# Help ID This Unique Component



## Purplesquish (Nov 22, 2015)

Has anyone ever seen one of these or know what it is? I recovered it from a very rigid ribbon cable that it was soldered to mid cable with through hole vias. It was mounted about 3 inches from a military type 25 pin round connector, with very heavy plated pins. The cool thing about this component is that the top side of the chip has a clear glass face. There was no sticker covering the glass or reside to suggest that there ever was. Thanks for your help!


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## macfixer01 (Nov 23, 2015)

Just a guess but it looks like some special purpose-built LED 12 character display? I don't see any driver chips on the ceramic wafer, it looks like just a dozen multiplexed 7-segment displays. Pretty tiny though, like the numbers on the old digital watches? You could probably poke around with an AA battery and couple pieces of wire and see something light up.

HP makes some neat multi-character small red LED displays that have been discussed oh here before. They generally have decoders/drivers and a magnifying lens built into the same package.


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## Purplesquish (Nov 25, 2015)

Thank you for the reply! I gave it a go with a AA battery with no luck observing anything. Is this something that a collector might be interested in, or is it not desirable since it is used? Is there a better venue to try to sell it, or is eBay my best bet? Any insight is appreciated!


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## macfixer01 (Nov 27, 2015)

Purplesquish said:


> Thank you for the reply! I gave it a go with a AA battery with no luck observing anything. Is this something that a collector might be interested in, or is it not desirable since it is used? Is there a better venue to try to sell it, or is eBay my best bet? Any insight is appreciated!




My feeling is that selling it would be more profitable, but we don't know what the actual gold content is? Most collectors seem to focus on processors. A lot of the appeal for other chips is based on their appearance (visible gold helps), and design uniqueness. Someone may also want it for dressing up their SteamPunk creation? My guess is that the gold value probably isn't that great, in all likelihood under $10? You might just pick a price double what you think some collector might pay for it, then put it on Ebay with 'make an offer' enabled and see what happens?

Take a look at the Electronics Museum page linked below. You can see it has some general similarities to the Siemens mdl2416 display for example. If you go to the Contact link at the top of their page it indicates they'll assist with identifying components, but they don't offer appraisals. It also gives no indication that they buy collectibles, but says they accept donations of course.

http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/tubepage.php?item=33&user=0

Good luck!
Macfixer01


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## beav3r316 (Dec 8, 2015)

I tried looking it up for you on octopart.com but I couldnt make out a couple of the smudged numbers/letters in your picture.

There is another website that I used when I was looking up a bunch of IC chips and logic processors, but I can't recall what it was... and of course, I forgot to bookmark it. If and when I find it again I will let you know what it is.

Good luck. I would keep it if it were me....it sure is pretty


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