monahan_z
Experienced Member
I am delighted to announce a very special S100 board to our collection of S100 boards. This board is called the “Dazzler II” board. It’s a modern version of the famous Cromemco TV Dazzler. The original board was one of the very first S100 boards made and was a revolutionary video board at the time. It was one of the first video boards many of us used back in the late 1970’s. It is described here:-
http://s100computers.com/Hardware Folder/Cromemco/Dazzler/Dazzler.htm
This Dazzler II board is a CPLD implementation of the original 74xx TTL dual board set. Terry Walker (the designer of the original TV Dazzler) did the design of this board also. While it can still be used with a video converter for your TV set, this board has a classical VGA output that can be used with any LCD Flat Panel Display.
Some of the original TV dazzler programs required two joysticks and the Cromemco D+7A I/O converter S100 board. This board brings the joysticks circuit directly to the board.
Unlike the original TV Dazzler which utilized DMA to update the display RAM, this board utilized a dual ported RAM chip. This avoids the many compatibility problems of the original board and other S100 boards and allows it to work in a 10Mhz S100 bus.
A new joystick circuit and box is also described to go with the board.
The board is described here:-
http://s100computers.com/My System Pages/Dazzler II Board/Dazzler_II Board.htm
A more detailed description of the circuit here:-
http://s100computers.com/My System Pages/Dazzler II Board/Dazzler_II Board Theory.htm
And the joystick boxes here:-
http://s100computers.com/My System Pages/Dazzler II Board/Joystick Board Theory.htm
I anticipate a large demand for this board and the joystick box boards. To avoid missing somebody please only ‘order’ from this forum. Just say you would like one or more boards. Also add if you would like two joystick boards. Do not order by sending me an e-mail directly. If you have not obtained an S100 board from me in the past I will contact you directly via e-mail for a shipping address at a later date. Bare S100 boards will cost $16 each and $12 for the joystick boards. Two of the latter are needed for most games. Payments will be via PayPal after you receive your board(s). The boards are made by PCBCart in China and will take about 4 weeks to arrive.
Please note that while this board is relatively straight forward to assemble it’s not for an absolute beginner. Also it requires a CPLD burner to program the 3 CPLDs on the board. Programming the CPLD is described on the web site, however in the past some of the experienced users have done this for others. Rick Bromagem will hopefully do his detailed list of materials for us in the future. However be aware there is a lot of analogue circuitry on this board. Things like resistors have to be 1% values etc.
Finally some while well-known starter Dazzler programs are supplied on the web page, I am counting on the community to hammer some of the others into shape so they run directly under CPM (many early Dazzler programs loaded at 0H in RAM).
John Monahan
http://s100computers.com/Hardware Folder/Cromemco/Dazzler/Dazzler.htm
This Dazzler II board is a CPLD implementation of the original 74xx TTL dual board set. Terry Walker (the designer of the original TV Dazzler) did the design of this board also. While it can still be used with a video converter for your TV set, this board has a classical VGA output that can be used with any LCD Flat Panel Display.
Some of the original TV dazzler programs required two joysticks and the Cromemco D+7A I/O converter S100 board. This board brings the joysticks circuit directly to the board.
Unlike the original TV Dazzler which utilized DMA to update the display RAM, this board utilized a dual ported RAM chip. This avoids the many compatibility problems of the original board and other S100 boards and allows it to work in a 10Mhz S100 bus.
A new joystick circuit and box is also described to go with the board.
The board is described here:-
http://s100computers.com/My System Pages/Dazzler II Board/Dazzler_II Board.htm
A more detailed description of the circuit here:-
http://s100computers.com/My System Pages/Dazzler II Board/Dazzler_II Board Theory.htm
And the joystick boxes here:-
http://s100computers.com/My System Pages/Dazzler II Board/Joystick Board Theory.htm
I anticipate a large demand for this board and the joystick box boards. To avoid missing somebody please only ‘order’ from this forum. Just say you would like one or more boards. Also add if you would like two joystick boards. Do not order by sending me an e-mail directly. If you have not obtained an S100 board from me in the past I will contact you directly via e-mail for a shipping address at a later date. Bare S100 boards will cost $16 each and $12 for the joystick boards. Two of the latter are needed for most games. Payments will be via PayPal after you receive your board(s). The boards are made by PCBCart in China and will take about 4 weeks to arrive.
Please note that while this board is relatively straight forward to assemble it’s not for an absolute beginner. Also it requires a CPLD burner to program the 3 CPLDs on the board. Programming the CPLD is described on the web site, however in the past some of the experienced users have done this for others. Rick Bromagem will hopefully do his detailed list of materials for us in the future. However be aware there is a lot of analogue circuitry on this board. Things like resistors have to be 1% values etc.
Finally some while well-known starter Dazzler programs are supplied on the web page, I am counting on the community to hammer some of the others into shape so they run directly under CPM (many early Dazzler programs loaded at 0H in RAM).
John Monahan