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Ferguson Big Board

ThisPostContainsComputers

ThisPostContainsComputers

Experienced Member
Joined
Oct 31, 2015
Messages
119
Location
Minnesota
Hello,

Last weekend I went to an estate sale for an old Sperry-Univac employee. While I was there, I picked up, among other things, a Ferguson Big Board system. It has been stored in the corner of the garage for what looked to be the last 30 years, and was hooked into a Sperry-Univac brand 8-inch disk drive system. Obviously it is not in very good condition but it does seem to be complete. I also found another Big Board that was wrapped in newspaper in the bottom of a box. This one is in very good condition, but apart from a few resistors and sockets is completely unbuilt. I also received a keyboard that looks very similar to the ones used on the Sperry-Univac UTS-40 lines of computer, but I cannot find any information on the exact model. I am assuming it is some sort of ASCII keyboard to be plugged into the Big Boards, but I have no technical information for pinouts on the keyboard, and I did not get a cable to connect the two.

IMG_20181119_204150615.jpgIMG_20181119_204154899.jpgIMG_20181119_204159916.jpgIMG_20181119_204204014.jpgIMG_20181119_210733922.jpgIMG_20181119_210757293.jpgIMG_20181119_210951606.jpgIMG_20181119_211027302.jpgIMG_20181119_211051190.jpgIMG_20181119_211059624.jpgIMG_20181119_211123362.jpgIMG_20181119_211126103.jpgIMG_20181119_211234816.jpgIMG_0290.jpgIMG_0291.jpgIMG_0292.jpg

I am in the process of trying to get the fully assembled Big Board up and running. From the look of the original configuration, the board was powered directly from the 8-inch floppy drive, but I have that disconnected as the board and drives are very dirty and need cleaning. The board has some sort of solder flux all on the back of it, and while it does not seem to be damaging that board itself, I am still removing it. There is also a fair amount of grass and some sort of animal crap on the front of the board to clean off too.

So I have a couple questions about this system,

1: Is the keyboard connects just a straight through ribbon cable? And if so which way does it go, as I cannot find any schematics or pinouts for the keyboard, and the connector in unkeyed on the Big Board.

2: What type of CP/M does this thing run? Moreover I am looking for an image for CP/M that will boot on this thing. I read originally that these boards are SD, but mine has a daughter board where the disk controller IC used to be, so it may be DD.

Thank You
 
CP/M 2.2 is probably the easiest to get running. If you are looking for disk images look for Xerox 820 they were based on the big board.


ThisPostContainsComputers said:
Hello,

Last weekend I went to an estate sale for an old Sperry-Univac employee. While I was there, I picked up, among other things, a Ferguson Big Board system. It has been stored in the corner of the garage for what looked to be the last 30 years, and was hooked into a Sperry-Univac brand 8-inch disk drive system. Obviously it is not in very good condition but it does seem to be complete. I also found another Big Board that was wrapped in newspaper in the bottom of a box. This one is in very good condition, but apart from a few resistors and sockets is completely unbuilt. I also received a keyboard that looks very similar to the ones used on the Sperry-Univac UTS-40 lines of computer, but I cannot find any information on the exact model. I am assuming it is some sort of ASCII keyboard to be plugged into the Big Boards, but I have no technical information for pinouts on the keyboard, and I did not get a cable to connect the two.

View attachment 49456View attachment 49457View attachment 49458View attachment 49459View attachment 49460View attachment 49461View attachment 49462View attachment 49463View attachment 49464View attachment 49465View attachment 49466View attachment 49467View attachment 49468View attachment 49469View attachment 49470View attachment 49471

I am in the process of trying to get the fully assembled Big Board up and running. From the look of the original configuration, the board was powered directly from the 8-inch floppy drive, but I have that disconnected as the board and drives are very dirty and need cleaning. The board has some sort of solder flux all on the back of it, and while it does not seem to be damaging that board itself, I am still removing it. There is also a fair amount of grass and some sort of animal crap on the front of the board to clean off too.

So I have a couple questions about this system,

1: Is the keyboard connects just a straight through ribbon cable? And if so which way does it go, as I cannot find any schematics or pinouts for the keyboard, and the connector in unkeyed on the Big Board.

2: What type of CP/M does this thing run? Moreover I am looking for an image for CP/M that will boot on this thing. I read originally that these boards are SD, but mine has a daughter board where the disk controller IC used to be, so it may be DD.

Thank You
Click to expand...
 
All of the schematics and technical manuals for the FBB are on the web.

I will post a link shortly if you can't find them yourself.

Dave
 
Al Kossow said:
Was the controller board still in the univac drive system?
I've been looking for one for a while, and if it's still there it is useless with a BB
Click to expand...

I have three chassis’s, two of which have no drives in it. One of them is definitely empty, but the other I think has the controller board. It is under the drive mounting bays and I can see part of it, but I can’t get a good look at without disassembling it. I don’t really have time to do that today, but I can get it done on Saturday and sent you a picture.
 
ThisPostContainsComputers said:
I have three chassis’s, two of which have no drives in it. One of them is definitely empty, but the other I think has the controller board. It is under the drive mounting bays and I can see part of it, but I can’t get a good look at without disassembling it. I don’t really have time to do that today, but I can get it done on Saturday and sent you a picture.
Click to expand...

thanks!

did you end up with any Sperry UTS 30 or 40 parts/boards?
 
daver2 said:
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ferguson/

The pinout for the keyboard connector (well, all of the connectors) can be deduced from the schematics.

You can also use a serial terminal instead of the parallel keyboard if you wish.

Dave
Click to expand...

I got the pinout for the Big Board connector, but I can't find anything on the keyboard itself or the controller chip on it. I am thinking they are compatible but I don't know for sure as I have no information on the keyboard.
 
The keyboard is an 8-bit parallel interface providing ASCII characters that signifies the presence of a new character with a positive-going strobe signal.

Dave
 
Al Kossow said:
Was the controller board still in the univac drive system?
I've been looking for one for a while, and if it's still there it is useless with a BB
Click to expand...

Alright, just got to disassembling the chassis, but the only boards in there look like power supplies. I doubt this is the board you are looking for.

image000000.jpg
 
Hi everyone, what a fucking luck.
A few years ago I gave up because I was busy with my job with a small Bed & Breakfast here in Pisa, Italy.

During his time I gathered as much information as possible.
I was in contact with Richard Erlacher from Denver.
And i started scanning many microcornucopia numbers that I still have here.
In Italy in 1981 a small company managed to import and clone the original board that I still have and from which I began to rediscover the history
(I even managed to find the SWP card and used a xerox disk. In fact it works on both the xerox 820-1 and Bigboard1 simply by inserting it into the 1711 socket)
subsequently the same company added 256KB memory and 4MHz clock practically integrating what was made available on the microcornucopia manufacturer
ne ho anche uan versione successiva

A machine was therefore created to read how many formats of different floppy disks to import them running on IBM370 at the CNUCE (CNR) in Pisa
I have all the boards, firmware and software and I am available for any support on this fantastic project.

I also have a Ferguson Bigboard II and related software

Let me know if you need anything.
I sit with you with passion.

enrico@vintagesbc.it
 
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