Re: [N8VEM-S100:5216] OT: VCF-MW

[Mark G Thomas <Ma...@Misty.com>]

Hi,

On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 10:23:05PM -0400, Crusty OMO wrote:
>    Hi Guys,
>    Well, we went to VCF MW this weekend and had a great time.
>    Dave Ruske (www.COSMACELF.com), Lee Hart, Bill Rowe and myself
>    exhibited a big line up of COSMAC ELF 1802 systems.
>    There's a thread opening up about it on the COSMAC ELF yahoo group with
>    links to everyone's pictures, but here's a shot of the group.
>    Now that this is done, I'll be tackling the CP/M issues on the 8080
>    board and fixing up Matt's Super ELF.
>    Matt, Here's an idea... how about you and your friend come back to
>    Toronto on Dec 6, 2014 for World of Commodore Show?
>    I am intending to exhibit my ALTAIR there loading Micro-Soft 4K Basic.
>    I will ready your Super ELF by that date and you can pick it up at the
>    show???  I'll put it in the "Free" pile and you can scoop it up... just
>    kidding.

It happens that I'm in the process of fixing up my Quest Super Elf.
My soldering wasn't so good at age 13, when I assembled it the first time,
so even though it still worked, it could benefit from some cleaning up
and minor improvements.

I've posted some pictures to the cosmacelf yahoo group site, and will soon
put more there, and on a site of my own.

Work includes:

- I unsoldered and replaced *ALL* old style IC sockets with modern machined 
   pin sockets (Done, and the Super Elf still works! Phew!)

- Replace three power-hungry Wameco 8k S100 boards (64 2102 chips on each)
   with N8VEM EPROM/RAM board. (I have the Super Expansion Board, plus
   a small S-100 backplane was added to support 3 memory cards.)

- New small switching supply mounted inside the Quest case instead of 
   massive external linear DC supply I used to use.

- Try and get Quest Full Basic in EPROM, or at least Tiny Basic + serial
   I/O, so no loading from tape or keypad is necessary just to get to Basic.

- Experiment with whether a Sparetime Gizmos ELF2k monitor ROM and possibly 
   even elf2k disk I/O board might work with in combination with the Super Elf.

Mark


-- 
Mark G. Thomas (Ma...@Misty.com)