Josh, Rich, and S-100 gang,
The Imsai front panel S-100 (aka fp-mini) was stalled for quite some
time. Family, work and
remodel project left no spare time.
Looks like we have new life on the project. Many, many thanks to Josh who
got one of prototype
boards and worked out the final bugs. Looks like The next prototype
should be our last before
production run.
This board is a bit pricey due to the cost of the mini paddle switches. A
completed set of paddle
switches goes for ~ $125.00. My source for the toggles left the company
so I'm finding a new
contact and pricing.
The FP-Mini and Josh's new 8080 board is going to make a fantastic, two
board complete system.
I'm working with a local sheet metal fabricator on a mini-chassis based
around the fp-mini and the
S-100 8 slot mother board. I needed a chassis design for the next board
layout. We'll need to move
switches around and provide mounting holes on the PCB. Anyone who has
ideas or experience
creating a photo mask for the Plexiglas section drop me a line. It may be
as simple as printing a
transparency on a laser printer.
Once I get a final price on the chassis I'll send out a notice to see
who's
interested. The more we order the cheaper they are. I've mocked up a
prototype of the chassis
for your review and comments.
Thanks.
<mini-fp-chassis-small.jpg>
<mini-fp-chassis-top-small.jpg>
On 06/ 6/14 07:55 AM, Crusty OMO wrote:
Thanks John,
Andrew,
That would be great if you could do a fill on the area around the
regulator, or perhaps walk me through it? The other error about pads being
next to each other doesn't matter, I just over rule the computer's
objection.
Cheers,
Josh
------------------------------
From: mon...@vitasoft.org
To: n8vem...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [N8VEM-S100:3991] ALTAIR/IMSAI 8080 CPU replacement board
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2014 21:26:15 -0700
Josh, Andrew may be able to brush it up. He is a marvel at that these
things
John
*From:* n8vem...@googlegroups.com [mailto:n8vem...@googlegroups.com
<n8vem...@googlegroups.com>] *On Behalf Of *Crusty OMO
*Sent:* Thursday, June 5, 2014 8:29 PM
*To:* n8vem...@googlegroups.com
*Subject:* RE: [N8VEM-S100:3990] ALTAIR/IMSAI 8080 CPU replacement board
Hi John,
I uploaded the board, schematic(s), gerber files and firmware file to the
Wiki site.
Look in
Board Information, S-100 boards, S-100 ALTAIR-IMSAI 8080 CPU Board
The DRC produces 2 errors which I don't know how to suppress.
1 error is a drill pad next to a mounting pad for the SD card, I
oversized the pads and they overlap. Neither pad is an active pin or
conductor, the drill is just a pilot hole to position the SD card socket,
the pad is just to solder the body of the socket.
The other error(s) are from a bunch of traces I dumped around the voltage
regulator to act as some extra heat sink. I should really do a "fill" in
that area, but I don't know how and it's just easier for me to zig zag some
wide traces to do the job. I ignore the errors, the gerber files look good.
The firmware file is just a modification of my 8080 monitor program.
It's been modified to use the 8250 UART's, and it also has the start of the
SPI/SD card interface. I only got as far as receiving the 0x01 status byte
from the SD card, which means it initialized successfully and I am able to
talk to it. In the weeks to come, I'll return to working on the firmware
to get it to boot CP/M from the SD card. But first, I must make some
progress with my ELF projects.
Cheers,
Josh Bensadon
------------------------------
From: mon...@vitasoft.org
To: n8vem...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [N8VEM-S100:3982] ALTAIR/IMSAI 8080 CPU replacement board
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2014 09:20:20 -0700
Josh, great work – you must have a lot of time on your hands!
Could you put me down for 2 boards.
Also could you point me to the most current schematic/board diagram
Thanks
John
*From:* n8vem...@googlegroups.com [mailto:n8vem...@googlegroups.com
<n8vem...@googlegroups.com>] *On Behalf Of *Crusty OMO
*Sent:* Wednesday, June 4, 2014 7:20 PM
*To:* n8vem...@googlegroups.com
*Subject:* RE: [N8VEM-S100:3964] ALTAIR/IMSAI 8080 CPU replacement board
Hi Guys,
Well I'm finally done laying out this board. The autorouter only
produced swiss cheese with over 900 via's. It looked terrible!
Anyway, I scrapped everything the autorouter did initially, and proceeded
to layout the traces manually. Once I got what I thought was all the hard
parts done, I let the autorouter have another go at it. Again it did not
work out so well and it was unable to complete the board, so I proceeded to
undo it's changes and/or improve it's routing manually. I squeezed those
traces in there tight, any tighter and they'll be popping off the board.
Anyway, I'm working on the silkscreen layer and ready to do a run.
Here's a picture of the board layout....
You can see the serial port connections on the top left, SD card to the
right of the 27C256 EPROM, parallel ports next to that and the ALTAIR and
IMSAI front panel connectors. There are also a few jumpers around the
board to configure for CPU or Peripheral board only and ALTAIR/IMSAI mode.
Firmware for the board will be my next project, but I have to make
preparations for VCF-MW my priority. Dave Ruske and I will be doing a
COSMAC 1802 exhibit there in September.
<mime-attachment.jpg>
Cheers,
Josh Bensadon
------------------------------
From: crus...@hotmail.com
To: n8vem...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [N8VEM-S100:3711] ALTAIR/IMSAI 8080 CPU replacement board
Date: Sun, 18 May 2014 00:57:20 +0000
Hi Guys,
Well, this project has just reached a milestone. The hardware is tested
and working. I had some rewiring to do to make it work for the ALTAIR, I
thought the ALTAIR and IMSAI front panels were (near) identical, but they
are not.
There are some jumpers on the board to configure between ALTAIR and IMSAI.
Here's a picture of my debugging and testing setup. The board is being
tested in the ALTAIR.
<mime-attachment.jpg>
Now entering Phase 2... building a PCB.
Cheers,
Josh Bensadon
------------------------------
From: mon...@vitasoft.org
To: n8vem...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [N8VEM-S100:3666] ALTAIR/IMSAI 8080 CPU replacement board
Date: Tue, 13 May 2014 13:56:05 -0700
Very nice Josh!
John
*From:* n8vem...@googlegroups.com [mailto:n8vem...@googlegroups.com
<n8vem...@googlegroups.com>] *On Behalf Of *Crusty OMO
*Sent:* Tuesday, May 13, 2014 1:19 PM
*To:* n8vem...@googlegroups.com
*Subject:* RE: [N8VEM-S100:3664] ALTAIR/IMSAI 8080 CPU replacement board
Hi Group,
Well, I'm cooking up this board at the moment. I have all the hardware
figured out to run like the original CPU boards.
I need to do a little more testing of the hardware, then I'll proceed to
building the boards.
The Memory, I/O, UARTs and SPI interface to the SD card appear to all be
working.
8K chunks of memory can become either ROM, RAM or mapped off the board.
CPU: 8080A
UARTS: 2x 8250
RAM: 2x 32K
ROM: 32K
I/O: 8 input, 6 output pins
SPI to SD Card interface
ALTAIR& IMSAI Front Panel Connectors.
Where ROM is selected in a block it overlaps the RAM on reads, but writes
go through to RAM.
The ROM can then be disabled and reads will come from the RAM at that
location.
The firmware is copying itself to RAM then switching off the ROM.
The CPU can be deselected with jumpers and the board will work as RAM/ROM
and I/O for another CPU on the bus.
Pictures attached. Yellow-Data, Brown-Address, Blue-I/O,
Green-Control/Status& everything else.
Regards,
Josh Bensadon
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