[gridcase] Anyone made a pin-out sheet for the External Peripheral, and/or the P2A/P2B bus connectors behind the battery?

[tschak909]

Just as the subject says:
The P2A/P2B connectors in the battery bay are a complete 16-bit ISA bus split into two connectors, has anyone attempted to tone out the pins and what they map to?
-Thom

 

[joshuaparkour1]

I know they are for the ethernet cartridge, (unobtanium) but beyond that I don't know of anyone using them.
The pin outs are most likely on that pdf that you are seeking unfortunately.

 

[tschak909]

I am aware of this. It's one of the reasons I am looking for the Technical Reference manual, as it has the pinout for these connectors, am wanting to do a version of the FujiNet that fits into the bay.

-Thom

 

[Conventional Memories]

Bump,
I'd also love to find the pinouts of either the Gridcase /Gridcase+ 50pin external bus connector, the 1537e expansion /HDD bay or the 15xx series expansion / battery bay pinout.
I'd love to make something similar to what I did for the Toshiba T-series (CF card + Adlib + ethernet) I've already attempted to trace out the 50 pin connector in my Gridcase Plus but gave up after a couple of hours going nowhere with the multi-layered boards. https://conventionalmemories.com/wiki_cm/3inONEder_for_Toshiba_portables

 

[tschak909]

It is documented in the Hardware Reference Manual, very end:

GRiDCASE 1500 Series Hardware Technical Reference Manual.pdf

drive.google.com

 

[Klyball]

I know they are for the ethernet cartridge, (unobtanium) but beyond that I don't know of anyone using them.

i have one for Gridlink , Synchronous Data Link Control (SDLC) for connecting to the grid server.

 

[tschak909]

I was able to get a VGA pod, so I can use those connectors when we get the ISA FujiNet sorted.

-Thom

 

[Dagwood]

I'd also love to find the pinouts of either the Gridcase /Gridcase+ 50pin external bus connector ... I've already attempted to trace out the 50 pin connector in my Gridcase Plus but gave up after a couple of hours going nowhere with the multi-layered boards.

I'm not sure if this is any help or not but attached is a photo of an external 10MB hard drive that clamps to the top of my GRiDCase Plus and interfaces to the 50-pin connector. Inside is a PCB with an IDC header that appears to be an 8-bit ISA slot. There is an ISA card (Controller for the JVC hard drive) that has an ISA card edge connector but also the female IDC to match. I haven't examined it closely to determine what all the other stuff on the PCB is. Some of it is surely power related but there's logic there too. Additionally there is a pass through of the 50-pin which I would expect to be for daisy chaining except it's covered with a warning label saying not to use it.

 

[Conventional Memories]

It is documented in the Hardware Reference Manual, very end:

GRiDCASE 1500 Series Hardware Technical Reference Manual.pdf

drive.google.com

Ohh that's great, I didn't realize they were in there, guess I'll have to make a prototype adapter board then.

I'm not sure if this is any help or not but attached is a photo of an external 10MB hard drive that clamps to the top of my GRiDCase Plus and interfaces to the 50-pin connector. Inside is a PCB with an IDC header that appears to be an 8-bit ISA slot. There is an ISA card (Controller for the JVC hard drive) that has an ISA card edge connector but also the female IDC to match. I haven't examined it closely to determine what all the other stuff on the PCB is. Some of it is surely power related but there's logic there too. Additionally there is a pass through of the 50-pin which I would expect to be for daisy chaining except it's covered with a warning label saying not to use it.

Wow that's really cool. I see that the board is in labeled in French, is this from one of the SAGEM rebranded GRiDs?
Could you take a higher quality picture of the adapter board? It looks like just a bunch of logic IC's, as long as there aren't any PAL or GAL's it shouldn't be to hard to reverse engineer. Although I suppose that I'd have to get my hands on one of those to really be able to measure out everything.