My name is Philippe, living in France, collector of vintage computers, a bunch of SBC's (KIM1, AIM65, SYM1, TM990/189 etc) and several other desktop oldies (HP85, SX64, ...). I decided to start building a S100 system, I can't afford an IMSAI and would like to start a long-lasting project involving soldering, coding etc (I have an electronics engineering background and have good experience in coding, assembler in particular)
Thanks to the great info found in his forum and a very helpful feedback received from John, Andrew and Todd, I am leaning towards the following scenario :
- power supply : stwo switched PS from mouser (+7.5V and +/-18V)
- case : 19' rack 4U height from modushop.biz (not necessary probably at the beginning but nice, they are based in Italy, so certainly cheaper shipment for me)
- mother board : I found a 10 slot passive board from Salota, I understand an active one is much better when running at high clock speeds (?), but I guess it's a good start
- CPU board : getting a Z80 board with on board EPROM makes debugging easier I understand - I have an EPROM programmer to burn the first test code - so this will certainly my first focus
- serial board : I wish there were Z8O CPU boards with both builtin EPROM and serial but did not find one, so this extra board will be necessary
Could you please let me know your thoughts about the above ? I have decent soldering skills so I would be keen to get a ready-to-solder Z80 S-100 V2 master CPU board if boards are available but I thought that would be safer to start with a finished board.. what do you think ? May be some group members are soldering new cards and willing to sell some ?
Last question : I have an oscilloscope but no logic analyzer. I saw good reviews about the Open Workbench Logic Sniffer, who you advise me to get one ?
many thanks in advance for your suggestions, I am glad to join this group !
kind regards,
Philippe