11 Feb
2007
11 Feb
'07
2:29 a.m.
I thought you guys would get a kick out of this.
No, I am not attempting to build a beowulf cluster...
The ultimate Altair needs to run Linux. I spent the first few hours today
thinking up an S-100 card with a 386 processor. : ) Idle minds can be
dangerous... It will have to wait on that because I am still deep in the
hole with this crazy project...
http://www.altairkit.com/images/070210-AltairTower_2172.jpg
Grant
11 Feb
11 Feb
3:18 a.m.
Grant Stockly wrote:
I thought you guys would get a kick out of this.
No, I am not attempting to build a beowulf cluster...
The ultimate Altair needs to run Linux. I spent the first few hours
today thinking up an S-100 card with a 386 processor. : )
Surely you've then got an S100 card running Linux that happens to use an
Altair as an I/O processor?
Don't get me wrong, it's a cool enough project* (and very akin to the various
coprocessors for the BBC micro which ran all sorts of software), but I'm not
sure if I'd call it an Altair running Linux :-)
* Although if you're going to bodge Linux, why not use something other than an
x86 CPU?
cheers
Jules
3:33 a.m.
--
> The ultimate Altair needs to run Linux. I spent
the first few hours
> today thinking up an S-100 card with a 386 processor. : )
--
Surely you've then got an S100 card running Linux
that happens to use an
Altair as an I/O processor?
Well since this is a 8080 system with 1 K of memory, I
don't expect to
be able to run linux even with a 386 card.
All I what to know is the T-shirt for sale?
4:07 a.m.
At 06:33 PM 2/10/2007, you wrote:
--
Medium Vic-20 Computer Advertisement 1980's TShirt
Item number: 8420084275[]
That ebay seller has a lot of cool shirts.
Grant
>The ultimate Altair needs to run Linux. I
spent the first few hours
>today thinking up an S-100 card with a 386 processor. : )
--
Surely you've then got an S100 card running
Linux that happens to use an
Altair as an I/O processor?
Well since this is a 8080 system with 1 K of memory, I
don't expect to
be able to run linux even with a 386 card.
All I what to know is the T-shirt for sale?
4 a.m.
At 06:18 PM 2/10/2007, you wrote:
Grant Stockly wrote:
Fellow cctalker Rich Cini just ruined my evening... I forgot about an easy
solution. Wire a PC/104 SBC into an S-100 card.
http://www.embeddedarm.com/epc/ts3400-spec-p.php
Like I needed to be spending money right now! Ahhh!!! In order to not be
a complete joke, I would have a CPLD inserting wait states and at least
having a 2SIO in there.
Who knows, maybe an ISA to S-100 bridge like this could be used with a real
Altair Disk subsystem to make disk images?
You are right though, putting a 386 SBC inside of an Altair is just like
saying a toaster can "run linux". Maybe I'll load Windows 95 on it. ; )
The front panel would have to function too. The CPLD might have to
relocate the memory space and possibly also emulate DMA to make it work.
Any one know of any good 8bit VGA cards? ; )
Grant
I thought you guys would get a kick out of this.
No, I am not attempting to build a beowulf cluster...
The ultimate Altair needs to run Linux. I spent the first few hours
today thinking up an S-100 card with a 386 processor. : )
Surely you've then got an S100 card running Linux that happens to use an
Altair as an I/O processor?
Don't get me wrong, it's a cool enough project* (and very akin to the
various coprocessors for the BBC micro which ran all sorts of software),
but I'm not sure if I'd call it an Altair running Linux :-)
* Although if you're going to bodge Linux, why not use something other
than an x86 CPU?
5:04 p.m.
Grant Stockly wrote:
Interesting... others have mentioned the 68k line... what about something
really oddball though, like m88k or ARM? :)
* Although if
you're going to bodge Linux, why not use something other
than an x86 CPU?
Fellow cctalker Rich Cini just ruined my evening... I forgot about an
easy solution. Wire a PC/104 SBC into an S-100 card.
http://www.embeddedarm.com/epc/ts3400-spec-p.php Any one know of any good 8bit VGA cards? ; )
Hmm, in the PC world Trident did an ISA one (8900?), and I'm pretty sure
Paradise did too. Possibly Oak's offering was also 8 bit.
Oh, regarding the SCSI question, most 8 bitters didn't bother with a complete
SCSI chip; it can be done with only ten or so LS logic ICs anyway, providing
blistering performance isn't needed (and lets face it, no performance is going
to be blistering if there's an 8-bit CPU handling all the I/O, dedicated SCSI
chip or not :)
cheers
Jules
5:34 p.m.
Jules,
On 2/11/07, Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
Hmm, in the PC world Trident did an ISA one (8900?),
and I'm pretty sure
Paradise did too. Possibly Oak's offering was also 8 bit.
The Trident 8900C and 8900D were both 16-bit. I don't know about the
earlier cards, but if there's an 8-bit Trident 8900-series, I'd love
to find one!
...Josef
--
"I laugh because I dare not cry. This is a crazy world
and the only way to enjoy it is to treat it as a joke."
-- Hilda "Sharpie" Burroughs,
"The Number of the Beast" by Robert A. Heinlein
5:01 p.m.
Jules,
On 2/11/07, Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
There's IBM video VGA card 8 bit ISA card. Very long card and works
well.
Cheers, Wizard
Hmm, in the PC world Trident did an ISA one
(8900?), and I'm pretty sure
Paradise did too. Possibly Oak's offering was also 8 bit.
The Trident 8900C and 8900D were both 16-bit. I don't know about the
earlier cards, but if there's an 8-bit Trident 8900-series, I'd love
to find one!
...Josef 
10:07 p.m.
On 2/11/07, jpero at sympatico.ca <jpero at sympatico.ca> wrote:
There's IBM video VGA card 8 bit ISA card. Very long card and works
well.
Cheers, Wizard
I'm sure it is quite long...just looking at the network cards for my 1980ish
computers and comparing it to todays network cards is quite
amazing...circuit boards today can be the size such that you can hold 'em in
the palm of your hand while back in those days they were several feet :-o
(or something like that...very big in comparison none the less)
Jules,
On 2/11/07, Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Hmm, in the PC world Trident did an ISA one (8900?), and I'm pretty
sure
Paradise
did too. Possibly Oak's offering was also 8 bit.
The Trident 8900C and 8900D were both 16-bit. I don't know about the
earlier cards, but if there's an 8-bit Trident 8900-series, I'd love
to find one!
...Josef 
5:56 p.m.
On 11 Feb 2007 at 11:04, Jules Richardson wrote:
Hmm, in the PC world Trident did an ISA one (8900?),
and I'm pretty sure
Paradise did too. Possibly Oak's offering was also 8 bit.
Yes and yes--and don't forget the Video 7 VGA Wonder--with two
connectors on the bracket (9 and 15 pin). There were also a couple
of EGA adapters that could handle some of the VGA modes (Everex comes
to mind), but not the pallettes.
Oh, regarding the SCSI question, most 8 bitters
didn't bother with a complete
SCSI chip; it can be done with only ten or so LS logic ICs anyway, providing
blistering performance isn't needed (and lets face it, no performance is going
to be blistering if there's an 8-bit CPU handling all the I/O, dedicated SCSI
chip or not :)
There we differ-most of my inventory of 8 bit SCSI cards have an LSI
IC as the heart. Only one or two (e.g. the Iomega Bernoilli adapter)
use SSI.
Cheers,
Chuck
6:25 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
Yes and yes--and don't forget the Video 7 VGA
Wonder--with two
connectors on the bracket (9 and 15 pin). There were also a couple
of EGA adapters that could handle some of the VGA modes (Everex comes
to mind), but not the pallettes.
Where there any 8 bit monochrome VGA's?
8:30 p.m.
On 11 Feb 2007 at 11:25, woodelf wrote:
Where there any 8 bit monochrome VGA's?
It depends what you mean by "monochrome". For example, the Paradise
cards had a switch setting that specified that you were driving a
monochrome VGA monitor. But exclusively VGA (i.e. incapable of
rendering on a color monitor), I don't think so.
Cheers,
Chuck
11:37 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
Ahhh, I was thinking more of home micros that had SCSI support rather than
more serious IBM compatibles (or other business micros). Agreed that systems
with a "real bus" probably had more expensive cards that used a proper SCSI
controller.
cheers
Jules
On 11 Feb 2007 at 11:04, Jules Richardson wrote:
ISTR that one Trident board was a 16 bit card, but would still work in an 8
bit slot - not sure if that was the 8900 or not, though. I may not have the
model number right... the later Trident board was 16 bit only I think...
Hmm, in the PC world Trident did an ISA one
(8900?), and I'm pretty sure
Paradise did too. Possibly Oak's offering was also 8 bit.
Yes and yes --and don't forget the Video 7 VGA Wonder--with two
connectors on the bracket (9 and 15 pin).
Hmm, I used to have one of those... I think I sold it in a machine many years
ago though.
Oh, regarding
the SCSI question, most 8 bitters didn't bother with a complete
SCSI chip; it can be done with only ten or so LS logic ICs anyway, providing
blistering performance isn't needed (and lets face it, no performance is going
to be blistering if there's an 8-bit CPU handling all the I/O, dedicated SCSI
chip or not :)
There we differ-most of my inventory of 8 bit SCSI cards have an LSI
IC as the heart. Only one or two (e.g. the Iomega Bernoilli adapter)
use SSI. 
4:56 a.m.
At 11:38 PM -0500 2/10/07, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
Jules Richardson wrote:
ELKS will run on a 286, right? IIRC, I've got a 286 S-100 Bus CPU
card (I know I have a 80186 card).
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
* Although if you're going to bodge Linux, why
not use something
other than an x86 CPU?
You could probably bodge ELKS to run on an Altair.
Peace... Sridhar 
6:22 a.m.
On Sat, 10 Feb 2007, Zane H. Healy wrote:
At 11:38 PM -0500 2/10/07, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
Hmm, how about a Motorola 68k S100 card?
--
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
Jules Richardson wrote:
ELKS will run on a 286, right? IIRC, I've got a 286 S-100 Bus CPU
card (I know I have a 80186 card). * Although if you're going to bodge Linux, why
not use something
other than an x86 CPU?
You could probably bodge ELKS to run on an Altair.
Peace... Sridhar 
6:35 a.m.
David Griffith wrote:
On Sat, 10 Feb 2007, Zane H. Healy wrote:
Why bother? I'll bet you could hack ELKS to run on an 8080 if you put
your mind to it.
Peace... Sridhar
At 11:38 PM -0500 2/10/07, Sridhar Ayengar
wrote:
Hmm, how about a Motorola 68k S100 card? Jules Richardson wrote:
ELKS will run on a 286, right? IIRC, I've got a 286 S-100
Bus CPU
card (I know I have a 80186 card). * Although if you're going to bodge Linux,
why not use something
other than an x86 CPU?
You could probably bodge ELKS to run on an Altair.
Peace... Sridhar 
6:37 a.m.
On 2/11/07, David Griffith <dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu> wrote:
Hmm, how about a Motorola 68k S100 card?
We had some of those at Software Results that we used in a prototype
"network node" project that was never released (think a cross between
a terminal server and CompuServe's later X.25 "nodes" and that's kinda
close)... we had S-100 boxes w/several SRAM boards, many serial port
boards, and a Godbout 68K CPU board.
One could easily port Minix from the MMU-less Amiga (A500/A1000/A2000)
to it, or drop a 68010 in there and go with a demand-paged VM scheme
and "real" UNIX. A 68K-family processor w/MMU might be tough in an
S-100 form-factor, but MMU-less should be easy; just add disk
controller and go.
Did anyone make S-100 SCSI? One could roll ones own, but that's a
different level of expense.
-ethan
6:26 a.m.
At 07:56 PM 2/10/2007, you wrote:
At 11:38 PM -0500 2/10/07, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
Elks requires an 8088 minimum. I'm not sure elks would be a good choice
because development seems to be dead and there is hardly any support. It
would be a lot better to use a 68010, 020, or 386.
Of course, 68k linux is getting pretty dead too. : (
Grant
Jules Richardson wrote:
ELKS will run on a 286, right? IIRC, I've got a 286 S-100 Bus CPU card (I
know I have a 80186 card). * Although if you're going to bodge Linux, why
not use something other
than an x86 CPU?
You could probably bodge ELKS to run on an Altair.
Peace... Sridhar
6:28 a.m.
Zane H. Healy wrote:
At 11:38 PM -0500 2/10/07, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
ELKS will run on an 8088 or better. You might be able to hack it to run
on something older, if necessary.
Peace... Sridhar
Jules Richardson wrote:
ELKS will run on a 286, right? IIRC, I've got a 286 S-100 Bus CPU card
(I know I have a 80186 card). * Although if you're going to bodge Linux,
why not use something
other than an x86 CPU?
You could probably bodge ELKS to run on an Altair.
Peace... Sridhar 
2:19 p.m.
Gordon JC Pearce wrote:
Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
The point was to get Linux running. ELKS is a lot closer to Linux than
UZI is.
Anyway, it would really surprise me if one weren't able to port ELKS to
8080. I believe someone was already working on porting it to Z80.
Peace... Sridhar
Jules Richardson wrote:
You could definitely get UZI to run, if you had a Z80 card. * Although if you're going to bodge Linux,
why not use something
other than an x86 CPU?
You could probably bodge ELKS to run on an Altair.
6:06 a.m.
On 10 Feb 2007 at 17:29, Grant Stockly wrote:
The ultimate Altair needs to run Linux. I spent the
first few hours today
thinking up an S-100 card with a 386 processor. : ) Idle minds can be
dangerous... It will have to wait on that because I am still deep in the
hole with this crazy project...
Well, with a K or two of memory and a bunch of disk storage, it
should be possible to write a (heavily paged) emulator. Speed would
be in the geological-era range, but it could be done...
Cheers,
Chuck
6:16 a.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 10 Feb 2007 at 17:29, Grant Stockly wrote:
Speaking of emulation, The 8080 was emulated using 2901 bit slices.
Did anyone ever use that AMD design?
The ultimate Altair needs to run Linux. I spent
the first few hours today
thinking up an S-100 card with a 386 processor. : ) Idle minds can be
dangerous... It will have to wait on that because I am still deep in the
hole with this crazy project...
Well, with a K or two of memory and a bunch of disk storage, it
should be possible to write a (heavily paged) emulator. Speed would
be in the geological-era range, but it could be done...
Cheers,
Chuck
6:40 a.m.
Well, with a K or two of memory and a bunch of disk
storage, it
should be possible to write a (heavily paged) emulator. Speed would
be in the geological-era range, but it could be done...
Do any of you remember OS X booting on a Macintosh Centris 650? 25MHz
68040 I think it was running debian linux and pearpc?
http://mactalk.com.au/articles/68kpanther/
Interesting. : ) Anyone know if it ever finished booting? I can't tell!
Grant
6541
days inactive
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25 comments
13 participants
participants (13)
-
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
cclist＠sydex.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
gordon＠gjcp.net -
grant＠stockly.com -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
hexstar＠gmail.com -
josefcub＠gmail.com -
jpero＠sympatico.ca -
julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk -
ploopster＠gmail.com