From Ben Bradley Sent Thu, Sep 13th 2018, 00:25
From Ben Bradley Sent Thu, Sep 13th 2018, 00:25
I can only wonder how what it could do with a 2MHz 8080, or (just released in 1977) a 4MHz Z-80, or (rarer in an S-100 machine) 1MHz 6800 or 6502. With at best TTL circuitry (because it would have cost too much for a company no one had heard of to make custom chips back then) I doubt it could do much, but it would still be interesting to see what the designer had in mind. I've read about the People's Computer Company in various microcomputer/personal computer history books but never saw their magazine, though I did see the early Dr. Dobbs Journals that apparently came out of it. I wonder if it was ever reviewed, advertised or mentioned in Byte Magazine (the 'premire' home/microcomputer journal at the time). I don't think I've looked through every page of every issue from back then (though I was in college and sure wanted to). Scans of Byte are online, and if there's any mention at all in Byte, it might have more detail, or the designer's name, or something that could lead to more info. I posted the link on this forum asking for info, it'll show up as soon as a moderator approves it and you can see any responses: http://www.vcfed.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?24-S-100 On Wed, Sep 12, 2018 at 2:17 PM Kenny Balys <xxxxx@xxxxxxxx.xxx> wrote: > > > Further... > > fuzzily in the background you can see an Altair 8800 Computer. > > So one could argue that this product release was solidly geared towards the > early home computing market. > > > On 12.09.18 18:09 , Kenny Balys wrote: > > > > I do not know anything specific about this company or its products. > > > > I do have plenty of experience with different bus backplane based > > computer systems from my signal processing and remote sensing days. > > > > What is being offered here are a pair of S100 based peripheral boards > > that require a host CPU and some code to perform any function. > > > > You would need an S100 backplane, host CPU, a case and power supply > > just for starters. > > > > As a good chunk of the text went into description of the power requirements > > and the overly large power regulator, this tells me that the design engineer > > also wrote that text. So my guess is, yes, they made some and (foolishly) > > required the engineer to communicate with humans. > > > > S100 based computers were really the beginning of formal home computing. > > Before that it was wild boffins banging things together salvaged from > > their lab at the local secret research program. > > > > Something like this puts one in the territory of the Altair S100 or its > > clone the IMSAI 8080. (the film War Games features an S100 computer) > > > > If you were planning on building a S100 system around these cards I > > would love to hear more about it and even help. (if you need it) > > > > Cheers, > > ./k > > > > On 12.09.18 17:02 , Joan Touzet wrote: > >> Trying to track down any info on this 1977 digital/DSP S-100 bus based synth > >> for a friend: > >> > >> https://archive.org/details/TNM_Music__Speech_Audio_synthesizer_-_Logistics__20170915_0481 > >> > >> > >> It was definitely shown at at least one show in 1977 (same show had an apple > >> computer booth) > >> > >> There was an ad produced for it - see above > >> > >> Not sure if it ever saw release or sold very many > >> > >> "People's computers" magazine vol 5 no 6 (May-June 1977) has pictures from the > >> trade show as well (the magazine is scanned from Stanford's collection) > >> > >> Let me know, > >> Joan