A Reddit user recently stumbled upon a vintage RCA Spectra 70/35 computer control panel from 1966 while cleaning out their family’s long-collapsed garage. They shared images of this valuable pre-moon landing mainframe component on the ‘retrobattlestations’ subreddit, a community dedicated to celebrating classic computers. After restoring some of the keyswitches, the original poster, known as SonOfADeadMeme, mentioned that making the panel operational would necessitate “1,500lbs of mainframe”—the absent sections of the computer system.
Unbeknownst to him, the panel had been hidden in the garage for decades. “In short, my house is a two-family; my dad used to rent out the other half before I was born,” SonOfADeadMeme explained 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 showed up with a forklift and left something in the garage.”
The equipment had lain dormant for years due to the garage’s severe disrepair, which ultimately resulted in its collapse. “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 recounted. He speculated that the crate contained an unidentified IBM component, likely related to the power supply, but noted he hadn’t closely inspected it due to the clutter in his basement.
To operate the Spectra 70, users would typically connect a teletype (similar to an electronic typewriter) or a video terminal console, providing an interactive text-based experience. The panel unearthed from the garage, however, appears to be the maintenance control panel for the Spectra 70/35, which would have been mounted on the side of the main processor cabinet, as depicted in RCA’s documentation. It features a primary “Power” button, several rows of indicator lights (including Q0-Q13 visible in the posted photos), various control switches for system functions, and a “Memory Address Stop” panel for debugging, all prominently displaying the designation “70/35 SYSTEM.”