You always do the most amazing stuff with these old beasts, like your own speech synthesis add-ons and such. Love it. One day I'll try building a Z80-based system but with a full control panel including the obligatory blinkenlights - many blinkenlights. I just love the Z80. Anyway, thanks for sharing and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
There was one example of an East German Multibus PC system, which had an 8086 processor and a full 16-bit bus. Each card had a U880/Z80 for bus control. Due to its use of 16-bit Multibus it wasn't fully PC compatible but it had a high degree of software compatibility with MS-DOS 3.3 using the DCP-1700 operating system. There was also a CP/M-86 clone called CP/K and a multitasking Unix-like OS called MUTOS.
MULTIBUS it looks it was capable platform with multi-masters and very extendable. Don't know why it didn't became popular? With MULTIBUS one can build any computer with just a passive cage - no need for motherboard, very easy to upgrade/extend. For example IBM PC compatible - one board could be CPU another board could be DMA, it's not possible with ISA where not all DMA&IRQ signals available in the connector.
It was actually quite popular in the industrial space -- a lot of the boards on ebay seem to be sold by people who handle process machinery. Unfortunately, that can sometimes make even very old obsolete boards like these somewhat pricey.
I have a gas cabinet controller that was created in part by an iPDS BlueBox system. It uses an i8048 micro-controller and was programmed using PLM 51. We also had iPDS86 systems that ran iRMX (real-time multi-tasking eXecutive ) 86 and connected to an Intel ICE (Interactive CPU Emulator?) these this are still available on the internet but are not cheap even today.
There's nothing really special, at least for a non-bus-master multibus board. Basically you need inverting drivers attached to the data and address buses, then there are memory read and write and io read and write strobes. Th eonly tricky part is the XACK signal, and the published manuals will tell you how to generate that.
@@smbakeryt I'm interested in MULTIBUS, tried to find DIY information how it works pro/cons comparing to other buses as ISA MSX ZXbus, found nothing. Your video the first MULTIBUS DIY board I see. Of course run ISIS OS is a challenge, but for me MILTIBUS DIY card and even 100% proven compatible with existing MULTIBUS CPU looks like great achievement. I see a lot of great home-brew CPU and computers projects on RUclips, but one thing they lack - the compatibility. Might you have idea why there is no MULTIBUS home-brew projects? Did you develop MULTIBUS cards professionally?
Yeah, search for "Intellec Series II Microcomputer Development System Hardware Interface Manual" and the entire Series II is documented there including the protocol spoken between the IPB/IPC and the IOC is documented.
Multimodules are standardized -- look for a document titled "Intel iSBX Bus Specification" manual number 142686-002. Everything from the pinout to the size and shape of the multimodule boards is specified.
P2 is one of the earliest examples of what we would call a "local bus" today.
You always do the most amazing stuff with these old beasts, like your own speech synthesis add-ons and such. Love it. One day I'll try building a Z80-based system but with a full control panel including the obligatory blinkenlights - many blinkenlights. I just love the Z80. Anyway, thanks for sharing and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
There was one example of an East German Multibus PC system, which had an 8086 processor and a full 16-bit bus. Each card had a U880/Z80 for bus control. Due to its use of 16-bit Multibus it wasn't fully PC compatible but it had a high degree of software compatibility with MS-DOS 3.3 using the DCP-1700 operating system. There was also a CP/M-86 clone called CP/K and a multitasking Unix-like OS called MUTOS.
Actually...ICE stands for In Circuit Emulator. Senior moment.
MULTIBUS it looks it was capable platform with multi-masters and very extendable. Don't know why it didn't became popular?
With MULTIBUS one can build any computer with just a passive cage - no need for motherboard, very easy to upgrade/extend.
For example IBM PC compatible - one board could be CPU another board could be DMA, it's not possible with ISA where not all DMA&IRQ signals available in the connector.
It was actually quite popular in the industrial space -- a lot of the boards on ebay seem to be sold by people who handle process machinery. Unfortunately, that can sometimes make even very old obsolete boards like these somewhat pricey.
So funny that the original multbus connector is the one with the big fingers. ;)
I have a gas cabinet controller that was created in part by an iPDS BlueBox system. It uses an i8048 micro-controller and was programmed using PLM 51. We also had iPDS86 systems that ran iRMX (real-time multi-tasking eXecutive ) 86 and connected to an Intel ICE (Interactive CPU Emulator?) these this are still available on the internet but are not cheap even today.
Love it!
Did you implement MULTIBUs interface in discrete 74 logic? I'm very interesting in the schematic!
There's nothing really special, at least for a non-bus-master multibus board. Basically you need inverting drivers attached to the data and address buses, then there are memory read and write and io read and write strobes. Th eonly tricky part is the XACK signal, and the published manuals will tell you how to generate that.
@@smbakeryt I'm interested in MULTIBUS, tried to find DIY information how it works pro/cons comparing to other buses as ISA MSX ZXbus, found nothing. Your video the first MULTIBUS DIY board I see.
Of course run ISIS OS is a challenge, but for me MILTIBUS DIY card and even 100% proven compatible with existing MULTIBUS CPU looks like great achievement. I see a lot of great home-brew CPU and computers projects on RUclips, but one thing they lack - the compatibility. Might you have idea why there is no MULTIBUS home-brew projects?
Did you develop MULTIBUS cards professionally?
Can you tell more about I/O co-processor interface? Is is documented somewhere?
Yeah, search for "Intellec Series II Microcomputer Development System Hardware Interface Manual" and the entire Series II is documented there including the protocol spoken between the IPB/IPC and the IOC is documented.
Was the submodule kinda Intel standard and you can plug and use your submodules to different MULTIBUS computers like 8080, 8086?
Multimodules are standardized -- look for a document titled "Intel iSBX Bus Specification" manual number 142686-002. Everything from the pinout to the size and shape of the multimodule boards is specified.
@@smbakeryt Thank you so much for the documentation!
Shame that the ISIS firmware couldn't be ported to the 80586 to allow for DSP processing as well as other processing options.
It would be great if you could build a S100 PDP-100 computer.
a lot of rambling about other boards that are not part of the project, gave up
You have the same voice like RUclips channel *"The 8-Bit Guyt" ];-D.
If only I had his million plus subscribers!