S100 expansion chassis replica

[Abzman]

I started recreating the s100 expansion chassis in kicad. I'm done with the schematic, but there are assuredly errors. I'll get those cleaned up when I verify all the connections against my real PCB. I'm going to initially make a perfect replica, then analyze all the period correct mods to see what would be nice to include on the board. I may also try to un-prom the bipolar prom to make it easier to replicate with current parts.

[jltursan]

Cool!. This must be big, any plans to try reduce its original size or it'll be an exact replica?

[Abzman]

Thw first one will be an exact replica, but once I know it works I can mod it any way people want. That being said I also plan to do the s100 card that interfaces to a passive backplane so that may satisfy the need.

[johnhalk]

Hi Abzman,

This would be a ground breaking project for the Exidy Sorcerer. I for one would like a S100 expansion chassis for my system.

Does anyone know if there is existing (which may be possible to make new reproductions) S100 based Floppy Disk Controllers for a Sorcerer S100 chassis - specifically S100 FDC controllers for soft sector based floppy drives (which would also need a Sorcerer CP/M bios to suit) ?

Majority of the FDC controllers for Exidy S100 I have seen are the early Micropolis S100 hard sector FDC controllers.

Regards,
John

[Abzman]

I've got one of the hard sector controllers I can repro, but I don't know if I have the patience to figure out how to make that work with the latest version of flashfloppy (it has some support for hard sectored). If you find me a soft sectored s100 card that has sorcerer software support I'll do one of those too

[johnhalk]

There are a few soft sector (even IDE and flash card) S100 floppy controllers available but they require drivers and cp/m cbios for the sorcerer.

http://www.s100computers.com/My%20Syste ... 20Card.htm

Anyone keen to write the bios drivers - maybe for CP/M 3.0 ?

http://www.s100computers.com/Software%2 ... ftware.htm

http://www.s100computers.com/Software%2 ... ftware.htm

I know that the micropolis hard sector controller is memory mapped and not port mapped for disk I/O.

There is a virtual signal generator board which allows you to connect soft sector floppy drives to a hard sector controller and it will generate the required signals to emulate a hard sector floppy drive.

https://deramp.com/vsg.html

Would it be possible to re-design the Dreamdisk FDC on a S100 bus interface card ? This would solve any cp/m cbios issues.

Regards,
John