Though it's not consistent with my own bent, the "new" IMSAI offers a "safe"
place in which to play with those extremely costly boards some folks have
picked up from the eBay auctions.
What puzzles me is why the IMSAI folks decided to use a switching power
supply when the box and everything else already supported the needs of the
S-100 with the previously available and now quite inexpensive unregulated
supplies of yesteryear. One of the main benefits of the S-100 was that it
had on-board regulation, so that if you didn't need a given supply, you
didn't have to bring it on board and regulate it, dissipating power as you
went. If the new box is capable of running the original boards, it must
provide the raw 8 and +/- 16-volt supplies. Where's the benefit in having a
switching regulator sitting in the back of the box? I suppose it creates a
market for a power distribution module to put +5 and +/- 12 on each board
which needs it rather than using the on-board regulators, but that opens
another can of worms. What's the "right" way to distribute it without
tampering with a historically correct board?
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: allisonp_at_world.std.com <allisonp_at_world.std.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu>
Date: Tuesday, August 17, 1999 1:44 PM
Subject: Re: imsai 2
>> >
>> >It wasn't F11 though it could be done. It was a LSI-1 and later the
T11.
>> >Also Alpha micro used the same chipset as LSI-11 do do the AM100.
>>
>> Neat...I sure wouldn't mind getting ahold of one of those. They're
pretty
>> rare, I'd guess, no?
>
>Likely rare as the company was not a big one and PDP-11 on s100 would be
>rather unDEC in the software support. At best rt11 might have been doable
>if all the device drivers were rewritten. I'd bet those that were sold
>(the bulk of them) are in embedded systems.
>
>The alpha micros were pretty popular though not cheap and they may be more
>common.
>
>Allison
>
>
Received on Tue Aug 17 1999 - 17:11:10 BST