New pcb design for S-100 prototype board available - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

2 Jun 2007

Prototype boards are nice but whats really needed is an S100 card cage with back plane and
PSU.
Its normal to build the foundations before the rest of the house!!

Rod Smallwood

-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf
Of Roy J. Tellason
Sent: 02 June 2007 21:10
To: CCTECH
Subject: Re: New pcb design for S-100 prototype board available

On Saturday 02 June 2007 10:26, Dan wrote:
...
  I've been working on a pcb design for a S-100
prototype board. I 
 noticed a few people on the forums asking about this. I decided to 
 make this since this is a big hobby of mine too(member-MARCH club). I 
 based this design on a old prototype board I kept back from the S-100 
 days. It's made by Electronic Control Technology.

 Here's a link to the picture
 http://pghvintage.home.comcast.net/p...otypeboard.jpg
 <http://pghvintage.home.comcast.net/pics/S-100/s-100_prototypeboard.jp
 g>

 There were several different styles made before--each with their own 
 advantages. This prototype board(in pic) has the rows in a vertical 
 pattern to allow 300mil and 600mil DIP packages. It also accommodates 
 2 voltage regulators. Then there were some which only had a grid of 
 solder pads to allow any arrangement of 300mil and 600mil DIP packages.

 I like to ask everyone what their preference might be in the 
 arrangement of the solder pads, eg: vertical rows, horizontal rows, 
 grid, etc. If I get enough feedback, I can include 2 different styles. 
 It's not much work to alter the design. I have a panel setup to 
 include 2 pcb designs at the moment, and it can be any 2 kinds of 
 S-100 designs. In the future, I like to setup a bigger panel to 
 include several more S-100 designs.

 Since this is mainly a hobby for me, I thought I might help out and 
 offer this service. I'm designing this from my home workshop and 
 intend to make this an affordable hobby. In case anyone is interested, 
 with enough orders(minimum 30) then I can offer these for only $15 each. 
Hmm,  good question!

I have currently only two S-100 systems,  a Cromemco System 3 with problems in the PersSci
drive.  The floppy that was in the drive when I got it had been in there and run so long
that you could see clearly through the track zero location.  :-)  I have some data on this
stuff somewhere,  and it appears that they're using incandescent bulbs for such stuff
as index sensors and such?  And the Imsai,  here.

Got a Vector S-100 backplane too,  that I've started to build,  only I lack a few
parts.  Most importantly the S-100 connectors themselves.  :-(

I also have a couple of prototyping cards,  I *think* they're Vector as well, but
haven't done anything with 'em yet to come up with a preference.  I guess vertical
rows makes more sense in terms of air flow for heat dissipation?  
That for the heatsinks for sure,  though a lot of systems I saw mention of later on in the
popular period for S-100 seemed to be inclined to put a regulated switching power supply
in place and simply jumper across the regulator positions.  I dunno,  to me the
distributed approach always made a lot of sense.

--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life
in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert
A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin