Re: [N8VEM-S100:4100] ALTAIR/IMSAI 8080 CPU replacement board & FP-Mini Front panel

I don't have a SMB board. Any available? If so I can look at options for both.

On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 12:25 PM, Tom Lafleur <laf...@lafleur.us> wrote:

When you make the panel for the front, look at an option for us who may want to install an SMB front panel board

Thanks

~~ _/) ~~~~ _/) ~~~~ _/) ~~~~ _/) ~~
Sent from my Phone

On Jun 7, 2014, at 3:07 PM, Fabio Battaglia <hkzl...@gmail.com> wrote:
This is great!
I'll definitely be interested in the chassis, multiple fpmini boards and if someone does a group buy of paddles, those too.

Fabio
On Jun 7, 2014 6:53 AM, "Don Caprio" <ilv...@gmail.com> wrote:
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] 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] 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] 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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