8-bitters and multi-whatever

[Roy J. Tellason]

On Sunday 09 September 2007 16:04, Allison wrote:
> >A while back I *almost* got a hold of one of those "z80 network in a box"
> >systems,  it wasn't S-100 but something else I can't recall,  I think
> > that's the one I have the book on,  but I never did snag it.
>
> Multibus, very nice bus and expensive cards.  I have a few multibus cards.
> Intel used it in their MDS800 and a few otehrs as well.

I remember seeing that in some sales literature and it always did strike me as 
being more spendy than I wanted or could afford to get into.  :-)

> >Unfortunately instead of RS232 Televideo has something else going there
> >(RS422?),  not easy to interface too,  and they distribute their "network"
> >out amongst what other Televideo boxes you have,  which in my case is
> > none. I guess with an S-100-based system you could always add more cards,
> >  and somehow or other make it work.
> >
> >And speaking of the networking aspect of it,  do any of you guys know how
> > they did it?  I recall one time getting a glimpse of some system or other
> > that was S-100 but also had a set of connectors at thet op of each card, 
> > which is what they used for their inter-processor linking rather than
> > trying to push it through the bus.  The reason for this is not apparent
> > to me.
>
> Many ways to do it, using a commmon port or a pool of common memory for
> in box networking and serial ports as well. There were also ARCnet, pre
> Ethernet and even Ethernet.

I know of ARCnet,  went to a short seminar on that once at a trade show,  and 
in fact even have a couple of ISA cards around here someplace,  though I 
don't forsee me ever using them.

> >I've also seen some "CP/M networking" stuff referred to that was supposed
> > to work through serial ports,  which pretty many machines had,  althogh
> > they appeared in at least one case to be using diodes to wire-OR RS232
> > signals, which doesn't strike me as too terribly robust.  And what
> > software support there was for this wasn't real apparent.
>
> That was a poor mans networking.  Basically the serial ports were used as
> CD/CSMA bus and there was some protocal like Ethernet but slower and could
> use the usually common async chips.  I have such a net going for my CP/M
> crates and all.

What does that take on the software side of things?

> >I dunno,  I've just got this fascination for assorted 8-bit parts talking
> > to each other through some smallish number of wires,  I guess it's easier
> > to deal with than some of the big iron you guys handle regularly,  which
> > I can't afford to go get never mind housing.  And I've seen multiple
> > processors used in stuff already,  as in some musical equipment that
> > passed "event information" from one chip to the next with only a couple
> > of pins,  or the daisywheel printer that had _four_ 804x procesors in it
> > for different functions.
>
> This is not a new thing.

Nope.  It's just my particular fascination these days.  And probably a lot 
easier to deal with than lots of big iron.  :-)

> >TurboDOS is neat,  and has some good design aspects in it,  but there's
> > too much legacy stuff in there for being able to run CP/M software, 
> > stuff I'd leave out if it were me  and too much emphasis on the same old
> > Console / Printer / Disk Drives in the system,  as opposed to something
> > different or unique.  I found the same thing to be the case when I looked
> > at FORTH,  too much of the usual stuff,  and that was supposed to have
> > been used in some control applications?  I must've missed something
> > there...
>
> ????  Whats the question or point?

Just that I'd like to see some stuff that isn't oriented that way.  You have a 
SBC,  you obviously need some way to talk to it,  but the standard "console" 
stuff gets a little old,  I probably don't want to hook a printer up to it,  
and may not even want a disk drive of any sort,  depending on what I wanna do 
with it.  I'm up for exploring some alternative approaches to doing things.  
Unfortunately the embedded stuff that's out there doesn't satisfy too often,  
the design being too specific to the app,  source code not available,  etc.  
I'm thinking that it should be possible to have some sort of a more 
generalized framework to hang things on,  and then you could optimize it for 
specific uses,  or expand it in different directions.  Even from the earliest 
days "personal" computers all seemed to take pretty much the same approach to 
things...

I realized in other messaging a while back that it's been well over a year 
since I fired up a soldering iron,  and this is a bad thing.  :-)  And even 
then,  it was a matter of scrapping stuff,  not building anything new and 
interesting.  I need to get out of that particular rut and get back to it,  
or there's no point to all those parts I've been scrounging for decades.  
Maybe one of these days I will...


-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin