intabits
Experienced Member
A while ago, I posted this stuff in the retro section of the EEVBlog forum, and just realized I should have put it here also.
Some time in the 1980's (judging by the latest date code, about 1985) I bought and assembled this "Uniboard" by "Compacta Incorporated". They supplied just the PCB and a couple of pre-programmed PALs, and the user had to source all the other parts and assemble it.
It's been sitting in my junk room since then, and I'm struggling to remember if I even ever got it going. I think I did, but I can't picture it actually running, so maybe not. I do remember that U15, the ceramic chip with the badly corroded lid, an MC6844 DMA controller, was hard to get and expensive. The board has some corrosion and general scum, but it does look a little worse in the photo than it actually is.
I've also found and scanned the documentation (there is some duplication):-
https://www.filehosting.org/file/details/829492/Manuals.rar
https://www.filehosting.org/file/details/829493/Page Scans.rar
https://www.filehosting.org/file/details/829494/Schematics.rar
https://www.filehosting.org/file/details/829495/ROMs n stuff.rar
I managed to read the monitor ROM (U14, a 2732), and the video character generator ROM (U59, a 2716).
But the two PALs (U29 PAL12L60J) and U40 (PAL10L8CN), both from MMI are unknown to my programmer. Looks like a job for Arduino...
(update: U29 might be a PAL12L6CN)
The only ASCII in the ROM is a few error messages:-
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/proje...-project/?action=dlattach;attach=520706;image
More images added to imgur:-
https://imgur.com/gallery/lgEpyMm
This stuff has also been made available to someone who has created a web page for the UNIBOARD:- (not sure how complete/ready it is)
http://www.sardis-technologies.com/oth6809/uniboard.htm
Some time in the 1980's (judging by the latest date code, about 1985) I bought and assembled this "Uniboard" by "Compacta Incorporated". They supplied just the PCB and a couple of pre-programmed PALs, and the user had to source all the other parts and assemble it.
It's been sitting in my junk room since then, and I'm struggling to remember if I even ever got it going. I think I did, but I can't picture it actually running, so maybe not. I do remember that U15, the ceramic chip with the badly corroded lid, an MC6844 DMA controller, was hard to get and expensive. The board has some corrosion and general scum, but it does look a little worse in the photo than it actually is.
I've also found and scanned the documentation (there is some duplication):-
https://www.filehosting.org/file/details/829492/Manuals.rar
https://www.filehosting.org/file/details/829493/Page Scans.rar
https://www.filehosting.org/file/details/829494/Schematics.rar
https://www.filehosting.org/file/details/829495/ROMs n stuff.rar
I managed to read the monitor ROM (U14, a 2732), and the video character generator ROM (U59, a 2716).
But the two PALs (U29 PAL12L60J) and U40 (PAL10L8CN), both from MMI are unknown to my programmer. Looks like a job for Arduino...
(update: U29 might be a PAL12L6CN)
The only ASCII in the ROM is a few error messages:-
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/proje...-project/?action=dlattach;attach=520706;image
More images added to imgur:-
https://imgur.com/gallery/lgEpyMm
This stuff has also been made available to someone who has created a web page for the UNIBOARD:- (not sure how complete/ready it is)
http://www.sardis-technologies.com/oth6809/uniboard.htm