9 Nov
2010
9 Nov
'10
1:42 a.m.
Hi
Thanks for the reply. Well I do have a genuine (N*H) motherboard.
The serial I/O is on the motherboard so I am assuming it will boot to ROM
Monitor with just the N*H CPU card in position. As you confirm that it?s a
generic S100 motherboard then other non N*H S100 boards may well run.
Regards
?
Rod Smallwood
?
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of allison
Sent: 08 November 2010 22:08
To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only
Subject: Re: S-100 board PCB planning
On 11/08/2010 01:20 AM, Rod Smallwood wrote:
********************** Attention Bob Rosenbloom
***********************
Please contact me at rodsmallwood at btconnect.com my email re NS boards
keeps
bouncing back.
Hi Andrew.
I am restoring a Northstar Horizion. Would any of your boards be
suitable
substitutes for the original NS ones?
As NS* user the answer is sorta. The board will plug in but none are NS*
replacements if only the include things NS* never imagined or implemented.
In short, all of those boards can be used in a NS* Horizon as the backplane
in that machine is generic S100 and oddly enough 99% IEEE696 compatable
(needs terminations, and only for 8bit IO) and already has two serial,
parallel
ports, interrupt logic plus interrupt control. However stock NS* cards
are not
completely 696 compatible so some care with mixing them needs to be taken.
The yabut is that none are replacement cards, though most would extend the
machine nicely especially the z80/floppy and the IDE.
I happen to have two NS* horizons.
One I built in 1978 and all the boards are non stock and it has things like
10mhz z80(modified Compupro CPU-Z), 256kB ram with banking, 8085/765
smart FDC (supports 8" and 3.5", BIOS on board), Teltek HDC (2 D540s for
62mb total),
smart IDE/CF(64MB installed, smart part if the BIOS is fully implemented
it it),
512K MdriveH ramdisk, 256K romdisk, CompuPro MPX1 (intelligent IO slave),
Smart printer buffer(128K/8049), fast serial (8049 8251) for buffered
serial support.
Generally runs a very modified version of CP/M-80 with multitasking and
mountable
drive support added.
The other is a rock stock NS* 64K Horizon with either a SD or DD controller
( I have both for it). Runs NSDOS, CP/M, UCSD Pascal.
Allison
Regards
Rod Smallwood
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Andrew Lynch
Sent: 06 November 2010 15:34
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: S-100 board PCB planning
Hi! Over the last couple of years several of us at N8VEM,
S100computers.com, and others have been building S-100 boards. This
summer
we did a major update/respin cycle to the boards and
made manufactured
PCBs
for many builders. For a while it seemed to satisfy
the demand for DIY
hobbyist S-100 PCBs but now the interest is starting to pick up again so I
thought I would send an update to any S-100 enthusiasts on CCTALK.
I will reorder/respin S-100 PCBs once the interest level gets to an
economically viable level for a group purchase. Normally that is around
25-30 PCBs I know builders want which makes a cost at $20 plus shipping
per
PCB affordable for most builders. This compromise
balance seems to work
well and we've produced several S-100 boards this way. Here are the
boards
we've made so far:
S-100 regular prototyping board (some remaining)
S-100 buffered prototyping board (some remaining)
S-100 backplane (8 slot plus utility circuitry - one left)
S-100 IDE (hard drive, CD-ROM, CF, ATAPI, etc)
S-100 parallel ASCII keyboard (just received a new batch of respin
PCBs)
S-100 4MB SRAM (Flash, etc)
S-100 system monitor (similar to Jade Bus Probe but two PCB set -
one or two remain)
S-100 bus extender (with logic probe, indicator LEDs, etc)
S-100 EPROM (SRAM, EEPROM, Flash, etc)
S-100 IO (dual serial, USB, voice synthesis, etc)
S-100 PIC/RTC
All of these have gone through at least one or two internal prototype
iterations plus one or more manufactured PCB orders. Since we respin the
boards based on builder feedback obviously the later generations of boards
tend to be "cleaner" than the earlier ones. This is an all volunteer
amateur project so the builders *are* the developers, QA, testers, etc in
addition to using the boards.
There are four boards in active development and/or approaching
manufactured
PCB stage
S-100 Z80 CPU (just ordered first batch of manufactured PCBs after
two rounds of prototype build and test)
S-100 Console IO (dual Propeller VGA, PS/2 keyboard, microSD,
Ethernet, etc - first iteration prototype boards ordered)
S-100 ZFDC intelligent floppy drive controller (Z80/WD2793 second
iteration prototype board imminent)
S-100 68K CPU (first iteration prototype boards ordered)
Please note the above boards no longer *planned* they are actual boards in
some form or another. There are several more in the planning stages but I
won't waste your time with those since those plans change often. All of
the
schematics, PCB layouts, bill of materials, etc are
available on either
the
N8VEM wiki or S100Computers.com website including
build instructions for
the
most part.
These are noncommercial Do It Yourself (DIY) hobbyist PCBs. They are not
perfect nor is this a business. John's apt description from comp.os.cpm
captures it well "Andrew Lynch (at N8VEM) see
(http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/) and I, are in the process of having a few
commercial quality S-100 cards made for ourselves. If others are
interested
in obtaining a bare card, let Andrew or I know. Please
note these would be
bare cards, a schematic and that's it. Building the board and implementing
CPM etc., you are on your own. This is not a project for first timers."
In other words, if you want to play along that's great but this is purely
"CAVEAT EMPTOR" and there are no assurances, guarantees, or warrantees on
any aspect of the boards.
Please this is offered as an information post to interested
vintage/classic
computer hobbyists not an invitation for flames and
pointless criticisms.
Please be courteous and keep those to yourself. As always, questions,
comments and *constructive* criticism welcome.
Thanks and have a nice day!
Andrew Lynch