Most used toys, was Re: The late, great TRS-80

[Ethan Dicks]

On 6/27/07, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
> > And what sort of daughterboard (PC-104?).
>
>    Not PC/104...

Hmm... I happen to have a 486DX33 that's has both ISA fingers and
PC/104 sockets.  No integral Ethernet or video, but has
serial/parallel/ATA.  If I can find a way to get even 10Mbit Ethernet
on it easily, I've contemplated using it for a little network
peripheral box, but it'd also make a nice emulated RX02 like yours.
One thought was an "ISA staple" board - two slots - one for the CPU,
one for a NIC.  It still wouldn't be too large to be convenient.  Not
as nice as one board, but much nicer than a full-on cased PC.

>    Yes, this one is similar.  It can take PC/104 and PC/104+ boards,
> and the SBC itself can plug into a passive 16-bit ISA backplane.  I
> always found it odd that a board that has PC/104+ (which is PCI on a
> different connector) capability would have an ISA card-edge connector
> on it instead of PCI.

That does sound strange, but perhaps it's designed to work with older
backplanes as an upgrade.

>    Is it DiskOnChip(tm)?  Many SBCs can take those, both early and
> modern.  I have a small pile of them somewhere.

I will have to check, but my 486 SBC might have DoC...  How expensive
would a 16M or 32M chip be?  One can fit JAILBAIT or Damn Small Linux
in that (or Linux Router Project in under 2M).

-ethan