Original Big Board II CBIOS and Monitor disks found

[Al Kossow]

I was able to buy a small collection of BB-II disks this weekend, including
original CBIOS and Monitor source disks, and four Big Board User Group disks.
There was also the sources for a later verison of the Monitor (V6.12) with
some new features and some bug fixes.

http://bitsavers.org/bits/Ferguson/

It will probably be a few hours until the files show up on the mirrors.

Also, I found my board. The parts at U23 and U34 are 82S153s, part numbers
BB2U23R2 and BBU34R2. I'll see about getting those dumped. From memory,
82S153s don't have protection fuses.

[Enrico Lazzerini]

Great Job!! It is no simple to find this material on the web.
I bought a Bigboard 2 six months ago and it has bios coming from Tweente
Digital from Nederland. It name was VARBIOS. The main characteristic is
that it had the way to change via softare the floppy disk geometry to can
works with some different diskettes. I read also some original diskette
from Tweente Digitaal making IMD image files. Pla Al would you give to me
privately a web space where i could load some useful material on this
board?
About the two PAL U23 an U24 pls read on vintage computer forum this
thread:
http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?41006-Big-Trouble-with-BigBoard-II&highlight=bigboard
where it explained how to use the most modern GAl16V8 instead of the
missing PALs for the BigBoard II.

Regards
Enrico
www.vintagesbc.it

[Al Kossow]

On 9/20/14 3:18 PM, Enrico Lazzerini wrote:

> About the two PAL U23 an U24 pls read on vintage computer forum this
> thread:
> http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?41006-Big-Trouble-with-BigBoard-II&highlight=bigboard
> where it explained how to use the most modern GAl16V8 instead of the
> missing PALs for the BigBoard II.
>

The one thing that I didn't hear back was if they worked. I guess they must have since he was trying to get his
floppies working. I have binary dumps from the 82S153s on my board, that I'll upload, but I'm still fiddling
around with the programmer to save it as JEDEC format instead of binary.

I dug around, and found the floppies that came with the BB-II that I have. There is one disk in there with a
bootable system, but it seems like it is for the modified BB-I with a dual-density controller, which is a bit
odd since the person that I got the board and disks from never had a BB-I. Anyway, I'm going to upload the
image and contents to the BB-I to bits/Ferguson on bitsavers.

I'm still working through the other disk images that I have. There is an odd one which looks to have support
for a Xebec HD controller and ST-412 drives, but it has a SD first track then DD 8/1024 sectors after that
(the formats supported in 22DSK are 9/1024).

The bootable disk I was going to upload has SD has SD TRK0, then DD 16/512 on TRK1, then 9/1024 on the rest
which marked as supported in 22DSK (SWP 1024 byte).

[Enrico Lazzerini]

Ciao Al, please talk about a thing at time....

1st: PAL and their content: ask for Frank Schieschke He written the follow
message on 2014 January

Hello Enrico,
yes after decades i got a BigBoard II. Unfortunately without any parts
which was socketed.
The Z80A-XXX parts are not so difficult to buy. The problem are the PALs
and the SMC CRT8002.
The CRT8002 i ordered from different locations in the hope, that one of
theese is the right one.
There are many different versions of the CRT8002 out there (Character set,
Clock).
I report on further progress on the PAL job.

Regards,
Frank

Then he turn on its Ferguson Bigboard II in a great and clean case. I have
pics but i prefer that he make its photo available for all.


2nd: CP/M boot disk

My Bigboard II has a firmware called VARBIOS from Tweentle Digitall from
Netherland so my CP/M has different CBIOS from any original diskette from
Caltex. For orignal cp/m boot diskettes ask to Frank Schieschke. I create
with IMD a lot of diskette from tweente Digital, BUT i have also some
images i created from diskettes i received from USA before to buy my FBB2.
On their labes is written: CAL-TEX Computers. INC CP/M Distribution Disk
Single Density, CAL-TEX Computers. INC CP/M 2.2 Distribution Disk Double
Density (Boot Multiple Density), CAL-TEX Computers. INC Bigboard II Cbios
Diskette #0241, CAL-TEX Computers. INC Bigboard II ROM MOnitor Source,
Bigboard User disk B14 Microcornucopia. If you need of them let me know
where i can upload them.



3st: disk format

For what i know mot part of 8" diskettes had system track in single density
then ther rest of disk area was rebuild as anyone prefered. My difficult to
calculate where the system area end and the disk directory start to give
those numbers to 22disk left me not able to use 22disk.

In general for all question write me bak privately.

Enrico

[Steven Hirsch]

On 09/20/2014 07:07 PM, Al Kossow wrote:

> I'm still working through the other disk images that I have. There is an odd
> one which looks to have support
> for a Xebec HD controller and ST-412 drives, but it has a SD first track then
> DD 8/1024 sectors after that
> (the formats supported in 22DSK are 9/1024).

If I recall correctly, wasn't the Xerox 820-II essentially the same as a
BigBoard? If so, is there a possibility of using a Xebec controlled HD with
the Xerox? I have a nice 820-II here, but never was able to find the hard
drive subsystem.

[Al Kossow]

On 9/20/14 4:07 PM, Al Kossow wrote:

> The one thing that I didn't hear back was if they worked. I guess they must have since he was trying to get his
> floppies working. I have binary dumps from the 82S153s on my board, that I'll upload, but I'm still fiddling
> around with the programmer to save it as JEDEC format instead of binary.
>

I just uploaded the JEDEC files.

[Enrico Lazzerini]

Jim B. Ferguson (that i'd very happy to find to write with him. Is there
anybody who can help me to find him?) designe the Ferguson Bigboard. Then
Kaypro has been its unauthorized clone. Then Xerox ask to Jim to redesign
Bigboard for them so xerox-I was born. xerox-II mainboard has the same
sizes of xerox-i but is different in the way to manage drives. Look at my
website http://www.vintagesbc.it/?page_id=1160&gtlang=en to see what kind
of interface card were used to connect external drives. i hope this help.
Enrico - Pisa (ITALY)

[Al Kossow]

On 9/21/14 6:11 AM, Enrico Lazzerini wrote:

> 2nd: CP/M boot disk
>
> My Bigboard II has a firmware called VARBIOS from Tweentle Digitall from
> Netherland so my CP/M has different CBIOS from any original diskette from
> Caltex. For orignal cp/m boot diskettes ask to Frank Schieschke.

One thing I just noticed in the V6.12 prom source I uploaded was it supported
256K of banked memory. An add in MicroCornucopia #24 on page 31 shows "Andy
Bakkers" in The Netherlands selling ram expansion boards, as well as CP/M 3.0
and a time and date clock for the BB-II. I imagine there were other people
selling the same sorts of things for the boards. I wonder if this is the same
as "Tweentle Digitall".

It would be interesting to find out if the prom files I uploaded were similar
to the prom on your board.

[bi...@sunsouthwest.com]

Enrico:

I haven't found my original disks from Twente Digital, but from what I
read in the little yellow book that came with them, they can not be
read or used unless the BIOS chip is installed. And, as I said, the
guy who gave them to me re-used that BIOS chip, so they've just been
sitting around.

Have you got access to the binary contents of that chip? I think it
was called VarBIOS, or something like that.

Bill