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I "just" got a Northstar Horizon.....

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MarkO_

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I have been following this Northstar Horizon Thread on the CP/M Forum, with great interest, because I just acquired today a, "Northstar Horizon". I have never worked with an S100 Bus System, so this is an Exciting Project for me.


It's not been Powered Up in 25 years, so it needs to be carefully "restored".

It came pretty, "stuffed" with S100 cards, plus a few extra cards, including a Hayes Micromodem 100, with the Telephone Line Interface and a LOT of Manuals and 60 some, 10 Sectored Disks, and a Locked Disk box that feels pretty full..

I'll be following the above thread, very closely in bringing this system back, On-Line.


This is the Northstar Horizon, from the AtariAge Forum.

Here is my Photo of the Inside.

MarkO
 
Last edited:
MarkO_ said:
I have been following this Northstar Horizon Thread on the CP/M Forum, with great interest, because I just acquired today a, "Northstar Horizon". I have never worked with an S100 Bus System, so this is an Exciting Project for me.
Click to expand...

I really regret opening that other thread in the CP/M forum instead of the S-100 section, I blame some combination of temporary blindness/insanity.

Congratulations on your acquisition, your unit is indeed a lot more "stuffed" than mine is. Mine just adds up to a basic 56k CP/M configuration with serial terminal, have you started inventory of the boards in yours yet? I'm particularly interested in the keyboards it looks like it came with, did you get a video display/terminal card in there?
 
Eudimorphodon said:
did you get a video display/terminal card in there?
Click to expand...

looking at his photo I think I can see the N* double density controller in there, but not plugged in to a ribbon cable, maybe that other card with the ribbon connectors is another controller type. I can see what might the the Processor Technology VDM1 video card in there. It does look like a great find.
 
It looks like there is a 9V battery on the second card from the left, double check to make sure it hasn't leaked all over that area.
 
Eudimorphodon said:
I really regret opening that other thread in the CP/M forum instead of the S-100 section, I blame some combination of temporary blindness/insanity.
Click to expand...

At least you didn't post in the Commodore section, I have heard those Amiga Users can get "pretty angry".


Congratulations on your acquisition, your unit is indeed a lot more "stuffed" than mine is.
Click to expand...


Thanks!! Pure Luck, no one else could Local Pick-Up, and I wasn't in a position to make an offer, but was able to get my Girlfriend to pay for the Gas and use her car..

There are Three Apple Boxes with parts.. Two are FULL of Binders with Documentation and a few Disks... The Third hold the Case-less Keyboard and the 60 Plus Disks and the Loose S100 Cards with no Static Bags.. I can't locate a key for the Disk Box... No Idea whats inside it, yet...


Mine just adds up to a basic 56k CP/M configuration with serial terminal, have you started inventory of the boards in yours yet?
Click to expand...

A Basic System will let you do quite a few things...

This one appears to have been owned by a Business with Multiple User.

I haven't pulled any cards, yet...
There are 8 Cards in the Chassis..
( How are the Slots Numbered?? Back to Front or Front to Back or something else? I'm new to S100 Systems, so I don't know where the various Sub Systems are or what they entail )

The closest card to the back has 5, ( 4 are connected to the Back of the Chassis, one is loose ), all DB-25 Connectors.
I am "assuming" they are RS-232 Serial??

The Second closest card to the Back is the "Micro Diversions, Inc Screen Splitter REV A" It's connected to a BNC Connector on the Back of the Chassis.

The Third Closest card to the back seems to be the Floppy Disk Controller. I have the cable for it.

The Fourth Card, from the Back, "might" be the CPU Card.. None of the others look like the have a CPU..

Back Four Cards



The Fifth Card from the Back is a Graphic Card, called the "Micro Angelo", from SCION Corporation, also connects to a BNC connector.

The Sixth Card from the Back looks like a RAM Card.

The Seventh Card from the Back, Not Sure, yet.. I don't think it's a CPU Card.

The Eighth Card from the Back, Clock Card with the 9 VDC Battery... ( A few specks of Corrosion on the Terminals, no where else... )

Front Four Cards


I'm particularly interested in the keyboards it looks like it came with, did you get a video display/terminal card in there?
Click to expand...

I can't locate the Green Key, Keyboard, It might have been left in my Girlfriend's car..

The Keyboard with the Wood Frame, looks to be a Cherry, I have some Sales Literature for one.. Also, it has a DA-15 Connector... So it "plugs" into the Backplane to act as the Console??

The Keyboard with the Metal Case has a DB-25, I assume it connects to one of the DB-25 Plus on the Back of the Chassis.


I am thinking at least one Video Card, ( the "Micro Angelo" ) and the Screen Splitter might be as well..


MarkO
 
Hugo Holden said:
looking at his photo I think I can see the N* double density controller in there, but not plugged in to a ribbon cable, maybe that other card with the ribbon connectors is another controller type. I can see what might the the Processor Technology VDM1 video card in there. It does look like a great find.
Click to expand...

I have the Floppy Cable.... The Back card has 5 DB-25 Connectors, most connected to the back of the Chassis.


Two cards seem to be video:
"Micro Diversions, Inc Screen Splitter REV A" It's connected to a BNC Connector on the Back of the Chassis.

"Micro Angelo", from SCION Corporation, also connects to a BNC connector.


Now I will see if I can get it operational...

MarkO
 
I'm curious about the front panel modification. It looks like lights and switches.
I have two N*s. One I got running about a year ago and one that has no wood cover but does have a hard drive. You'll need some form of terminal. You can use a USB serial ( needs to be RS232 voltages, not 5V ones used with things like Arduinos ) and some type of terminal program.
The one I got up and running required two 12V regulators for the disk drives. One regulator was determined to be dead with the finger test ( in never got warm ). The other would put out 12V with no load but couldn't hold with a single drive attached.
The small 12V line tantalum failed early and so did on of the axial lead ones on one of the disk drives.
It then booted and was running fine, for about 3 hours, when it had a spectacular failure of one of the large 100 uf tantalums on the RAM card.
I've always thought, bringing up one of these old machines, you should have a "dead man switch". When one blows, you always jump but it takes a few seconds to actually reach for the power switch on the back. Since you are jumping any way, one could use one of those foot switches to break the AC connection.
If I had used one, it would have saved some scorching of the board. It was spectacular flames and smoke when it failed.
It also had a flaky reset switch. I disconnected the wire and attached it to a bench supply set at 1.5 amps and about 5V. I flipped the switch about 20 times and that seemed to clean it up fine. ( switches don't usually like to run at logic level currents as they don't self clean with such tiny currents ).
Dwight
 
Dwight Elvey said:
You'll need some form of terminal. You can use a USB serial ( needs to be RS232 voltages, not 5V ones used with things like Arduinos ) and some type of terminal program.
Click to expand...

I have figured out that the Horizon has no built in Terminal, unlike the Apple ][ or C64 or Tandy CoCo..

Is the Horizon’s Console only RS-232, or some combination of Serial Keyboard Input and Video Output, or Either?

The one keyboard has a DA-15 plug that looks like it connects to the Backplane. I also seem to have a DA-15 to Centronics cable that looks like it connects to the Blackplane as well. I can see some Silkscreen on the Backplane board that says, “Printer”.. I trying to locate the manual for the Backplane, just to understand what’s there and how it’s configured..

I hope the Video card(s) manual(s) have signal information for connecting a display..

MarkO
 
MarkO_ said:
I have figured out that the Horizon has no built in Terminal, unlike the Apple ][ or C64 or Tandy CoCo..
Click to expand...

Yes, that's why I was kind of sad that my Horizon didn't come with a video device. You have an embarrassment of riches with yours because you not only have *one* video card, you have two. (One of those two cards is a text-only device that apparently has a kind of interesting "windowing" feature, while the other is a full blown graphics coprocessor with its own CPU that can also emulate a text terminal). I wonder what the heck this computer was being used for to have both of those in it.

Regarding keyboard input, the sky is the limit, S-100 machines are the literal play-doh of the computer world. The Northstar has built into its backplane/motherboard input and output parallel ports (they're separate) with DA-15 connectors, since those particular video cards don't have built-in ports for keyboards (some S-100 video cards did) I would guess the OS is set up to use the backplane I/O. (Or possibly something on a *different* card.) In addition to the DA-15 parallel ports the backplane has hardware for two serial ports. Baud rate is set via hard-soldered jumpers. (My Northstar has a couple toggle switches hooked to the jumper block to provide options I haven't sussed out yet.)

The output is *probably* NTSC compatible composite, but it's not a sure thing. There was a species of "hi bandwidth" monitor that used a composite signal over NTSC but ran at different scan rates.
 
MarkO_ said:
Red LEDs and toggle switches..
There is a DB-25 connector and I haven’t seen a cable for it..
I suspect that it connects to the CPU card..
Click to expand...

It's obviously not a full front panel, as it has no run/stop/set/reset switches. It's weird, it looks like it's literally just a single 8-bit port decoded and brought to the front along with indicators for the state of a register. It was almost certainly read by software so it could be used for just about anything.
 
The Polymorphic video card had a parallel keyboard port and crud block graphics ( great graphics for it's period ). It also has a place for zeners if needed for a negative rail.
As Eudimorphodon says, they are like play-dough. It is not that hard to attach drivers to the various cards. There are quite a few resources on the web. Make a list of the boards and most can be found. The N* can be used with CP/M or the N* dos. Both are not that hard to understand. I see you have a great collection of manuals. You might let us see a list of what you have. Some may be of use to all.
One you get it up and running, you'll need to start exploring what you have on floppies.
My guess it that the stuff on the front panel was a substitute for the output lights on an Altair or IMSAI. I forget the address but they'd be connected to some specific port address. I just forget which. They come in real handy while debugging new code. You can patch in outputs to the lights or read the switches to determine failure points.
Dwight
 
MarkO_ said:
The Seventh Card from the Back, Not Sure, yet.. I don't think it's a CPU Card.
Click to expand...

I can only see the top edge of the card, but that looks to me like it's the Northstar Z-80 CPU.

The slots on the N* backplane are numbered P1-P12 starting from the front.
 
Dwight Elvey said:
The Polymorphic video card had a parallel keyboard port and crud block graphics ( great graphics for it's period ). It also has a place for zeners if needed for a negative rail.
Click to expand...

Sigh. Yeah, I really wish my machine had one of those, a Processor Tech VDM-1, or a SSM VB1B. 64x16 rules.

(I'm also harboring this sad yen to try to build an S-100 "TRS-80 board" now that I have an S100 to play with, and all of those cards were common in S-100 Trash-80s.)
 
More Photos ( Sorry, there is a File Size limit here, so I am posting them to a Discord Server, the Tandy Color Computer Discord, and putting the Links here )


One of the "loose" cards is the Micro Angelo, S100 Graphic Video card. There is one in the Chassis too..


"Custom" Front Panel. (A friend on the Tandy Discord pointed out, "reverse" the letters of the name )

"Custom" Front Panel, Top.


Baud Rate selector, for the Backplane Serial Port.


Linear Power Supply.


Front Panel connected to Communication Card.


MarkO
 
Dwight Elvey said:
I'm curious about the front panel modification. It looks like lights and switches.
Click to expand...


On the LEDs and Switches..

I just figured out a couple more things...


The LED/switch board has a DB-25M Plug.

The Closest Board to the Back, ( Slot P12 ), has Five DB-25 Connectors, 4 are mounted to the Back and connect to the S100 Card with an IEC Pin Header.. The fifth one, is Soldered to the PCB, I assumed that the IEC connector had been damaged, and they were in a hurry to get it operational, but looking at the Silkscreen on the front of the PCB, shows it's Diodes, D0 - D7... And the Front board is Diodes ( LEDs ), and the Cable Reaches!!!!

Now to find out what Port 15 does on the Card...

MarkO
 
Dwight Elvey said:
<SNIP>
I have two N*s. One I got running about a year ago and one that has no wood cover but does have a hard drive. You'll need some form of terminal. You can use a USB serial ( needs to be RS232 voltages, not 5V ones used with things like Arduinos ) and some type of terminal program.
Click to expand...

What kind of Interface Card is used with Hard Drives, and can those Hard Drives be found now a days?

I have a lot of RS-232 Terminals to chose from, including an Osborn I.


The one I got up and running required two 12V regulators for the disk drives. One regulator was determined to be dead with the finger test ( in never got warm ). The other would put out 12V with no load but couldn't hold with a single drive attached.
The small 12V line tantalum failed early and so did on of the axial lead ones on one of the disk drives.
It then booted and was running fine, for about 3 hours, when it had a spectacular failure of one of the large 100 uf tantalums on the RAM card.
Click to expand...

Were the 12VDC Regulators on the Drives themselves, or part of the Linear Supply??


I've always thought, bringing up one of these old machines, you should have a "dead man switch". When one blows, you always jump but it takes a few seconds to actually reach for the power switch on the back. Since you are jumping any way, one could use one of those foot switches to break the AC connection.
If I had used one, it would have saved some scorching of the board. It was spectacular flames and smoke when it failed.
It also had a flaky reset switch. I disconnected the wire and attached it to a bench supply set at 1.5 amps and about 5V. I flipped the switch about 20 times and that seemed to clean it up fine. ( switches don't usually like to run at logic level currents as they don't self clean with such tiny currents ).
Dwight
Click to expand...

I have access to a Thermal Camera that is connected to a Cell Phone.. That could possibility assist in knowing where problems might be occurring..

MarkO
 
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