Different things for different folks Dave. Agree we could do with more software input. Not to make excuses, but I consider myself a “hardware type” knowing enough software just to be dangerous! I did the basic 6502 and Z80, 8086, 80386 and 68K monitors (all from scratch), just to get the hardware working. While not for everybody I just like putting hardware on the S100 bus. Which is really just building computers. What one does with them is a personal/hobby thing. If one wants a simple working system you can go with an number of SBC’s out there, Ardunio, Raspberry Pi etc. but I and (apparently a few others) just like seeing new hardware arrangements working, I have to admit powerful modern software would be nice too. I know I could do it, a decade ago I wrote C++ code to run a custom program (MDI/MFC) for windows from scratch with a total of over 500k lines of code, but it soaked up 100’s of hours of “hobby time”. In the end I realized I was not having as much fun as doing hardware. That’s just me. I know there are others that have exactly the inverse response and “Need” hardware just to get the fun software written.
For our small but apparently growing group there appears to be a wide spectrum of interests. Some like the truly antique S100 systems, and in a perfect world would use only genuine original boards, and for new boards would like to use chips just of that era. Others would like to “pep up” there systems to add on and play with extra components in an already established system. Others would like to put in the S100 bus as much hardware as they can lay their hands on and get the different CPU’s to interact with each other. As you know in theory anyway, a unique feature of the bus is that there can be up to 16 CPU’ present. My own personal goal is to get towards the latter in terms of hardware. The current 80386 master/slave board probably is the last board I will do with discrete 74LSxxx chips only. Things like the 80486, our next board, will require a few GAL’s as well just to get things to fit on the S100 board, but the utility of the board increases. It should be able to work with any 8,16 or 32 bit interface – even old S100 RAM 8 bit boards. I see the likes of these ARM mini boards as, in essence, as a super chip. We would somehow place them in the middle of an S100 board and build around them like the 80386/80486. The upside being that the software types could really play and have real fun with the setup. Linux in the S100 bus would in fact be practical. Is there an easier way to have Linux at home, definitely yes – just go with a Pi, or any number of other SBC’s out there. The fun is in having Linux and the likes running on your unique hardware and in the end interfacing with other unique hardware boards you build, be they other CPU’s, graphic boards, sound boards, data storage boards, I/O and Internet boards etc. So yes, we absolutely need more software types but first we need to get them hardware they can trust and build upon. Case in point is your observation with the 68K board. If in fact that board does not work with the IDE board we need to solve that hardware issue. I’m more or less in a holding pattern on the next version of that board pending your observations. I (and others I’m sure) really appreciate your keen eye in finding issues like that. Andrew probably has the numbers, but I’m guessing all told, probably 500, perhaps 1000, N8VEM boards have now gone out. We hear little about what happens to them. I suppose no news is good news, but it would be nice to hear some feedback. Specifically on the TS-4900 connector support board requirement, you may be right but actually soldering two SMD connectors to an S100 board is not that hard. I have just finished doing this for RAM chips on our 16 & 32 MB RAM boards. Connectors are less scary since you rally cannot overheat them. John From: yoda [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, August 25, 2014 6:42 AM To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [N8VEM-S100:5018] An ARM CPU on the S100 bus I seriously doubt that - it is a 100 pin connector with pins that are 0.8mm apart - you are not going to find anything that can do that with 0.1in spacing thru hole. Again I don't see the point of trying to put modern 32/64 bit processors on a crippled bus. I think what we really need is to stabilize what we have and make sure there is supporting software. I am not seeing many people in this group writing software (sure like soldering boards) or the 68K issue would have been surfaced a lot sooner. I still have not gotten IDE to work with it yet. I am not sure it is software or hardware but I am strongly leaning to the latter. I am in the process of verifying my software on the mini-68K ECB which I know the IDE port works on as I have used it with John C's software. Once I confirm that my code works there and not on the S100 version then I will know for sure. Dave On Sunday, August 24, 2014 11:01:07 PM UTC-5, monahanz wrote: I suspect for the mating board connector there is an equivalent plated through connector. There are so many of these thing s these days there almost has to be one. As to speed, I looked at the Pi, it runs at 700MHz, this one is at 1GHz. At that speed assembler driven ARM code should have absolutely no trouble interfacing the S100 bus. A high level language, possibly. It may require data latches on the S100 bus, but I don’t see why one would not use ARM assembler for key interfaces. John From: [email protected] <javascript:> [mailto:[email protected] <javascript:> ] On Behalf Of yoda Sent: Sunday, August 24, 2014 2:40 PM To: [email protected] <javascript:> Cc: [email protected] <javascript:> ; [email protected] <javascript:> Subject: Re: [N8VEM-S100:5018] An ARM CPU on the S100 bus That mating board has SMT connector - so I don't see where you make sense here and John that sample mating board has not through hole connectors so I don't see how you would connect it. I have looked at several boards like this and they base board brings out connection to headers parallel to the board that allows small modules to plug into it. They generally don't have pins perpendicular to the base board so it is not friendly to mounting to another bigger board. You can get the connectors like on the base board to mount on the S100 board but they are SMT connectors not thru hole because the pin spacing is much smaller than thru hole. Look carefully at the specifications of the module and the base board. On Sunday, August 24, 2014 3:44:47 PM UTC-5, Andrew Bingham wrote: The mating side of the connector may be SMT only - http://wiki.embeddedarm.com/wiki/File:TS-Socket_connector_photo.jpg On Sunday, August 24, 2014 1:35:11 PM UTC-7, monahanz wrote: Dave we would work with the complete board. Just plug it into sockets on the S100 board From: yoda [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, August 24, 2014 1:11 PM To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [N8VEM-S100:5012] An ARM CPU on the S100 bus Hi John, The board you are suggesting will probably be a challenge as those connectors I believe only come in SMT style and the alignment of them are very tricky so I don't think you would be able to hand solder them. Dave On Sunday, August 24, 2014 1:21:35 PM UTC-5, monahanz wrote: Thanks for the info gb. Currently I'm leaning toward s the Technologic TS-4900. See here:- http://wiki.embeddedarm.com/wiki/TS-4900 and http://www.embeddedarm.com/products/board-pictures.php?product=TS-4900 They offer a mini-board with two 100 pin connectors on the back that would make the placement on an S100 board very nice. The S100 board would be modeled after one of their "TS-Sockets" and should in theory allow one to use a number of their "Computer on Module boards". They supply a free IDE programming interface but somebody told me programming the I/O control lines is not easy. There are 121 of them. Clearly plenty to control the critical S100 lines for other S100 board I/O data etc. An alternative I've been looking at is the European Olimex line, for example their A13 https://www.olimex.com/Products/SOM/A13/A13-SOM-256/ The advantage of them is they are more "hobby" oriented and supply much more information. The down side is their boards don’t have the connectors on the back. The could be placed upside-down (not great) or perhaps removed and re-soldered. Anyway early in the process, I have currently started on an 80486 S100 board which I will do first. Everybody out there, please feel free to supply suggestions as to "modern" CPU board you would like to see on the S100 bus. If a cell phone can contain a powerful computer, the is no reason our S100 boards cannot be one! John -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of G. Beat Sent: Sunday, August 24, 2014 7:13 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [N8VEM-S100:5012] An ARM CPU on the S100 bus These System-On-Module (SoM) packages offer some interesting capabilities. Ethernet / wireless support and integration on the S-100 card being a BIG Plus. Connectivity is replacing most storage media for data/program transfers, such a board could serve the role as a surrogate for other S-100 boards. Depending on implementation, an ARM based S-100 board (Linux) could also eliminate the need fir a separate PC to address -- uploads, interfacing, etc. Intel's migration to NUC, now in their 4th generation, shows another paradigm shift and options. It could sit inside a S-100 case -- or attached to back of monitor (VESA), being a super-smart terminal/workstation. http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/nuc/nuc-kit-d54250wyk.html gb -- 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/d/optout. -- 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] <javascript:> . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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/d/optout.
