circa77
Experienced Member
Second question first:
Of course, everyone is going to want a section dedicated to "their" system. But I'd argue that the SS-50 actually deserves one, because it was the bus second in popularity only to S-100 in the original hobby micro era. Like MITS, SWTPC existed for years before putting out their 8080 and 6800 systems (respectively), and their buses caught on enough to spawn a lot of companies making compatible hardware. So whose decision is it to add it as a major heading, and if not, why not?
Now, to Gimix:
In digging through my hardware (some of which is being sold on ebay), I've turned up a few Gimix pieces. They built, to my mind, the highest-quality SS-50 boards, but it's extremely hard to find anything on them. The example at hand is one of their 58 (or "5/8"?) floppy controllers, which is apparently capable of 5" and/or 8" operation. This one appears to be (partially-) populated for 5" use, but since it's fully-socketed I can't tell whether the empty sockets are for chips unnecessary for 5" operation - or have been looted over the years. So I'd love to get my hands on a manual for it, or even just hear from someone who has one of these boards and can tell me how it's populated.
Thanks.
Jonathan
Of course, everyone is going to want a section dedicated to "their" system. But I'd argue that the SS-50 actually deserves one, because it was the bus second in popularity only to S-100 in the original hobby micro era. Like MITS, SWTPC existed for years before putting out their 8080 and 6800 systems (respectively), and their buses caught on enough to spawn a lot of companies making compatible hardware. So whose decision is it to add it as a major heading, and if not, why not?
Now, to Gimix:
In digging through my hardware (some of which is being sold on ebay), I've turned up a few Gimix pieces. They built, to my mind, the highest-quality SS-50 boards, but it's extremely hard to find anything on them. The example at hand is one of their 58 (or "5/8"?) floppy controllers, which is apparently capable of 5" and/or 8" operation. This one appears to be (partially-) populated for 5" use, but since it's fully-socketed I can't tell whether the empty sockets are for chips unnecessary for 5" operation - or have been looted over the years. So I'd love to get my hands on a manual for it, or even just hear from someone who has one of these boards and can tell me how it's populated.
Thanks.
Jonathan
