Here's a real piece of history at a bargain and in factory condition too.

 

This sale is for one C-Cube CL950 MPEG Video Decoder Prototype. as pictured. It's an important historic milestone for any CPU collection. I acquired these new unused chips in the original trays. The CL950 never went into full production, but rather was used as a development tool and for demonstration of the MPEG technology.  

The MPEG technology demonstrated with this chip was an unprecedented step to modern digital broadcast.  MPEG compression involves slowing the update (broadcast) rate of Audio and/or Video data that is not humanly perceived. It was the foundation of video and audio compression techniques that enable high quality video on the home or mobile device you're looking at right now.

 

C-Cube was formed in 1988 by one of Weitek's founders, Edmund Sun. C-Cube engineers not only tackled early compression technology, they also drove the standards. The CL950 is an engineering masterpiece, rolling complex MPEG hardware into a single device. This single chip could decode broadcast quality video at speeds of 10Mbits per second.

Die photo credit: Pauli Rautakorpi

See many other rare and beautiful tech collectables in my ebay store.