garey@ut-ngp.UUCP (riggs, austen) (01/20/84)
There is a deal here at Univ. of Texas to get a Zenith 100 with 2 drives, 128K ram etc for $1975.00. This seems like a great deal but I need to know if the S-100 bus in that machine is really standard. For example will standard Compupro boards fit? Could I pop in a hard disk, more memory, and a 68K board (say from compu- pro) in the near future and off I go to Unix land? Or does the thing require special things from Heath/Zenith? ut-ngp)
andree@uokvax.UUCP (01/31/84)
#R:ut-ngp:-24200:uokvax:7900010:000:437 uokvax!andree Jan 29 14:29:00 1984 The rumors (that's all they are, rumors) I've heard indicate that the z100 is indeed a true s100 bus. Compupro cards should work, as the z100 was designed by them. However, if you find that you can "pop in a 68K and a hard disk and go off to Unix land," I want to hear about it. Mostly, who sold you the Unix? I've been trying to get Unix for my S100 system and a compupro 68K for a while now, and nobody seems interested in... <mike
emjhm@uokvax.UUCP (02/01/84)
#R:ut-ngp:-24200:uokvax:7900011:000:670 uokvax!emjhm Jan 30 17:01:00 1984 The Z-100 does indeed hane an IEE-696 S-100 bus in it. The 8085 and 8088 processors work in tandem and appear as a single master cpu on the bus. As for "Standard S-100 single board processors and hard disk controllers" just play like you have a processor and memory board installed in the S-100 bus that can't be removed. The S-100 bus wil tolerate slave processors on the bus but the slave will have to be given the bus by the 8085 or 8088 processors that are always present and must be running to keep the display going. I'm not sure how much trouble you would have in trying to get a single board S-100 processors to play slave to the Z-100 processors. Jim Miller
ABN.ISCAMS%usc-isid@sri-unix.UUCP (02/04/84)
Ref your question on the correctness of the Z100's S100 bus -- I closely queried a sales team recently here at Ft Bragg (including the area manager or some such from Charlotte). They confirm (for what it's worth) a true S100 bus, but could give absolutely no information or recommendations on what (if anything) else would run on it beside Zenith boards. I'm watching this myself, since I'd like to stay with S100 to maintain compatibility/backup with my Toad (a Morrow Decision I). No word yet from the USAF or USN - not enough of them out there yet, I guess, or not enough adventuresome people to stick alien boards in a Govt-owned machine! David Kirschbaum Toad Hall