Hi all,
8 months after my first contact/enquiry to John Monahan regarding building a S100 computer I now have the hardware up and running as far as the Z80 monitor.
The boards currently build and fitted are:-
S100 V2 Z80 CPU card (running at 6mhz at the moment)
S100 V1 RAM&ROM card
S100 V2 IDE Interface card
S100 V1 Console I/O card
S100 V2 Bus extender card (just for the reset button)
The main power supply rails are switch mode (+8v, +16v, -16v) with secondary linear regulators (+5v, +12v) to power the onboard hard disk/floppy drive.
it's essentially case metalwork for audio/hifi projects but I liked the idea of sliding the power supply modules & disk drives into the 'T' slotted sides and it allows me to change my mind on drives etc... over time.
The 10 slot active terminated backplane came from Herb Johnson (Retrotechnology.com)
I have uploaded a couple of pictures to the N8VEM workspace to encourage others who are still working on their first S100 system
I'd like to thank both John and Andrew for the hours of fun so far in putting this system together, i'm sure it's not all going to be plain sailing though which brings me to my first question.
I have noticed in the Z80 monitor (v5.02) that once the screen is filled with characters and starts to scroll the cursor prompt disappears !!, the monitor still responds to commands though and all functionality otherwise seems fine. Can anyone else replicate/confirm this, it's not a biggie but thought I would mention it.
Now I'm off to try and burn the IDE diagnostic test utility onto an EEPROM to check out the IDE board before working out how to get CP/M 3 up and running.
regards and happy soldering
David Fry