Rolm Computers: 1602, 1602A, 1602B, 1666, MSExx (was Data General Nova Star Trek)

[Erik Baigar]

Many thanks for the explanations, so your SCBX is bigger than
I thought ;-)  You hobby of collecting phones and having the
SCBX perfectly match and keep us up to date if you receive
the first call from an external paricipant.  ;-)

> while designing a media gateway to sit on the ROLMbus would
> be a heck of a project ;)

All the modern single board computers (Rhaspberry, Arduino)
have got plenty of computational power, so after having solved
the voltage-level conversion problem almoust any of the
modern "toys" should be able to handle the interfacing in
software I guess.

After your hint, I found this pretty cool video on YouTube
giving an nicely illustrated decription on how the CBX
works:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8J6CGI6HA0

Quite clever design...

    Best regards and good luck with your SCBX,

       Erik.



On Thu, 28 Apr 2016, Sean Caron wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, 28 Apr 2016, Erik Baigar wrote:
>
>> 
>> On Wed, 27 Apr 2016, Sean Caron wrote:
>> 
>>> I don't have any ROLM computers (not that I wouldn't love one) but I am 
>>> proud to say that I have a complete ROLM SCBX 8000. I've tried to take 
>>> some pictures and compile some information on my personal site:
>>> 
>>> http://wildflower.diablonet.net/~scaron/rolmfieldguide/index.html
>> 
>> Wow, that is a lot of PCBs to handle the telephone stuff!
>> Thanks for sharing the pictures - also interesting to see,
>> that they used a Z80 in there but never used microprocessors
>> in their MIL computers (even the later ones!)...
>> 
>> As a project you could design a VoIP PCB for the SCBX  ;-)
>>
>>   Erik.
>> 
>
> You're welcome! Mine is actually a relatively small example. It has 84 PCBs 
> in total across six shelves and two conjoined racks with a little disk and 
> control panel between them.
>
> If you've seen a picture of a lowboy PDP 11/60 ... I always use that as 
> something to relate the general dimensions. The ROLM is maybe a little 
> taller. I need to post some pictures of the complete system and rack.
>
> I would love to get the ROLM running someday and get it hooked up to a VoIP 
> network... Another hobby of mine is collecting PBX systems and telephones and 
> I've already done this for a Definity as well as a Nortel M1 and I have no 
> doubt that the same could be done for the CBX [1].
>
> The CBX (eventually) supported DS1 interfaces ... which would IMO be the 
> coolest way to connect the CBX to a media gateway ... but one day once I get 
> the PBX running, I should be able to get it routing calls again with 
> something like a Cisco box acting as an external media gateway ... while 
> designing a media gateway to sit on the ROLMbus would be a heck of a project 
> ;)
>
> I find the design of the CBX really interesting. IMO, their appearance belies 
> that ROLM was a computer vendor first a a phone equipment maker second. Not 
> in a perjorative sense, just stylistically. Comparing them against boards 
> from WECo/ATT/Lucent/Avaya, Nortel and Harris.
>
> Best,
>
> Sean
>
> [1] http://www.ckts.info
>