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Sperry Univac D 60 60 ?

SunDown79

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So I have acquired this S-100 bus system and I know nothing about S-100 bus systems but the label on the front reads Sperry and the label on the bottom reads Univac D 60 60.
It has cards in it from an English company called H-TE Ltd. All boards from 1982.
The Tandon drive is broken but trying to fix (the motor controller board is broken) but appart from that seems to be in good condition inside. Measured voltages on the board and got 7.8 for 8V and like +16,50V and -16,30V on the +16 and -16.
But nothing happening.

First question is does anyone ever heard/know of this system ?

Second question is, being a S-100 newby, does a S-100 system always have a CPU board with something like a 8088, Z80 etc ?
Because if so then this system is missing its CPU board.
And last questions would be, could you use any CPU board ? (within reason)
 
Hmmm, made in England with a French keyboard....IC dates around 1981-82.
Nice system, BTW--top-shelf quality of construction.
My guess is an early office automation system, given the keyboard key legends. Perhaps a predecessor to SperryLink?
 
Uhu, heavy too :)
It came with one floppy that was stuck inside the drive (which I didn't notice as it was really pushed in with force and all crushed up) which reads :

D E C O S
UNITEX REL 2.0
10/83

AZERTY
It actually came from the French part of Belgium so that explains the azerty keys.
 
I saw and I am wondering if the case I have is a self made case or customized case from the original (as it has that vibe a little bit) and that the internals are the CP/M extension as mentioned in the brochure and you can see on the 3rd page. It certainly does roughly look like the same shape. The Z80 is in the terminal itself so that might also explain why it is missing from the cards.
 
That's a very good theory. But the cards you show do show a NEC D780, which is NEC's licensed clone of the Z80 (the PAM board). It's got 64KB of DRAM and 2 USARTs, so it's pretty complete. Dumping the PROM might give some additional information.
 
Would I be correct to think that the PAM card would run on its own and perhaps show some output, seeing the PLA port goes to a port labeled TERMINAL ?
Because that would be a good point to start to see to get something out of it (less is more).
 
Well, there are two USARTS (8251) on that board, so I think it's quite likely to be able to run on its own--at least enough for the EPROM to execute some code.
 
Its alive (just turned it on with the single PAM card) :
DSC_0001.JPG
All it took was a stock laptop with serial port and straight through serial cable. Sometimes things are so simple :)
The shown error is ok because the floppy controller card wasn't installed. That will be the next step, or perhaps first make a dump of the ROM...
 
Ok, so the floppy / disc controller card makes the error go away and a DSDD 5.25" drive seeks (the original drive is a Tandon TMS100-1).
The videcard also produces a really nice clear colour picture on RF.
But I have been unable to boot any of the disks with the DSDD drive I had lying around. With my kryoflux i dumped one of the disks and had a look in the HxC software.
This showed that the disk is single sided and 40 tracks. And also track analysis shows NORTHSTAR_HS_MFM_ENCODING, variable bitrate.
Also tried booting a hfe file on my gotek and HxC SD emulator that came from that raw dump but all to no avail.
Anybody any hints ?
 
Yes, it's a proprietary jelly-bean-IC design. Lots of counters (LS160 and LS161), a PLL (MC4024, MC4044) etc. What's troubling is the empty socket at IC39, which may have had a PAL installed, like the other sockets.
Perhaps this is one that you don't get to work without some sort of documentation.
 
Hmm, yes I noticed the empty socket too. Documentation is going to be a pretty difficult search probably but all I can do is keep a look out for it.
Or perhaps find someone with a UTS40 to see if that at least matches.
 
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