[@92Ranger4]

my dad used to work with this hardware when he was in the navy, he is the one who told me the original comment info.

[@josephcarey77]

92Ranger4 very cool :P

[@stevebez2767]

92Ranger4 guppies are in the other Whale?

[@charleswhite3553]

thanks for the clarification!

[@flatshade]

VAX 7000-860 CPU module, used in JSTARS' radar, surveillance and targeting equipment.

[@napablue7502]

Very cool. Brings back memories. I used to design and test EWS (Early Warning System) and Flight Processors for military jets and CAS (Collision Avoidance System) for FAA. A few points. It isn't illegal to possess this antiquated technology. Raytheon made none of the components themselves. We were always behind commercial technology, often 5 years or so, because devices had to be MILSPEC (i.e. hardened). The racks and their mounts are not for thermal conduction, but rather for capture and rigidity. (Think about it, if you're pulling G's you can't have a board slide out or twist) The coating on the board is called Conformal Coating and is NOT for marine (i.e. waterproof) purposes, but rather to again, hold components down where they're placed. The boards are typically not PCB's (Printed Circuit Board), but rather PWB's (Printed Wiring Board) in that there is dimension to internal interconnect. The bus connectors at the rear are $$$. Again, very cool! Nice find. edit: The connectors are $$$ because they have to be VLIF (Very Low Insertion Force) yet also be HR (High Retention). Many pins and can't bend pins nor boards. edit: Each board had to go through what we called "Shake and Bake" in an environmental chamber that put each board through vibration and temp cycles while operating.

[@ToT0MoD]

+Napa Blue thats real knowledge right there... thank you for that, this clears out a lot of fuzzling about it. i'm a dumb fuck who doesn't know shit about this stuff but it's very cool to learn from you guys as i don't get this at school for that matter nor do i go to school anymore (unfortunately). so that aside, now we know that for sure, what could it be? still leaning towards airspace tech then?

[@unverifiedbiotic]

+Napa Blue So are boards like these used on fighter jets ?

[@boggisthecat]

+Michał Pawlak My guess would be that these would have been used in older US aircraft like the F16. When they upgrade the avionics package these would be tossed. Anything 'sensitive' would be destroyed, so there won't be anything surprising in this equipment -- just designed to be very reliable and able to withstand severe electro-magnetic radiation (from e.g. being blasted by high-powered radar). If you have ever wondered why military grade technology is well behind commercial offerings but costs at minimum ten times as much then this is a good example of where that money goes.

[@cosmicraysshotsintothelight]

+Napa Blue They are conductively cooled. He has the lids off which have the conduction pads in them. These are part of an early gen MIDS terminal, like what ViaSat makes for them now. What they actually end up being is a miniaturized VMS computer in a box. Instead of being a large form factor rack mount item like on a submarine, they all get stuffed into a forced air box that holds about 12 of these various function 'cards'. The cards themselves are conduction cooled boards to the can they get sealed into. That is the "lids" I referred to earlier. The chassis is about a ten by fourteen by eight or so inch box that the cool air gets forced through around each of the cards once they are all in. The main RF 'radio' sits on the same tray, and all of the waveforms are software synthesized. And no, it is likely they should not have ended up on ebay. I am sure they are not usable, however they can still be studied to garner how the newer radios go together. Or they could just read what I just wrote. Most of those cards are likely "CCI" level "Controlled Cryptographic Instruments". Anything that was on them that actually was of a classified nature is likely burned and unusable, but the entire cards should have been physically destroyed before being disposed of. If the guy was a true "Allied Patriot" he would turn them in to a military base near by, and take the hit on whatever he spent on them.

[@Jeff121456]

+Napa Blue I can tell you from a maintenance standpoint conformal coating horrible. It's like digging through potting compound to get good probe connections. The angle block fittings remind me of some system I worked on but can't remember. Early 90s.

[@davidmaddison2628]

It's amazing how nice you can make things when money is no object.

[@someusername121]

David Maddison It's not money being no object. It's "here's a laundry list of functional and reliability requirements for the project, now go make something that meets all of them". Oh yeah and your widget is going to be retrofitted into an aircraft designed in the 60s+manufactured in the 80s. It's like a cash register going cha-ching cha-ching as the costs add up.

[@cosmicraysshotsintothelight]

+David Maddison That is from way back in the mil spec days. They are a lot more COTS in them now. way cheaper (but way more expensive in the end).

[@treatb09]

and when they can't meet all of them, you become french or wack job cia experiments with telepathy

[@PauloConstantino167]

Well said but On the contrary, their supply of money is what created this

[@wisp1adjukoneadj629]

@@treatb09 Telepathy as in phoning someone? Look up the word telepathy when used for engineering you will find it's phonecalls.

[@Sapphiresoul2]

The CIA called, they want their computers back.

[@coleslawonlinegaming3861]

+RagingForLife Lol Give it to them... Or Else!

[@HardWhereHero]

LOL!

[@thomashardin911]

RagingForLife ^_~ CIA 🤘⚡️📡🎶

[@kcuhc84]

These were left over from the Roswell crash. Enjoy looking, you will not remember.

[@ithaca2076]

hey dont call my brother

[@mechnicl]

Ok, It really is interesting to see all the conjecture on here as to what these boards are/were. Here is all the straight scoop. MILVAX was an attempt to team Raytheon with DEC to create a militarized version of the commercial VAX computer. I was one of the two lead mechanical engineers on the program. The commercial and military versions were released for sale on the same day. This allowed the software to be developed and certified on commercial computers and then supplied to the government to run directly on the military version, with no alterations. The commercial version used a mix of plastic leadless components, ceramic leaded, and thru board, while the military version used leaded ceramic packages. The dies for the devices were identical. The commercial version was a couple cabinets in size, the military version was an ATR Long sized chassis. The commercial version was forced convection cooling (air with fans) while the military used conduction cooling from the device to the sidewalls of the chassis. The chassis had cooling fins on the exterior surfaces, and fans to blow external air over these fins to remove the heat. The boards are build to mil standards typical for high rel computers in the 80's. The conformal coating in military grade urethane. The large amount of gold on the boards was common for high rel military electronics. There was some radiation hardness to the militarized computer. The design does have EMP protection. The module PCBs were polyamide glass. The module frames are electroless nickel plating over an aluminum core. They are not invar, or clad metals. That was something Texas Instruments pioneered at that time to match thermal expansion rates of ceramic (HERMETIC) components to allow leadless chip carriers. Matched TCE allows leadless device solder joints to survive temperature variations without fatique failures. The MilVax used leaded chip carriers for the large devices. The leads flex during the temperature cycles and do not fail. The ceramic chip resistors and caps solder joints were specifically shaped by the soldering process to allow flexing. This was unique to Raytheon at the time. At the time this was made, it was state of the art. As you all know, SOTA is fleeting, and shortly thereafter, was just normal performance. Versions were sold to several branches of the US military and NATO. And one flew on the Space shuttle controlling a payload experiment. They did fly on JSTARS during dessert storm. They are not in PATRIOT or any other radar system. Someone made mention of Norden making a militarized computer, very similar. I worked with their version years earlier. It was a good design, but had some problems which we tried to avoid in our design. Hope this answers most questions. If you have any beyond this, Ill try to answer them. I do have some odds and ends of hardware from these computers, and we have one in the display box which is full up and able to run.. If anyone is really interested, I will try to snap some pictures and send them in. Jim L. BTW, I was really honored by the 'its alien technology' comment..much better than the 'must have OCD' comment...

[@hifijohn]

so thats were all my tax money goes.

[@DirkIronside]

+hifijohn Money well spent!

[@OriruBastard]

+hifijohn With one of those you could direct a nuke to go it's exact location without a margin of error.

[@smooooth_]

+Oriru Bastard can't tell whether I'm irritated or satisfied

[@OriruBastard]

Smooooth Well, about 20 years later. I'd say knowing that this piece of expensive technology is replaced by a PS2 by modern standards... Well... That's a fuck ton of money in comparison.

[@MicrobyteAlan]

If it wasn't for all that money spent then, you wouldn't be typing on the device you have now. Idiot. I'm an ex VAX Field Service Engineer, glad I didn't have to go fix these systems. Probably a long service call.

[@dmorgan1307]

I used to work on similar computer components like that in the military, the re-marked "Raytheon" components more than likely used to be marked with "Hughes". Raytheon bought out Hughes in the late 90's early 00's I think. Those "CPU's" are probably gate arrays, but they all look the same. The highest failure on this type of circuit card is the flex cables, after some time they break down from handling and such...go figure. Most of the components will not come off the board without heating, they have a conductive adhesive underneath that is no joke, most of the time, the chipsets and board get damaged when you remove them.

[@sonofhendrix1618]

Can't be illegal by now,, because of the pace of computer development. Even civilians can now build things like raspberry pi clusters, or purchase things like Nvidia Tesla cards, heck my quadcore cellphone could probably make these boards look like museum pieces. oh wait they are museum pieces.

[@TheTonyMcD]

Lol, try like my first cell phone back in 2002ish, could blow those things away, millions of times over

[@CrisHarrison]

Boy the roomer mill is working over time the this one!! The 4 boards went to a Raytheon ADCIS or "Air Defense Combat Information System". They are conduction cooled.. conduction cooled boards are multi-layer pcb with a heavy copper ground which is the center of normally a 5 layer pcb (2 + 1 + 2) the center layer is clamped into the rails which helps cool the system in order the boards are: G405010-4 -> CPU G405020-4 -> 16Mb memory G405065-4 -> ASYNC/SYNC I/O (serial) G405075-4 -> SCSI (hard disk interface)

[@nancyblackett6672]

Interesting thing about those milspec ceramic components: they discovered that, in fact, milspec ROMS and EPROMS (at least early ones) were actually more prone to soft failures than commercial plastic stuff because ... wait for it ... the ceramic itself emitted alpha particles which could cause soft fails of individual cells in the ROM.

[@GhostvaperYT]

yeah these are actually the boards from when we stripped down the 1st gen Terminator

[@JerickWallace]

yup reytheon is a company that offers upgrades for tanks for countries to keep old tanks up to date

[@joynermark]

The second generation terminator consists of liquid metal components.

[@TheGoodChap]

I wish I could see the stuff they have right now. It's crazy looking at pictures of computers in the 1960's and realizing they developed and were using technology we didn't see until the 1990's... People don't even realize how advanced some of this military stuff is like the minuteman guidance system. And it's generally not a gimmick either. If they design something which accomplishes it's goal and still works 30 years later, they'll keep using it.

[@VegasSpook]

I worked on VAX systems and others for Hughes Aircraft Co. Conformal coating was principally used for sealing out oxidation and for vibration proofing these boards. The slides down the sides are indeed used for cooling. They are called TMP (Thermal Mounting Plates. Submarines and other Navy ships used these type of boards. NTDS on US Navy ships ( kind of internet on board ships), was used to communicate between sensors and the systems. I worked on Digital Equipment Corp VAX systems for the Government, on the Apollo Space Flight Systems at Goddard Space Flight Center Md and on Systsems used by the US Navy for the VAST-- Versatile Avionics Test used on Aircraft Carriers for the F14 Aircraft maintenance. US ARMY used a System called TOAST which was VAX based system for personnel and finance. Machine was very reliable and most maintenance was on Rotating Memory (Disk Drive for non IBM folkss\) Big old disks were the preferred memory device for system instead of Magnetic Tape Drives which had to search linearly for data.

[@r3toun]

Can't you hold still for just one second please? The way you keep on turning and flippong that board it makes me go nuts :S

[@jasonbatcho4379]

Thank you, I needed a good laugh...

[@MrMamanDon]

I was extremely irritated by that

[@Bigrockets101]

These board are very common and were used in a lot of systems. Unfortunately getting the gold off of them is almost impossible as they have conformal coating on them which is an epoxy coating that prevents moisture, fungus and contaminates from affecting the boards. You would have to dissolve the coating with acetone or some other solvent before the de-plating process would be able to extract the gold. Raytheon probably did build the packages as the military did have a ban on using non-US sourced components. These days military systems are built from off the shelf components so the Chinese are free to embed hidden code in everything the military procures.

[@quincy8557]

Can you move and shake the board a little more please?

[@nejiniisan1265]

lol

[@Burningmace]

According to a guy I know that worked at Raytheon in the '90s, these boards often had features designed to improve adherence to TEMPEST spec, i.e. minimising EM emissions that might be used by an attacker to reconstruct information from data bus emissions and other EM power analysis. Often you'll find strange ground planes and unusual board alloys (e.g. heavy-metal infused fibre-glass) that are designed to "absorb" some of the emissions.

[@mikeg3529]

16MB ram, I could imagine when this came out 16MB was like some serious shit. Amazing how now, you can by a watch that dwarfs this in ram and can carry out much more complex functions.

[@MrJavaman5]

According to the IPC J-STD-001, which is the standard and the training our company uses to train operators, Class 3 electronics are high quality electronics that are designed not to fail. We build engine control electronics for GE aircraft engines. These engines go on 737's 747's 777's and more! These controls are built so they shouldn't fail. Human lives depend on these electronics! Electronics used in hospital equipment are also built to this spec. Stuff like pacemakers, heart monitors, etc.

[@RetArm]

These boards are all part of a COMSEC system. They where produced at Teledyne Electronics in Lewisburg Tennessee. Going on the fact that they have been bonded and sealed, I would say they are for marine application. Just so you know. It is illegal for you to possess them. Although the technology is obsolete, I can assure you that you can still get in a lot of trouble for having them. I've looked at the high res images you provided as well. I will be able to tell you a little more about them after holiday.

[@COMPAQCQ70]

mhm if it on ebay, for sell. what can you do lol? noting at all lmao. look like there gold on them chips.

[@jimmyharris1481]

NOT TRUE ! NOT illegal anymore ! This is 30 years old junk !!! Hang it on the wall of the living room for decoration... :-D

[@Evansmustard]

That's awesome, i grew up in Lewisburg Tennessee and I was not aware this. Must have been kind of a secretive manufacture.

[@MRgamer016]

well in that case y wont the military want us to have this stuff ?

[@SuperToFue]

Eric Goodwin if it's been declassified, it would be fine to possess these boards.. otherwise, well.. they'd have to spend the time/energy/resources to hunt this down - if they choose to. Realistically, these boards are so obsolete that I personally don't think it'd be worth that kind of hassle, unless they revealed something about current systems' API that could lead to side-channel attack - if it led to something exploitable on current designs for, say, how detection systems are routed in some protocol that could be overloaded by some outside signal at the right frequency sets.. then that would be an issue. That example is unlikely, but conveys the idea for why something ancient would still be classified. Also, if the EEPROM window's label is gone, it stands to reason that its logic had already been wiped. However, if the others are all still intact, it wouldn't take much to reverse-engineer possible and realistic implementations for that particular board.

[@dominicracca6955]

I can confirm these are aviation use components but I can't say military or not. Raytheon makes radar assemblies for both civilian and military use, and most aviation components are made to mil specs. Also there are some components that are identical for both purposes. These are part of a larger assembly where there would be a chassis that each card slides into and locks in place. Cooling would be air, as oil cooled usually is only for the high power RF units. The whole unit is considered a WRA or a RRA which stands for Weapons Replacable Assembly or Radar Replacable Assembly depending on if it part of the weapons system or the general radar. As for those who said the numbers would be erased, no they wouldn't. Those of us who repair those need to know what the chips are, so we know how to repair the units, and order the parts. The epoxy coating is to prevent condensation at high altitude from causing corrosion or short circuits. Unfortunately I don't know the exact use of these units other than aerospace of some sort.

[@Emphasis213]

Imagine what top secret computer development is going on now in the military compared to what we are using currently.

[@mechnicl]

This is an extensive mechanical repackaging of DECs VAX computer by Raytheon. Thanks all for the complements. I was very proud of this design. And no, I don't have OCD, and whoever said this was common in the USSR, you are quite inaccurate. The die feature sizes were not.available in the Soviet Union till around ten years later. @andreasm

[@nixiebunny1]

Way back then, I designed VMEbus cards for a small company that sold to Raytheon and other defense contractors.We didn't make anything this exotic, but those boards could be a repackaged VMEbus design. It's likely that the folks who designed them were sworn to secrecy. We eventually did get into conduction cooled VME designs.

[@outspokeninsider752]

The mix of high-tech and antique construction always delighted me about mil-spec and space-rated stuff.

[@bartdereu9267]

The only thing that is weird is wierd ..

[@JonMcNamaraM3691]

I worked at an US eastern seaboard aerospace manufacturer in the 90's and 00's which had qualified sole-source MIL and NASA (F14,F15 programs, much retrofit work out of WR AFB, and a life support sub-assem for Ham-Std on the Shuttle's EVA suits !). These samples are beautiful! Having done advanced bench tech work there, I fully appreciate the engineering behind them. I agree with a previous poster - have them nicely mounted in a glass case and display them as artwork !

[@rayrichey9253]

I worked on a similar system in the Navy in the early 80's and Mark is right about the hard drive for the system 6 -20 inch gold anodized disks with an astounding capacity of 20 mega bytes , the core memory was wire wound made by Sperry Rand and had a 4k limit. Pretty much anything Raytheon was radar, witch is what I mainly worked on, and the dips and flat packs usually indicate navigational memory. Before GPS the military relied on gravitational tracking, dead reckoning, actually pretty reliable.

[@chosen1one930]

With everything Ive collected and studied for decades I've never known or found them to use gold on platters. Palladium was commonly used for higher equipment

[@WizzRacing]

I worked.at raytheon in Dallas, Texas. I think what you have there are either ground based radar system boards or radom aircraft radar, hard to tell. You might know all parts are made in house or they drive over to TI to get custom chips. All systems are tested in what basically is a huge sealed ice box. They have to be resistant to EMP, corrosion, and long time storage in any weather.

[@eggsaladsandwhiches]

I'm not sure of their purpose, but I'm confident those are VME bus architecture cards which would all be installed in a common card rack. The navy still uses these pretty commonly in most digital systems for instrumentation and control.

[@TheDowneasters]

I worked for McDonnell Aircraft back in the early 80's on military avionics. These look like boards for an airborne avionics processor. I have a vague memory of a computer on an F-4 based on MIL-STD-1750A. Not saying this is exactly what you've got here, but they're definitely cousins.

[@MultiMonitorComputer]

"i have something to show you".... then proceed to NEVER STOP CONSTANTLY MOVING FAST so we cant see anything.

[@BitwiseMobile]

These look very similar to a box I worked on in the Navy. It was sonar receiver / spectrum analyzer that was used on the SH-3 platform. I worked AIMD which means we *usually* troubleshot down to the component level. I would say 80% of the time it was remove and replace some component stated as the fix (Q3 on the hover alarm for the SH-3 was ALWAYS going out :) ). These boards, however, were always depot level which means we would identify which board was bad (usually using the troubleshooting guide provided by Raytheon) and r&r that board and then send the board back to depot. We usually didn't even have schematics for those boards. Just block diagrams. :)

[@BankruptGreek]

is this how drinking 2 redbulls and sniffing a coffee from your nose feels like?

[@_Gecko]

Can confirm

[@skonkfactory]

These look like boards from the computer you'd find in a tank. They definitely used SCSI drives (five megabytes!) for battlefield information, though I have to admit that I have no idea what they actually stored on them.

[@d00kiebird]

Holy shit, did you drink a bunch of coffee before filming this? Fucking hold still for a second so we can get a look at these things.

[@techn0boy]

If only there were a button you could press to temporarily stop the video while still seeing the picture.

[@TheLambLive]

Jamie Evans Or perhaps some Hi-res photos up on a website somewhere ?

[@techn0boy]

Dan Harris Let's not get carried away with 22nd century ideas now Einstein. LOL.

[@nialljamesbuckley]

ah the internet...where entitlement and nastiness go hand in hand.

[@tonixzmac6204]

d00kiebird Do it fast or don't do it at all, coffee is getting cold.

[@markwebb5121]

Looks to be a typical radiation hardened motherboard you would find in a missile controller of satellite. I used to replace a lot of these from the missile silos at an internship I did a while ago.

[@TomTubeUK]

could you please shake it a bit more? you're holding it far too steady... I could almost make out what it was

[@ryaningram2228]

He does move them around a lot but your welcome to go and look at the high res photo's if you want a good look. Its in the description just like he said it would be.

[@oriole8789]

These were $50-80k USD in 1980's money, per board. That's a little higher than most modern boards of the same general function. Modern military stuff started using a lot of industrial grade components, and full mil-spec is only really used for critical stuff or space grade hardware. One of the realities of modern military/aero engineering is that customer expectations are high, but not many parts are available in mil-spec versions. If you have to build 100% mil-spec, you're gonna end up using older bulkier parts, and you will wait forever to receive them as well. That's one of several reasons why SpaceX and other companies have started to explore other ideologies to ensure system reliability. Just as well, small companies are locked out from being able to build full mil-spec. Minimum quantities are high, and parts are super expensive. Need deep pockets to have usable stock. In terms of part numbering and what not, this numbering scheme is all completely standard even today. Manufacturers often print their own part numbers on chips and even passives. Most of the numbers in this video are simply assigned, so you need a database to cross reference them. There are already way too many crazy people in the comments, so no point in saying any more than this. People for whom this stuff is relevant, will eventually learn what they need. Lots of this type of info is public.

[@NOBOX7]

nice piece , i was told that most of the extra effort that went into these was for vibration protection and thermal cycling

[@DarpaProperty]

German Leopard main battle tank has similar modular design for hot swappable components.

[@sukhoy]

I bet these boards work percfectly at ~200ºC

[@vant4888]

+sukhoy Plastic can be damaged either by high temperature or by low one. Low temp is in space but the equipment is too heavy for that. High temp could be everywhere in the case of fire and chips will be damaged anyway so why bother ? The only explanation could be the equipment is operating in close quarters like submarines where fire and toxic gases are very dangerous.

[@KowboyUSA]

+v ant According to Raytheon they're components for military aircraft use.

[@attack125]

+sukhoy isn't all that metal just extra em protection?

[@rich1051414]

+v ant He is right. These boards are rated for very high temp operation. I don't know about 200C, but 150C seems reasonable. I believe these were meant for supersonic aircraft.

[@ph11p3540]

There are thermal set plastics that can withstand 400c or -70c with no problems. First applications for the aerospace industry. A lot of these plastics are now finding their way into food handling commercial equipment and printing presses.

[@WizzRacing]

You want to see some highly technical stuff, you should see how they test guided missiles radar systems the size of a softball. You take a cellphone in there and it gets fried or jammed on the spot!

[@mattmoreira210]

I would have understood something if you just stopped bouncing the boards in front of the camera.

[@michael_w]

Could probably put in an FOI request with whichever government owned them and find out about the components.

[@Lilithe]

You know what makes a really shitty hardware video? When you flip things around so fast it's a motion blur and the viewer can't see anything!

[@Serenityindailylife]

avionics boards, old camera array computer. Seen them in use on avionics camera pods, like a big digital camera Desert Storm ERA. If they are Classified, the minimum possesion age would be 50 years or until demilled and scrapped.

[@blackops84321]

Nice video, but I got really dizzy from all the flipping and rotating of the boards. Couldn't get a good look, thank god for the pause button.

[@SigEpBlue]

Damn, those are just...freakin' beautiful! Almost creepy how uniform everything appears, like someone with a sort of super-OCD did the PCB layout. I can't even imagine how much those boards cost initially, considering the trimmed resistors, the amounts of metal and ceramic, etc.

[@Floortile83]

Hopefully we'll see something like this in MSI's next military class product line of Mobos and GPUs. ;)

[@deldarel]

I love how tightly packed they are. No space is wasted. Same with your voice, but I like that. High information density. I honestly think they look beautiful with the different metalic colours against the light brown background. I'd decorate my wall with them.

[@bunnywarren]

Modern military boards make these look very sparse.

[@MathieuMorrissette]

These are made to survive 3 bullets anywhere

[@motley679]

its wild how everything is shiny and perfectly done im trying to imagine the hands that built this. I actual feel a weird ora off of them,

[@crazzzik]

If I may suggest, Dave from EEV blog might be interested in looking at these

[@devinmartin7626]

I agree with telecom Titan those are combat reinforced modular computers commonly ussed in tanks, front line level fire controllers and radar systems. I also think a similar style is used in old school missiles like the tomahawk. Their also purposefully mis labeled and have false visual circuit paths for espionage reasons

[@TheSisko1]

keep still when showing and explaining lol

[@tjhowse]

Thanks for putting up this video Mike. It's great when it's clear that someone has a passion for their subject, and you clearly do.

[@meteroson6428]

The 80´s. 16mb RAM was a lot at this time. And now, everyone has min. 8gb. Welcome to the 21th century!

[@kaylebtennant7033]

+Cube Brick Gaming lol 21th its 21st lol

[@meteroson6428]

Oh haha didn´t noticed that :D

[@Cinncinnatus]

+Cube Brick Gaming that was just one card you can use multiple cards in that, including the CPU board. likely it ran on something like PTX or Dynix or some 'trusted' unix flavor.

[@MrShwaggins]

+Cube Brick Gaming Do you think having such limitations on memory made people more efficient at coding vs today having almost infinite resources? I know some of the tricks of the old are coming back with these new games (No Man's Sky for example)just letting you see what's immediately around you, and nothing else. I'm not familiar with exactly you would call it..Procedurally generated, maybe?

[@AgnostosGnostos]

I hope they are not ICBM digital navigation controllers... Nowadays you can find anything on eBay. Indeed they look very well made. For sure these Printed Circuit Boards can withstand extreme temperatures and vibrations. I don't know how much they were sold in eBay but these PCBs must have a considerable amount of gold. 16 Mbytes may don't look much but are enough for simple tasks. If these memory chips are shielded against radiation and nuclear electromagnetic pulses they should cost a lot.

[@SpringDivers]

Raytheon! Military, I would think. Could be a Calculo-static-memo-flexor.

[@TheGoodChap]

Definitely military, Raytheon is a US military contractor.

[@GlomorianPeacock]

Seems to be a board from the 1990's and looks to be similar to the decryption CPU's that were used (Model KGV-25 correlator board) Newer boards are much more complex (obviously). To everyone who is like "Oh he shouldn't have those boards, they're MIL-SPEC and confidential and all that bull: I doubt the military would let stuff like this get lost and sold unless it was outdated, REGARDLESS, it is interesting and fun to look into how our older technology worked.

[@t0nyt0ne17]

Looks exactly like circuit card assemblies from an AYK-14 mission computer

[@vikingsoftpaw]

The manufacturer and National Stock Number relate this assembly to the Pave/Paws radar system.

[@renekenshin6573]

Wow that's one humongous 16mb memory card and now 128mb flash drives are small

[@EddSjo]

you probably mean 128 GB flashdrives

[@renekenshin6573]

IsbjörnXII Oops yup GB xD

[@andrewjenery1783]

What I like is the absence of the myriad of tram-lines that you get on usual boards.

[@tarstarkusz]

Are you certain these weren't designed for space? I'm really surprised they would use a DEC VAC in a military setting. I once worked on a VAC, but as a jr and I don't remember much of anything about them and the one we were using was old (it was in the 90s, but the VAC was probably from the 80s)

[@serax]

tarstarkusz They look like they were meant for space, I have done a good deal of work with nasa, I have seen bars of "nasa gold" it was 99% Au, 24k gold is like 20% Au. Those boards are worth whatever gold is on them which looks like a lot plated in gold with gold cores for space.

[@tarstarkusz]

serax It seems overkill for military unless it's supposed to survive really harsh conditions or maybe an EMP or something. Are you sure about 24K gold being only 20%?

[@DarkVoidDan]

tarstarkusz That's what most of the old high tech stuff used so yeah maybe for servere weather conditions or as you said space.

[@tarstarkusz]

***** Seems kind of old for the craft to still be classified. Maybe an ICBM? Of course, you could just as easily be right about the air craft.

[@ScoopDogg]

They look too heavy too me for anything to do with space.

[@charliefoxtrotthe3rd335]

One thing about MilSpec, they do make 'em robust. These are probably 10 times as expensive as a commercial spec. But rugged as hell.

[@solidamber]

I think these could be from a "VTech my first laptop"

[@Chalky.]

These are military spec designed to handle the most extreme forces imaginable, but 2 minutes with my son and this thing would be dust.

[@stevebez2767]

ian gee fit them into early AS400 IBM, the ones with the gold motorollas unz?.. Blade server parts..

[@AlexOjideagu2]

LOL so true Trakker

[@cmarano]

When showing off boards could you please flip them over faster? Some of us aren't completely motion-sick yet.

[@Pooua]

Did anyone ever think of asking Raytheon? I mean, I could probably put some floaters out; Raytheon has several facilities near my home.

[@douggale5962]

Have you ever asked a manufacturer anything? They will politely tell you, no, you can't have that information, no there is no way to get it.

[@bra1nc417d]

I notice a silicon layer covering everything making them waterproof. Looks very strong and built to the highest standards. Definitely military grade. Awesome looking stuff.

[@gordonwelcher9598]

Silicone

[@sharcs]

I would argue that they're aerospace, maybe even from a space program because they've been built to stand heat, punishment and they seem to be easily interchangeable. They also seem to have some sort of error checking system built in coz of the pass/fault LEDs. Id say these are either from a fighter aircraft, a missile or a space rocket.

[@nekomasteryoutube3232]

It's possible they're military because a lot of those chips are branded with Raytheon on it, and Raytheon is a defense contractor that makes all sorts of weapons and technology

[@DenzukoDomo]

Matt Brine Raytheon has a history of working along side DARPA and NASA therefore that does not fully rule out the possibility of these boards being Aerospace related. The modularity does give the biggest hint though and as such I'm wondering if these types of boards where ever in a naval usage

[@dieselscience]

Matt Brine Raytheon works for whoever pays them.

[@dieselscience]

Frag, Ratheon worked for Amana Co. and ATC is not categorically military, so you kind of prove my point. Ratheon works for whoever pays them, it's the nature of being a contract manufacturer company.

[@Infamanious]

I'm not going to lie..i was seriously skeptical about clicking that link. I know you are a brilliant minded person..infact..you are a genius when it comes to programming language. Turns out..my curiosity got the better of me and i clicked the high res pic link. Woops...anyways. Happy rooting Mike!

[@danielsmoothie]

Will it run minesweeper

[@Chalky.]

If it fits in a tank then it runs the ultimate minesweeper.

[@marcosvillafuetre8591]

Even the shittyest Windows Xperia pc's will run minesweeper

[@HardWhereHero]

Windows Xperia? What are you taking about?

[@FlakyMusic]

Probably autocorrect. They probably meant "Windows XP" but they have a Sony phone or have typed Xperia elsewhere and the autocorrect happened.

[@nernamez5946]

only on the reality server.

[@Burningmace]

Oh, and you'll also find that most of the enclosures for these kinds of things were heavily shielded, with lead / gold leaf linings designed to prevent any high-energy particles from getting in and any EM from getting out.

[@MilanVVVVV]

I bet it says "Made in Hong Kong" under that Raytheon cover :D

[@cosmicraysshotsintothelight]

+Milan Velebit I'll bet it doesn't. Mil gear gets made here. The chip fabs can come from abroad, but that is a COTS thing and they still can provide mil spec testing functions on what they deliver. That gear though... was probably ALL fabbed here 100%.

[@MilanVVVVV]

Gary Kindt I was joking mate, I'm well aware of those facts

[@cosmicraysshotsintothelight]

Milan Velebit I guess I missed the (bloody) smiley.. ;-P

[@NeneExists]

The resin is called a conformal coating. It protects the board and components, and discourages the formation of tin whiskers, amongst other things.

[@Swanny383]

Had to watch the vid at .25 speed, cool boards though.

[@robertferguson4747]

I was in the Army in the late 80's and early 90's. I forget what we called it but they look like the boards from our motorpool computer that we ordered parts on. it was pretty big and made to be near bullet proof. I was in Special Forces and our equipment was all air droppable, as in we dropped it out of an airplane with a parachute. It had a cool name, just cant seem to remember.

[@paulpothier123]

u wana buy some coke sir calm

[@KowboyUSA]

Oh my, those are beautiful. After the world we know ends, undoubtedly some atavistic mouth-breather will be wearing those on their chest as a sign of high status.

[@g4yktzgjx6]

Meanwhile in North Korea they are still trying to figure out what a capacitor is.

[@DeTrOiTXX12]

+g4yktzgjx6 lol

[@alisher1984]

+g4yktzgjx6 Nah. They're still working on a resistor. Caps are too hi-tech... LOL

[@Chalky.]

They buy the same Chinese crap the rest of us use.

[@hugovanrossum7829]

+Trakker why is it crap?

[@Emeengor]

They have their own OS (their own linux distro highly modified) they have guided missiles fabrication method (maybe not intercontinental as they claim but it's still a huge achievement ) so dont think that much less about them in fact they are more advanced than most of the other countries around the world with their OWN technologies not borrowed/licensed tech from let's say Japan, Germany, USA or Russia

[@MrJavaman5]

I work for a company that manufactures engine controls for military and commercial aircraft, All the boards we assemble and put in units are just like these. They are heavy thick boards that are heavily conformal coated. Because the boards are so thick and have heat sinks, they can be a pain to rework or solder. Especially through hole components. You basically have to heat the whole board up just to get the solder to flow. These and all the electornics we work on are built to class 3 specs.

[@Se7enHxC]

its a minecraft server

[@SniperPIKACHU]

I have seen some real military grade circuit board and my professors worked on a few of them... they usually have a very large and a few inch thick metal enclosre ( brass or aluminum). I think these are industrial grade PCBs.... I usually make prototype or home level pcbs.... still, a very nice video and I have learnt something new. Thanks!

[@SuperGrowPlants]

beautiful

[@stephenwoods4118]

Mill spec, that means it will still be working when the people around it have succumbed to the 120C or -50C temperature.

[@philipplamenov8649]

after connect this to AC you will hear NUCLEAR LAUNCH DETECTED

[@MrJavaman5]

It's mainly just for industrial and military applications. It's possible for a manufacturer to manufacture and sell electronics such as DVD players, stereos, etc that meet class 3 spec., but most only build such electronics to either class 1 or 2 spec. to keep the cost down. Class 3 electronics are also built for electronics that need to be able to last in harsh conditions. On a jet plane, our controls are subjected stong vibrations from the engine as well as wide range of temperature changes.

[@GoDamit1000]

very interesting but please stop moving it round like you have add. only 10% of you video i could actually see something.

[@nashorie]

try pausing the video my single digit IQ friend

[@1242-x5q]

this was a year ago

[@djkillachris]

Do you know what kind of conformal coating is on this? I'm just learning more about the different types as I'm about to protect all my boards on a ship from the harsh and humid salt air environment.

[@jaydownlink]

And even with all of these electronics the computer could still not store one byte.

[@BenjaminEsposti]

Yeah, doesn't that make you hungry?! xD

[@tylerhackett3083]

What do you mean? One of the modules there is a 16mb storage thingy.

[@imchris5000]

Tyler Hackett thats ram ram is not storage

[@tylerhackett3083]

imchris5000 Ah good catch, I didnt realize it was RAM.

[@tylerhackett3083]

imchris5000 that withstanding, there has to be some non-volatile storage somewhere larger than 1 byte.

[@kevinowenburress2435]

those look like rad hard satellite boards. specifically I was looking for some recently and saw this and that's what they are. the boards compress in the clamp not for cooling but for vibration during launch. the gold over the processors actually contains some lead probably for rad shielding, and the epoxy coating is to withstand vacuum conditions.

[@ShaneDillingham]

Anyone else get left biased audio?

[@patuszodi7532]

the military-grade circuit boards from Fallout 4

[@mikeblaszczak5346]

If you mean to show us the boards, maybe you could s\top moving the board around for just one second.

[@andikulozik3408]

It seem to me all the parts on them, not to mention the design and quality measures taken for the construction are special rad hardened versions and therefore expensive as hell, the kind of backplane connectors somehow narrows them down to the avionics bay of a plane, I guess 15-10 years ago, it's maybe a flight computer, at least one of four, you need to search for mil backplane standards! What equipment did you use to take those hi res pics? Great!

[@slrucom]

I've got headache of you shacking this boards =P

[@Membrane556]

It's a militarized MicroVAX not sure if they were used on satellites but some were used on the shuttle for payload experiments and in several military aircraft.