s100 busses!

From: Richard Erlacher <richard_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Wed May 10 18:51:06 2000

As the number of expansion slots in a PC approaches zero, the marginal
propensity to use something else increases. Of course you have to consider
the candidates.

There's always that old PC/AT that hasn't been fired up in a few years.
There's that stackable PCI stuff. ... and, of course, there's that old
S-100 or Multibus-1 box that's been languishing in the closet in the
downstairs spare bedroom since '82 or so. Control and telemetry tasks
haven't really gotten to be much more demanding over the 20 years
intervening, so maybe one of those options should be considered.

Yes, you could build hardware to attach to your notebook's EPP port, but do
you really want to wed your notebook to those tasks for lengthy periods?

Yup! That ol' S-100 box could fill the bill nicely. Even if you just need
an SBC like the ones from Intel (for Multibus) or for S-100 from SD Systems,
et. al.

Think about it!

Even an old PDP11/03 would be a candidate, right?

Dick

----- Original Message -----
From: Eric Smith <eric_at_brouhaha.com>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2000 2:01 PM
Subject: Re: s100 busses!


> > Does anyone still sell s100 based computers?
> > Aren't they used still for process controll and automation?
>
> There are certainly many still running in such applications (just as
> there are still many PDP-8s, PDP-11s, Novas, and such), but I don't
> think any *new* S-100 machines have been manufactured and sold into these
> applications in the last five years. In the early-to-mid '80s, all
> of the industrial applications that wanted general-purpose computers
> (rather than dedicated embedded controllers) started switching over to
> PCs.
>
Received on Wed May 10 2000 - 18:51:06 BST