Ferguson BigBoard revived!

From: Tom Uban <uban_at_ubanproductions.com>
Date: Tue Jan 27 09:16:40 2004

I owned a BigBoard in college, but gave it away when I moved from Champaign
to Boston. It is a pretty cool SBC with integrated single density floppy
controller and video. A friend (thanks Bob) gave me an old BigBoard which
he had laying around a while back and I started making it work again last
night. So far, the crystal circuit was dead (temporarily replaced with an
oscillator until new parts arrive), an address buffer was dead (purchased
a NOS 74LS241 off the shelf at the local electronics store, mounted on a
piece of cardboard which is all faded from age), the video drive XOR was
dead (replaced with new 74LS86 from my stock bins), and all the ICs needed
to be re-seated in their sockets.

So far, I have the video section working and the board boots the system
monitor, displaying the output on the overly tiny 3" diagonal CRT, which
is the only monitor that survived my numerous moves over the years. I've
purchased a new-to-me monitor for use on this board, but this tiny one
will have to due until it arrives.

The next step will be to attach a SSSD 8" floppy and if that works with
some scratch floppies, I will try to boot the CP/M system floppies that
I got from Don Maslin oh so long ago.

I still have a couple of articles about modifying the BigBoard to use a
double density floppy drive. I may have to try that at some point in the
future.

--tom
Received on Tue Jan 27 2004 - 09:16:40 GMT