Recently, a Reddit user discovered a rare RCA Spectra 70/35 computer control panel from 1966 in their family's old collapsed garage, posting photos of the pre-moon landing mainframe component to the "retrobattlestations" subreddit that celebrates vintage computers. After cleaning the panel and fixing most keyswitches, the original poster noted that actually running it would require "1,500lbs of mainframe"—the rest of the computer system that's missing.
As it turns out, the panel had been sitting in the garage for decades without the poster's knowledge. "In short my house is a two-family, my dad used to rent out the other half before I was born," explained SonOfADeadMeme in the thread on Friday. "One of the people who rented out the apartment worked at IBM (apparently the RCA Spectra 70's were compatible with IBM sets from the time) and shortly before he left he shown up with a forklift and left something in the garage."
Credit: SonOfaDeadMeme / Reddit A view of the RCA Spectra 70/35 computer control panel before (right) and after (left) its owner cleaned it up.
The equipment remained hidden for decades due to the deteriorating condition of the structure. "The garage was very dilapidated and has since collapsed so no one bothered going in. Fast forward a few decades and I found the RCA terminal and a crate labeled 'Return to IBM San Jose,'" SonOfADeadMeme wrote. They speculated the unidentified IBM component in the crate was "something power supply related" but noted they hadn't examined it closely due to their basement being "jam-packed with stuff."
To operate the Spectra 70, users typically used a teletype (similar to an electronic typewriter) or video terminal console hooked to the machine that provided an interactive text-based experience. By contrast, the panel discovered in the garage appears to be the maintenance control panel for the Spectra 70/35 computer itself that would have been mounted on the side of the main processor cabinet, as seen in illustrations in RCA's documentation. It features the main "Power" button to turn on the computer as well as multiple rows of indicator lights (including Q0-Q13 visible in the photos), various control switches for system operations, and a "Memory Address Stop" panel for debugging, and it prominently displays the "70/35 SYSTEM" designation.