Pics of the complete system would give more context I'd imagine. It is possible it is for a light pen.

Seems a little odd for a light pen since it has no pcb side light pen header like almost every one I've seen. If seems like some sort of data capture board to me - it has a 12MHz Intel microcontroller with FIFO chips and an EPROM. Might have been in an industrial PC with some purpose built application. The ISA card has no identifying make/model which is also a bit odd if it was a light pen board - unless it is some offbrand that came as a kit together with the pen.

Seems like a very antiquated card for 1993

The only similar one I have seen like that was attached inside an IBM 5160 XT with a 386 aboveboard overdrive along with some hardware key protected weather station software. The card attached to various probes for temperature, humidity, wind speed, etc and logged it remotely, case looked like ass no doubt from being in an outdoor enclosure 30 years
The system originally logged data to a Bernoulli drive that they would occasionally swap to analyze the data.

Have you checked what software is on the machine?

A quick search for crapola on that card brings up switching scanner/multiplexer
Isolated digital input output

There is a lot of purpose built proprietary stuff that I have regretted formatting over every day.

Most of the Targa capture devices are unusable today because no one archived the 800 or so custom utilities that drive them.

Ah well good luck

It's a bit hard to tell from the photo (how does a 1.3MB JPEG end up like that?) but the chips tell the story of what this card does:

Intel P8344 - SDLC communications controller
HM6264 - 8Kx8 static RAM
IDT7201 - 512x9 parallel FIFO
DS96176 - RS485/RS422 differential transceiver

The Intel 8344 is basically an 8051 microcontroller combined with an SDLC serial interface, which explains the 12Mhz crystal. The RAM+ROM on chip is probably for the use of the SDLC protocol stack running on the 8051, and the FIFO is likely there to provide a buffer that the host CPU can access over the ISA bus to receive the incoming data. Apparently SDLC is often carried over a 9-pin connector. Not sure what the RCA jack would be for, though...

There might be software/drivers for this card available on the HDD of the machine you salvaged it from. Worth taking a look? Card will absolutely need special drivers. Also thoroughly useless if you don't have anything else that speaks SDLC.

🤣, so likely POS / Banking

Seems that rs485 could be repurposed for something?

Odd that a card of that type would be basically homemade looking and date coded in 93

kdr wrote on 2021-07-14, 01:21:

Apparently SDLC is often carried over a 9-pin connector. Not sure what the RCA jack would be for, though...

Old POS Systems always had a BNC, RCA OR coaxial connection for some reason,
never was consistent in terms of what it attached to though.

I remember trying to hook a mono screen to one once, didn’t end well

Thanks for the feedback.

I won't have a chance to take pictures of the PC until later today or tomorrow, but the place where I salvaged it from is near the local hospital - maybe that system was used to drive some medical equipment of sorts?
Sadly the HDD, 3.5'' floppy and PSU were taken out before it was scrapped (it has however a 5 1/4'' drive, which I thought was odd for an overdrive system - maybe the original software was run/installed from 5 1/4'' disks?

kdr wrote on 2021-07-14, 01:21:

It's a bit hard to tell from the photo (how does a 1.3MB JPEG end up like that?)

Sorry about the size/quality. I'll try to replace those pictures with smaller ones with better quality.

Any way of dumping the EPROM contents to see if there are any text strings that might give a clue? Also there's what looks like a bit of text along the top of the card that I can't make out, does that give any hints?

snufkin wrote on 2021-07-14, 09:25:

Any way of dumping the EPROM contents to see if there are any text strings that might give a clue? Also there's what looks like a bit of text along the top of the card that I can't make out, does that give any hints?placa1_PCB_Text.jpg

I'm at work right now, but I'm assuming you're talking about the motherboard BIOS? Will transcribe the text when I get home.

I was thinking more about the one on the card, the M2764AFI with the SCA-TCJ sticker on it. Looks like it's socketed, so if you have access to a programmer then you should be able to remove it from the card and read the contents.

snufkin wrote on 2021-07-14, 10:20:

I was thinking more about the one on the card, the M2764AFI with the SCA-TCJ sticker on it. Looks like it's socketed, so if you have access to a programmer then you should be able to remove it from the card and read the contents.

I suspect I don't know anyone with a reader, but I'll ask around.

snufkin wrote on 2021-07-14, 09:25:

Any way of dumping the EPROM contents to see if there are any text strings that might give a clue? Also there's what looks like a bit of text along the top of the card that I can't make out, does that give any hints?placa1_PCB_Text.jpg

The text reads "EME PC INTERFACE 059 50 SINTFA"

In the meantime I got a friend with a reader, but that will take some time.

And here are the photos of the hardware that came with it:

And here are the BIOS screens:

Nicolette Electronic Medical Equipment

It appears to be for lab equipment and encrypted access to patient data.

Your unit is very basic with only 1 rca port, most lab systems have 4 or more.

Sans software you won’t know what it did, would need to bother what is left of the original manufacturer

Is this a Euro zone machine?

rmay635703 wrote on 2021-07-15, 00:57:

Nicolette Electronic Medical Equipment […]
Show full quote

Nicolette Electronic Medical Equipment

It appears to be for lab equipment and encrypted access to patient data.

Your unit is very basic with only 1 rca port, most lab systems have 4 or more.

Sans software you won’t know what it did, would need to bother what is left of the original manufacturer

Is this a Euro zone machine?

Yes, it is.

I'm tempted to save the PC and throw the card onto the pile of useless hardware, along with the USB ADSL modems...