Minimal CP-M SBC design - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

13 May 2008

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Subject: Re: Minimal CP-M SBC design
   From: Jules Richardson <jules.richardson99 at gmail.com>
   Date: Mon, 12 May 2008 12:05:54 -0500
     To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>

Chuck Guzis wrote:
  If one wants to enjoy a "vintage"
experience, what sense is there in 
 being diskless?  At any rate, even something as simple as a WD1770-
 type controller added to the design would give that capability with a 
 minimum of support "glue".   
Agreed.

  Alternatively, one could stay diskless and add a
sound-effects module 
 to emulate the "chunk" and "grrr" of a head-load and seek--and the 
 "thunk-click" of a drive door being opened and a floppy inserted.   
And the high-pitched squeal of a disk shedding its coating in the drive...
(maybe a dip-switch for "Wabash mode"? :-)

Personally I'm all for adding to vintage systems (hard disks where none were 
originally supported, video additions etc.) if it makes the system a little 
easier for frequent use - but not at the expense of original features. Part of 
the 'experience' is being able to enjoy the system as it was originally used, 
after all.  (Similarly, I'm in awe of emulator writers - but give me the 
original hardware any day...)

cheers

Jules 
I run the other extreme.  I had the experiences, all the gory ones too.
I still, Run Kaypro, AmproLB+, NS* horizon, CCS and Visual 1050 with real
disks of all sorts.  So what I do is build now what I was wishing I could
build then whith parts that were unavailable then or frightenly expensive.
Things like megabyte sized ramdisks and romdisks, fast storage that can 
beat the Teltek HDC and Q540 disk.  It's about the code, the applications 
and if possible as much performance as I ever had only it runs on a few 
penlite cells.  Most of all it's hacking hardware.  I have many really 
good emulators/simulators and theres nothing like running one of those 
without brakes an a 2.4ghz dualcore to make one wish a real 100mhz++
Z80 really existed.

Haven't you ever used a SD Horizon with it's whopping 82K per disk and a
max of three drives and wondered what it would be like with three 8mb
drives that run at CPU speeds back then or even now?  I have and I've 
done it side by side!  It's a kick to run a DBASE project that took 
10 minutes to index on two floppies and see it done in a small fraction
of the time. 

I not only open the envelope I punch holes in the corners.  Back the I did
"what if.."  and even now I still do "what if..".

Allison