[sebhc] H8-IDE

[Jack Rubin]

> Norberto,
> 
> I looked at the super buffer board and that is way
> cool. You mention above
> that you had a 10 Meg drive attached also. What O/S
> was used to access that
> drive? Was HDOS able to see and use the whole thing?
> 
> I am currently working on an IDE interface for the
> H-8. Development has been
> slow for a while due to other things going on.
> Trying to use original design
> techniques and the same logic used on the original
> boards to keep it close
> to what might have come out of Benton Harbor (not
> sure if that has a lot of
> value but it sounds good <wink>). Thought of using a
> PAL to decrease the
> number of IC's on board but I know most folks don't
> have the means to
> program one of those, so am sticking to discreet
> IC's and will see what the
> chip count is when I am done. 
> 
> Ron

Ron, 

Just (as usual) my $.02 but I think a new design
should take advantage of new technologies, as for
example Carroll's 2-chip 64K board (and yes, I _will_
get one of my org-0 boxes running Real Soon Now and do
some testing on that board). Reducing chip count,
decreasing power drain and increasing reliability seem
like important design goals. If I introduce a "modern"
board into my system, I'd hope that it will be rock
solid and not the source of new problems. The only
reason my 56K system is working is because it has a
32K x 8 RAM board - now that it's up and running I can
at least attempt to troubleshoot my stack of 8, 12,
and 16K boards. 

Besides, PALs are certainly part of the '80s design
vocabularly. Just try to find a part that's easily
sourced and affordable! (I'm trying to find 82S100s
for a GIMIX system - so far, only one quote of $18
each and not even sure that they are really
available).
SEBHC can easily function as a code repository and
distribution outlet for programmed PALs.

Jack



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