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by ChuckMcM 3172 days ago
Wow, if you could get your hands on a Dorado that would be something. On one of my visits to PARC there was an office with the door closed and the name plate "E. Dorado" on it. The offices on either side had displays and keyboards but the machines for those offices were in this office. The display and keyboard cables being fed through the walls. Not a 'machine room' per se but a separate office.
2 comments
kens 3172 days ago
I recently came across a couple big boxes of ECL boards at Xerox PARC that I think are from a Dorado. But without the backplane, it would be pretty hard to make a Dorado out of the boards.

Some photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/cn1CV9ts5sINLlwa2 You can see the 10181 ALU chips - these are ECL versions of the popular 74181 ALU.

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ChuckMcM 3172 days ago
Wow, they appear to be about the right size. And yes, it would be impossible to assemble without a backplane, and fabricating one would be challenging even with documentation.
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gumby 3172 days ago
The dorados and (some of the dolphins) were in machine rooms, not offices, as the ECL machines ran so hot. There were not a lot of dorados so you could connect to an available machine. One reason I used work at night was that a dorado would usually be available for me to connect to from my office.
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