The QM323 (QuadMod 32) from Pangolin Laser Systems is an ISA card designed to be installed in a computer and used in conjunction with Pangolin's software (Lasershow Designer) to control a laser projector system. It was released around 1994 and was the successor to the QM16, and the predecessor to the QM2000. There was also an upgraded model called the QM40, which came with a faster processor. The QM32 supports controlling one laser projector. Up to 4 cards can be installed in a supported system to allow for control of 4 projectors. The QM32 is an entire computer on a board, making it a fully dedicated system for running the laser show. It features a Motorola MC86EC series MCU, 16 MB worth of memory installed in 4 SIMM slots, an AMD AM29C668 memory controller, several GAL (generic array logic) chips, and several digital-to-analog converters. The host computer is only used for the program user interface and storage of data, and can be an ordinary desktop computer with a motherboard that has supported ISA expansion slots. This eliminates the need for a specialized industrial computer dedicated to laser show control. Once sent to the QM32, the show programming is entirely run from the card. Pangolin advertised this feature as a way to decrease dependence on unstable Windows operating systems. According to Pangolin, the show would continue running even if the host computer OS crashed.
We extracted the M27C256B EPROM and dumped its contents. Examine the HEX and ASCII dumps below.
Plenty of information about the QM32 and many other Pangolin products is available on the Pangolin Legacy website. The pin-out for the QM32 IDC connector is also available there. Check it out below!