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What was the last / latest commercially produced S-100 bus computer?

S

SouthernComputers

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Does anyone know what the last/latest commercially produced S-100 bus computer system was? I would assume it would have been around 84 or 85 at the latest as ISA bus computers took over. But I am curious what the absolute final form, most advanced refined form of an S-100 computer turned out to be. Thanks all
 
cj7hawk said:
Oh My Goodness..

S100 Computers - LDP Color Magic Video Board

S100 Computers
www.s100computers.com

http://www.s100computers.com/Hardware Folder/LDP/Color magic/Color Magic Video Board.jpg

What are those memory sockets!

Rather incredible for a S100 board / system - Not just MS-DOS compatability, but PC compatability.
Click to expand...

Yes, I am aware of that incredible board. One of the members of this forum has been working on reproducing a clone of it. Would love to have one.
 
SouthernComputers said:
Does anyone know what the last/latest commercially produced S-100 bus computer system was? I would assume it would have been around 84 or 85 at the latest as ISA bus computers took over. But I am curious what the absolute final form, most advanced refined form of an S-100 computer turned out to be. Thanks all
Click to expand...
Two of the largest manufacturers of S100 boards and systems continued to put out product until around 1990:

1. Cromemco - you can read a short description of their final product versions here:
Their final S100 systems were designed for the purpose of being a multiuser hub. Note in particular the reference to a 1991 product press release, which probably occurred close to the very end. Their last S100 systems ran either CROMIX or optionally a port of UNIX, and were equipped with a 68030 CPU board and very fast S100 RAM using a proprietary data transfer protocol that was not S100 standard.

2. CompuPro - kept going until 1990, when it quietly disappeared. There final S100 systems were designed for the purpose of being a multiuser hub to both terminals and PCs running terminal emulation software, or connected to more CompuPro systems and/or PCs using Arcnet. Their last S100 systems ran Concurrent DOS 6, and were equipped with an 80386 CPU board cabled to multiple MB of fast RAM via an overhead bus separate from the S100 backplane, and SCSI hard drives.
 
cjs said:
The two at the top? They look like special sockets allowing you to stack a pair of ICs. Nice!
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Aren't they.... I want one of those boards just so I can see the sockets... Would be too expensive though. It's an interesting idea from a bygone era.

And I can understand why they need to fit stacked memory, because there was no space left... But by the same token, it was possible to get skinny-dip SRAMs even back in the day... Must have been a cost-saving measure.
 
The S100 website has a complete schematic along with manual which should answer questions about the RAM on the board. The notation on the schematic is 6164 and the 6164 datasheet I can find matches.
 
SouthernComputers said:
Yes, I am aware of that incredible board. One of the members of this forum has been working on reproducing a clone of it. Would love to have one.
Click to expand...
I've been helping with the reproduction of the Lomas ColorMagic since I have a working Lomas S100-PC (probably the only one). The custom PALs have been reverse engineered and first run of PCBs has been ordered, it will be exciting to see if the repro board will work.
 
new_castle_j said:
I've been helping with the reproduction of the Lomas ColorMagic since I have a working Lomas S100-PC (probably the only one). The custom PALs have been reverse engineered and first run of PCBs has been ordered, it will be exciting to see if the repro board will work.
Click to expand...
I am intensely interested in seeing how that reproduction project goes. I have a Z-120 that is itching for one of those cards. And yes - at this juncture, I would not be surprised that you have the only functional original left on the planet.
 
cj7hawk said:
Now I'm curious. Does it run MS Flight Simulator?
Click to expand...
Lomas claimed that - yes - their Color Magic board in combination with a set of other Lomas S100 boards (CPU board with PC compatible BIOS, and floppy controller) would run Microsoft Flight Simulator.
 
cj7hawk said:
Now I'm curious. Does it run MS Flight Simulator?
Click to expand...
Yes, I am able to boot MS Flight Simulator on my Lomas S-100 PC. I even booted a modern flavor of FreeDOS. The system has it's shortcomings though. There are some bugs in the BIOS that could be ironed out. During my testing, I can boot DOS 1, 2, 3, but it fails to boot DOS 4, no idea why. There is only support for 360K floppies, and currently there is no hard drive. I have a LOMAS SCSI S-100 card for it with the NCR5380 chip, no SCSI BIOS however, it would need a loadable DOS driver I believe in order to use it.

As far as the reproduction ColorMagic goes, the first iteration of the PCB has arrived, components to build will be coming next week, fingers crossed that it will actually work!
 
It's me that's working with @new_castle_j on the reproduction board. I received the first run boards about 2 weeks ago, but had to trash them due to an unrepairable error with some of the traces. So, I'm working on a second run. I've had to do a few additional tweaks, so it's in trace optimization now. Last time, it took about a week to fully optimize.

If it wasn't answered above, the RAM sockets are an odd stacked-chip construction which enabled using lower-denisty memory and the chip select either A13 or !A13 (not A13). I replaced them with a higher-density chip which actually just uses A13. Hopefully it works.

Rich
 
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