During my adventures 15-20 years ago in taking apart old computers, I happened to discover that the BIOS chips were removable. They all had stickers covering the top, and I discovered by feel that on most of the chips there was a slight indentation underneath the sticker. On removing the sticker, I found to my delight a clear glass (actually fused quartz) window through which I could see the silicon chip.
A chip like this is designed to be programmed electronically and erased with UV light. The silicon is normally protected from stray UV light by the sticker covering the window. It is possible to erase the memory on the chip by using a EPROM eraser, which is a box designed to blast the chip with a bright UV light for several minutes. For the curious, there’s more to read about them on Wikipedia.
After gathering a small handful of chips, I happened to link them together like this. Hmm, those look a little like interlocked teeth.
Wow.
By this point, I had an idea. A few months later I had what I needed. My parents retired our old cassette tape deck and bequeathed it to me. I took it apart and found a huge bundle of wires snaking from every corner of the circuit board. I cut it all away and was left with a mass of wires about the size of my hand. What was I to do with all of these wires? Throwing them away would be a waste.
And so, the Tyrannosaurus Rex robot model was born.
Even the eyes and tongue light up (when you apply power to the tail).
There is a plastic film container in the abdomen containing a couple of current-limiting resistors to keep the eyes and tongue from burning out.
