68040 Engineering Sample CPU

http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1218

 

Here’s a few pictures of an early 25Mhz 68040 Cube motherboard that I recently acquired that shipped from the NeXT factory with an engineering sample CPU. I noticed the odd markings on the CPU and decided to look into what it meant. According to CPU World the “PC” prefix of the part number indicates a Motorola engineering sample. I also noticed that the part number is missing the CPU speed rating. I’ve seen pictures of another cube that had a sample CPU, so the NeXT technicians must have used engineering samples occasionally for production units.