2 ms·

I purchased quite a few of those systems when they came out of production and went into the surplus supply chain. I don't recall anything unusual about the cube

I purchased quite a few of those systems when they came out of production and went into the surplus supply chain. I don't recall anything unusual about the cubes with NeXTDimension boards that were in there though. Some had two boards, which was outrageously over-the-top powerful. There were a lot of slabs that were also labelled "NRO", and I bought lots and lots of them. No hard drives, of course. There was a surplus yard in Maryland that had the contracts for the TLAs. Not open to the public, but if you spent enough and brought donuts, you could clamber across the content of that week's 18-wheeler crammed to the top with magical gear coming out of places that had unlimited budgets and fast replacement cycles. It was legendary. I still have a fax machine somewhere in my dusty piles with "Joint Chiefs of Staff - Whitehouse" property tags.

bobmcnamara 1mo ago
Back in my day the IBM gear had special RF attenuating cases.
- ButlerianJihad 1mo ago
  Almost all computing devices had fairly hardcore RF cage chassis around the internals. Even the humble Atari 2600, if you got a look, was well-shielded. My father purchased a PS/2 Model 50Z for himself, and for me, a PS/2 Model 30 286, and the shielding was likewise impressive. When I went to CompUSA to upgrade to 386, the salesmen were very specific about informing me of the "FCC Class B" ratings. IIRC, the system couldn't be rated FCC Class B unless the motherboard was mated to a particular tower case and sold as a "barebones system". If I wanted to take my chances with separate chassis and bare motherboard, that would not carry the rating and I could cause undue interference at home. I knew this was real important, since my father was a radio guy, and he'd taught me quite a bit about RFI.