Actually the TDL SMB was the first S100 board I ever got Steven. I got the “kit” and spent the best part of a week studying the schematic and understanding the “Zapple” monitor software. Seems so simple/obvious now it’s almost embarrassing!
It’s pity TDL never lasted. Roger Amadon and his group had some amazing stuff, they were way ahead of their time. John From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Steven Feinsmith Sent: Friday, February 7, 2014 12:53 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [N8VEM-S100:2353] Re: Non-Buffered Prototype Board and Front Panel Board John, Thank you very much for information, I know there was restricted space for more components on the S-100 board. If you can remember during old days with Technical Design Labs' VDB (video display board) have two boards together because at that time, there was no video controller chip available. If you and group can design "piggyback" as much like Arduino projects with four plastic clips to secure it together. Hopefully, this suggest may be great benefit for our project. I am still working to create new board with piggyback contained ZPU, SMB and Z16 together instead of three separate boards. If I have more room then I can increase memory capacity into the piggyback. Unfortunately, I have a long way to learn with KiCAD program ;-( On Thursday, February 6, 2014 2:00:26 PM UTC-5, Steven Feinsmith wrote: I purchased four superb designed S-100 buffered boards few weeks ago and I was very please with it. I also interest to buy S-100 non-buffered prototype boards for my project that involve to clone from my aged Technical Design Labs boards (ZPU, SMB and Z16). I am sure that you may also need it for your future projects with wirewarp method. I aware N8VEM needs to know how many of you may need to order the boards (I assume perhaps least 20 boards before can order the PCB). Please let Andrew knows if you desire to have the non-buffered prototype boards. I am within few months left to start my S-100 system online for the first time since I ceased back in late of 1970's when I jumped into IBM PC then Apple Macintosh. I realize I still need to have front panel with "Christmas-like flashes". This will help me for troubleshooting. eBay is selling IMSAI mainframe completed with front panel cost a lot of money. Recently, someone is selling Jade front panel with long vertical board like an extender. But I aware it does not work well if S-100 system is running higher speed. There are FPMini board but hear nothing about it lately. Also nothing about S-100 System Bus Monitor. I have superb TEI 22-slot motherboard in original TEI mainframe with linear power supply. This power supply will replace with switching power supplies as same as what Andrew did with his S-100 system. Anyone of you may want to have front panel that can monitor the hardware with array of LEDs. It would be much nice if we can create next generation front panel that provide hexadecimal display (much like famous Heathkit H8 front panel with octal based display). It will be nice to have hexadecimal front keypad (again like Heathkit H8). The individual LEDs can be use on the panel for excellent troubleshooting. Heathkit uses PAM-8, 1kB ROM (increased to 2kB) contained monitor program to control the front panel and keypad. I believe I have information on PAM-8 monitor program somewhere in one of my hard drive based libraries. You can get more information and see picture of H8 computer at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathkit_H8 In fact, my past experience with Heathkit H8 and H89 computers are far superb system during with high reliable during old days. I had Heathkit H8/H89/H120 system along with TDL/Cromemco/IMSAI/ALTAIR plus other S-100 system were all stolen when I moved out from South Florida years ago. Hopefully, you may like my idea to create Z-80 based S-100 and act like Heathkit system. I forward to hear from you and show your interesting with this kind of project. Thank you, Steven -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "N8VEM-S100" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "N8VEM-S100" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
