Tube🌿Timewow, this horrible late '90s modem card uses carbon pads instead of gold plating. you might say they were "carbon pilled"
for more photos of this abomination, see https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/3com-3cp803598
Ben S.@tubetime wow they really spared no expense in sparing every expense
Chip@tubetime Good god. Did Packard Bell order these? Contact lifetime: 1-2 insertions. 😆
AMS@tubetime "We're getting reflections off the edgecard connector!"
Bob Abrams@tubetime I think the $10 TI30x calculators today also use carbon dust—to connect the button module to the CPU board. I found this out last evening when trying to bring a broke one back to life. Fail on my part. p.s. thanks for sharing your exploits.
Neko May@tubetime I might say a lot of nasty things about a decision like that
Florence@tubetime I've got a couple too! They seemed to do it for OEM versions of their modems.
EndlessMason@themaritimegirl
"It's going in an office pc and being forgotten about, nobody's going to even think about it 30 years from now"
Rue Mohr@tubetime I think carbon plated pads...
John Carlsen 🇺🇸🇳🇱🇪🇺It's usually applied as carbon ink.
In this case, I think I see some gold on those exposed holes. I'd guess maybe ENIG. Though if there's a nickel barrier layer it looks thin.
Looks like more a bad idea from the marketing dept saying "product differentiation" rather than the engineering side ("make it better").
aburka 🫣@tubetime carbonmaxxing?
Darryl RammFocus on quality there... 🤮
So many shitty low quality companies are eventually acquired by modern HPE. Feel sorry for the legacy of Bill and Dave.
root42@tubetime It's a surprise that the capacitors didn't leak!
Stylus
Jonathan HendryTamper detection. "You've clearly removed this card more than once."
Jeff@tubetime is it a real modem or a winmodem? (The sound cards with an RJ11 jack that ate up CPU cycles like candy and never got open source drivers because no one hated themselves enough to do that.)