Torn between 2000 and 2020

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John Evans

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Sep 12, 2021, 6:43:38 PM9/12/21
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Hello all,

  Well I still have a set of H8-2000 boards still waiting to be built.  Now that I am fully retired I will have a chance.

  However, now with the H8-2020 design maturing, I'm wondering if there are compelling reasons to follow that route.

  I was planning to build my own case once I obtained a good condition top cover, one of the more difficult items to build, but now I have an original case with power supply and backplane so that makes life easier.

  It appears that the H8-2000 is now approaching vintage

  Any thoughts?

John - Colorado Springs, CO

Glenn Roberts

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Sep 12, 2021, 7:31:08 PM9/12/21
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Congratulations john on your retirement!

Do you have the original Les Bird boards from 2009? A full set? That is becoming a classic! It would be perfectly fine to build those out.

You will probably want a solid state storage solution since floppys are unreliable. Les originally supported an IDE hard drive interface on the CPU board but you might have problems sourcing some of those chips. Consider building an H67 interface board and Z67IDE+ for storage.

The newer rev4 cpu board has some sophisticated capabilities and is kind of a merge of H8/H89. But that may not be for everyone.   I think the last evolution of Les' board was Rev 2.6. Not sure if any of those are left?



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John Evans

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Sep 12, 2021, 7:50:48 PM9/12/21
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Hi Glenn,

  I do have a complete set of Les’ boards - H8-BP backplane Rev 1.4,  H8-Z80-64 CPU/GIDE Rev 2.1a,  H8-4 I/O board Rev 1.3, H8-17 floppy controller Rev 1.1, and H8-FP front panel Rev 1.1, so it looks like my 2009 set are early revs.

I will take your notes and recommendations to heart for sure.  I’ve definitely decided against trying to revive any floppy drive configuration.

Btw, I also have an original H8 system so it will be nice to have that next to a system I can experiment with.

Thanks,
John

Les Bird

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Sep 12, 2021, 9:33:49 PM9/12/21
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John,

I still have a system here that I use regularly with those board revisions (2.1a CPU board) so you should be good to build those out. The CPU board was updated to 2.6 by Norberto to fix some small issues with it. As Glenn mentioned the V3.1 and V4 CPU boards are state of the art. I built a 3.1 and it works superbly. I currently do not have a Z67 IDE set up but I plan on building one in the near future. For now I am using the GIDE interface that is built into the 2.1a CPU board. I got my chips from Terry Gulczynski but not sure if he still has them.

See my H8-2000 construction page here: https://sebhc.github.io/sebhc/pcbs/H8-2000_Construction.html

Along with the GIDE interface and an IDE hard drive I use 3.5" floppies and the HSFE (hard sector floppy emulator).

I believe the GIDE will only work with CP/M however, so HDOS will require floppies unless you have the Z67 board from Norberto.

Les

glenn.f...@gmail.com

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Sep 12, 2021, 9:42:09 PM9/12/21
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So are you thinking about building a custom cabinet like Terry G did?

https://sebhc.github.io/sebhc/memberphotos.html

 

I never got to build the original boards. I purchased them in 2012 assembled and (mostly) working from Bill Loguidice when he chose to divest  himself of the hobby (the boards were assembled by Jack Rubin in August 2011). I cleaned up a rusted chassis to house them in, and chose to go with a PC style power supply

https://photos.app.goo.gl/gUTwssYczRJxecfn2

 

“Rusty” is still my main development system though it now has the Rev. 2.6 CPU board, the new H37/67 controller, and real time clock and CPU speed control boards plus a USB board.  I have the H17 board but no longer use it. The system runs rock solid!

 

I also still have my original H8 system (ca. 1981) which I’ve kept exactly as built.  It also still runs! (8080; 48K RAM; H-8-4; dual H17 drives)

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glenn.f...@gmail.com

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Sep 12, 2021, 9:45:24 PM9/12/21
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I believe I have the GIDE interface chips (got them along with the original boards from Loguidice acquisition).  If anyone wants to try that capability let me know and I can possibly hunt them down…

 

From: se...@googlegroups.com <se...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Les Bird
Sent: Sunday, September 12, 2021 9:34 PM
To: SEBHC <se...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [sebhc] Torn between 2000 and 2020

 

John,

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Norberto Collado

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Sep 13, 2021, 12:22:03 AM9/13/21
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There is a new Dual H8-IDE board coming soon. It only supports CP/M3 and Terry’s G. modified CP/M as well. No HDOS support.

 

More information here:

 

http://koyado.com/Heathkit/H8_DUAL_GIDE_Controller.html

 

Thanks,

Norberto

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Dave McGuire

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Sep 13, 2021, 12:29:41 AM9/13/21
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On 9/13/21 12:22 AM, Norberto Collado wrote:
> There is a new Dual H8-IDE board coming soon. It only supports CP/M3 and
> Terry’s G. modified CP/M as well. No HDOS support.
>
> More information here:
>
> http://koyado.com/Heathkit/H8_DUAL_GIDE_Controller.html

VERY nice! I have like a hundred 74HCT646s here in DIP, if those are
fast enough. You have F on the silkscreen there; if memory serves F is
about 1/3 the propagation delay of HCT.

-Dave

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Norberto Collado

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Sep 13, 2021, 12:52:27 AM9/13/21
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On my proto boards I'm using the 74F646 and nice to know that you have in stock.

 

A circuit board with many chips Description automatically generated with low confidence

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Glenn Roberts

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Sep 13, 2021, 6:09:11 AM9/13/21
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Is there a reason the new dual IDE doesn’t support HDOS? Or is it just that nobody has yet developed a driver? As I recall, somewhere on the “to do” list is to make an SD Card-based storage board. Is that the eventual replacement for the IDE+?  Then there was the recent discussion about emulating the IDE+ via an FPGA. Lots of irons in the fire!

For someone who needs a solid state mass storage solution now what are we recommending?

Sent from my iPad

On Sep 13, 2021, at 12:22 AM, Norberto Collado <norberto...@koyado.com> wrote:



Douglas Miller

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Sep 13, 2021, 7:50:08 AM9/13/21
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There is a "v2" version of the "WizNet" (H8-SPI) in the works that adds 2 SD cards (one need not populate the WizNet/NVRAM if they don't want that functionality). I've got beta code on a branch for CP/M 3 and boot support for the Z80 V4 board.

Support for older CPU boards (small ROMs) is tricky due to lack of space (same issue for GIDE boot - some other boot supports needs to be removed).

Norberto Collado

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Sep 13, 2021, 10:55:16 AM9/13/21
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Someone will need to develop a driver to boot HDOS 2.0, HDOS 3.0, and for Heath CP/M 2.04. The Z67-IDE+ controller supports all of them. I have the Z67-SD which is working but is not that stable. It seems that there is a timing issue I need to figure out. This board is using easy to find parts.

 

http://koyado.com/Heathkit/Z67-SDC.html

 

Norberto

 

From: "se...@googlegroups.com" <se...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Glenn Roberts <glenn.f...@gmail.com>
Reply-To: "se...@googlegroups.com" <se...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Monday, September 13, 2021 at 3:09 AM
To: "se...@googlegroups.com" <se...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [sebhc] Torn between 2000 and 2020

 

Is there a reason the new dual IDE doesn’t support HDOS? Or is it just that nobody has yet developed a driver? As I recall, somewhere on the “to do” list is to make an SD Card-based storage board. Is that the eventual replacement for the IDE+?  Then there was the recent discussion about emulating the IDE+ via an FPGA. Lots of irons in the fire!

Norberto Collado

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Sep 14, 2021, 10:34:03 AM9/14/21
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Dave,

 

Can you send me a few of your pats to test them out at 10MHz on the H8 IDE controller?

 

Norberto

 

From: "se...@googlegroups.com" <se...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Norberto Collado <norberto...@koyado.com>
Reply-To: "se...@googlegroups.com" <se...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Sunday, September 12, 2021 at 9:52 PM
To: "se...@googlegroups.com" <se...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [sebhc] Torn between 2000 and 2020

 

On my proto boards I'm using the 74F646 and nice to know that you have in stock.

Dave McGuire

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Sep 14, 2021, 10:35:23 AM9/14/21
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Sure. Send me your shipping address and I'll get 'em on the way.

-Dave

On 9/14/21 10:33 AM, Norberto Collado wrote:
> Dave,
>
> Can you send me a few of your pats to test them out at 10MHz on the H8
> IDE controller?
>
> Norberto
>
> *From: *"se...@googlegroups.com" <se...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of
> Norberto Collado <norberto...@koyado.com>
> *Reply-To: *"se...@googlegroups.com" <se...@googlegroups.com>
> *Date: *Sunday, September 12, 2021 at 9:52 PM
> *To: *"se...@googlegroups.com" <se...@googlegroups.com>
> *Subject: *Re: [sebhc] Torn between 2000 and 2020
>
> On my proto boards I'm using the 74F646 and nice to know that you have
> in stock.
>
> <mailto:sebhc+un...@googlegroups.com>.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sebhc/AFC43F6F-26E3-4254-BCF7-D3BD11B7FE15%40koyado.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sebhc/AFC43F6F-26E3-4254-BCF7-D3BD11B7FE15%40koyado.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.
>
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Norberto Collado

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Sep 14, 2021, 11:22:01 AM9/14/21
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Norberto Collado
PO BOX 988
Hillsboro, OR 97123-0988

Thanks,
Norberto
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