[SIGCIS-Members] Help Needed Identifying Computer Component

[Laine Nooney]

To my favorite cabal of computer historians:

I've been contacted by a colleague of a colleague who is an art historian
writing on the work of Chilean artist Guillermo Núñez
<https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillermo_N%C3%BA%C3%B1ez>. In the late
1970s, Núñez produced a seriograph (v. similar to a silkscreen) partially
depicting what my colleague believes is a piece of computer technology in
it. She is trying to identify what the image is of so she can write about
it with a bit more specificity.

I'm providing a dropbox links to two image files, on of the full seriograph
and one that is a close up.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/86iutdvvbkz2814/AAB8IdZ5IMGcK_h4gAiAGG2la?dl=0

CONTEXT:

Núñez told the art historian that he used a photo that he had found of "one
of those computers that takes up a whole room," then xeroxed it, then
superimposed it over his own photograph and used those images to make the
serigraph stencil. Thus the image is not very detailed, as its been
processed through several kinds of media. It is also like that Núñez put put
some pieces of string on the canvas when he printed, and then removed them,
so in addition to any wires that may be in the original image, there are
also imprints that resemble wires as well.

Núñez made the prints in 1977-1979, so the images are from that time period
or earlier. He sourced all kinds of images from different countries,
usually from magazines and old books. There is no reason to believe the
image or the technology represented in Chilean or South American.

Obviously, the thing looks like a breadboard. What I don't know is how
common place something like this would have been in mid-century computer
equipment, what its function might have been, etc. This is all well beyond
my area of expertise. There's a bit of writing you can read on the board in
the second image.

I welcome any comments or thoughts as replies to the group or individually,
and I'll pass them on.

Best,
Laine
-- 
Laine Nooney
www.lainenooney.com

DM <http://dm.lmc.gatech.edu/> @ LMC <http://lmc.gatech.edu/> @ GT
<http://www.gatech.edu/>
Assistant Professor
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