Great Hierophant
Veteran Member
I wanted to start a thread for new hardware project ideas rather than take up some other thread. Here is what I would love to have:
A 10-inch or less 8-bit ISA EMS 4.0 compatible board. This board should be able to support up to 4MB of RAM. This can be done in two ways. Number one, use 256x4 DRAMs. Number two, use a 30-pin SIMM connector. The interfacing on the typical boards of the day used standard logic and some custom logic, so the glue should be shrinkable into a standard microcontroller.
If someone is feeling more ambitious, why not extend the concept to add extended memory and 16-bit capabilities as well. In this instance, 4 x 30-pin SIMM slots can give you up to 64MB of RAM (8-bit) or 32MB (16-bit) to play with (each SIMM slot using a 16MBx8 stick.). You could then configure whether the board would be working in an 8 or 16-bit system. In an 8-bit system, only half the SIMM slots would work, giving a maximum of 32MB of Expanded Memory. In an 16-bit system, you could have up to 16MB of Extended Memory and 16MB of Expanded Memory. Of course, this would not work very well for systems much faster than 8MHz.
Finally, I would love to have a box that allows XT keyboards (including IBM Model Ms that may not be 100% XT compatible) to work in the Tandy 1000s that have the unique Tandy keyboard. The scancodes of the Tandy and IBM PC/XT keyboard are the same in most respects, its just that the hardware interface is a little different. Some keycodes (cursor keys, F11 & F12) on a 101-keyboard would need to be translated into the Tandy keycodes for the same keys.
A 10-inch or less 8-bit ISA EMS 4.0 compatible board. This board should be able to support up to 4MB of RAM. This can be done in two ways. Number one, use 256x4 DRAMs. Number two, use a 30-pin SIMM connector. The interfacing on the typical boards of the day used standard logic and some custom logic, so the glue should be shrinkable into a standard microcontroller.
If someone is feeling more ambitious, why not extend the concept to add extended memory and 16-bit capabilities as well. In this instance, 4 x 30-pin SIMM slots can give you up to 64MB of RAM (8-bit) or 32MB (16-bit) to play with (each SIMM slot using a 16MBx8 stick.). You could then configure whether the board would be working in an 8 or 16-bit system. In an 8-bit system, only half the SIMM slots would work, giving a maximum of 32MB of Expanded Memory. In an 16-bit system, you could have up to 16MB of Extended Memory and 16MB of Expanded Memory. Of course, this would not work very well for systems much faster than 8MHz.
Finally, I would love to have a box that allows XT keyboards (including IBM Model Ms that may not be 100% XT compatible) to work in the Tandy 1000s that have the unique Tandy keyboard. The scancodes of the Tandy and IBM PC/XT keyboard are the same in most respects, its just that the hardware interface is a little different. Some keycodes (cursor keys, F11 & F12) on a 101-keyboard would need to be translated into the Tandy keycodes for the same keys.