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  1. E

    Comart Communicator

    Thanks, ZippySticks.
  2. E

    Comart Communicator

    Neat. I've also found some S100 XCOMP boards that we used in the very earliest Communicators for ST506 hard drives before we brought out our own HDC card for the CP-500. Zippysticks, I'd count it a favour if you'd post the Dip settings anything else of interest when you get it. Life here has...
  3. E

    Comart Communicator

    Hi Tim, It’s definitely still linear – we didn’t go switch mode until VERY late in the day. I may be wrong, but I think the only difference between my PSU and yours is that I may have the later big toroidal transformer rather than the older conventional one. Exeter is no big trip for me, but...
  4. E

    Comart Communicator

    Hi Tim, the first few models were all socketed, we moved to soldered both for reliability, and because volumes went up and we switched to automated board filling and wave soldering equipment. IBM drives I'm 99% sure would just sneer ate hard-sectored media - I don't think IBM ever went near...
  5. E

    Comart Communicator

    I just went out to the garage to see what I still have. Apart from a complete (supposedly working but not powered for decades) system that isn't here and was probably an 8086 or 286, I have the following: CPU-00A Rev C Ser 1572: Switches 5 on all else off. CPU-00A REV D Ser blank Switches...
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    Comart Communicator

    Another point is that those aren't the original floppy drives. They are IBM ones - which we never used, and so are guaranteed to be soft-sectored. The earliest FDCs we did definitely initially only supported hard-sectored floppy drives and media - the same as the North Star Horizon...
  7. E

    Comart Communicator

    This is all ringing bells. Including a very loud one about the address bits being inverted and the F800 start. I'm a lot less "hardware" than you, but I worked on this kit for rather over a decade. Trouble is that ended 32 years ago when Kode International (who had owned Comart for several...
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    Comart Communicator

    OK, I'll try to put some feelers out later this week to see if I can find anyone with some manuals or a better memory than I have. I still have contact details for the former head of software/firmware development - he may know, or he may still have contact details with the lead hardware...
  9. E

    Comart Communicator

    Hi Tim, can you please to and post some photos of the front and back of each of: One of the memory cards, The CPU The FDC? Something is a little odd either in the cards or my memory. The base Z80 system normally only supported 64KB total for CP/M, though it is entirely possible that it...
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    Comart Communicator

    As it says, it's a Comart Communicator - and judging from the case and drives it will be an early CP200 model, so about 1978. Built at Comart in St Neots, Cambridgeshire. Comart of course are now long gone. I had many good years there, including several as head of support. Z80 at 4MHz...
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