gonzalez@BBN.COM (02/03/89)
I have just finished shuffling through the latest stack of "bingo cards", as we call those packets of business reply cards that magazines mail to their subscribers. One card that got my attention offers a free trial issue of a magazine called SUPERMICRO. It is described as a magazine devoted to VMEbus, Multibus I/II, STD bus and S-100 bus. It is coverage of the S-100 bus that is of interest to me. Has anyone subscribed or, at least, seen this magazine? I hesitate largely because the $24 annual rate is for four issues. A bit expensive for a few product announcements, don't you think? I would have posted this to the Zenith Z-100 group as well, but I haven't figured out their address (Usenet posting is a little awkward from this host). By the way, I have joined the Boston Computer Society, after an absence of several years that started with the demise of the OSI Users Group. Anyone remember Ohio Scientific? I still have my little C1P, which served as the testbed for many of my first digital projects. I digress. Anyway, I look forward to my first meeting with the CP/M subgroup, and Jay Sage. Among other things, I am hoping for pointers to any local surplus stores. -Jim. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jim Gonzalez AT&T: 617-873-2937 BBN Systems and Technologies Corp. ARPA: gonzalez@bbn.com Cambridge, Massachusetts UUCP: ...seismo!bbn!gonzalez ----------------------------------------------------------------------
mlewis@unocss.UUCP (Marcus S. Lewis) (02/04/89)
In article <8902030459.AA05706@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, gonzalez@BBN.COM writes: ..... > issue of a magazine called SUPERMICRO. It is described as a magazine > devoted to VMEbus, Multibus I/II, STD bus and S-100 bus. It is coverage > of the S-100 bus that is of interest to me. Has anyone subscribed or, > at least, seen this magazine? I hesitate largely because the $24 annual > rate is for four issues. A bit expensive for a few product announcements, > don't you think? Expensive it is. I have issues 2,3,4 of S-100 Journal, and issue 1 of Supermicro, which is what they have become. There is apparently not enough support for S-100 systems out there. As S-100 Journal, they carried articles on HOW_TO_BUILD (a) a 1-Mb Static Ram Board (with schematics), a four-port serial I/O board, with schematics, a Clock/claendar board, with schematics. I rather doubt that as SUPERMICRO they will have such well-done articles, since the real bux are in VME, but there were no articles as yet. Yes, they have a LARGE section on product announcements. For software, they heavily favor Concurrent CP/M and CRDOS (Cromemco's OS), with an occasional mention of MS-DOS. They don't as a rule favor MS-DOS, but do accept the necessity of using it on a 286/Z80 board, for instance. There was a damning review of a 386 S-100 board in the latest issue, concluding that it wasn't worth the cost, unless you happen to run the two or three programs the board was tested with and ran. They are trying, give 'em a chance. FAR better than Byte has been in the last 8 years. So far. Marc Lewis - A Z-100 owner -
RALPH@UHHEPG.BITNET (02/06/89)
Date: 5-FEB-1989 12:30:18.72 From: Ralph Becker-Szendy RALPH AT UHHEPG To: 0::"info-cpm@wsmr-simtel20.army.mil" Subj: Re: Supermicro magazine <gonzalez@BBN.COM> writes: >... One card that got my attention offers a free trial issue of a magazine >called SUPERMICRO. It is described as a magazine devoted to VMEbus, Multibus >I/II, STD bus and S-100 bus. It is coverage of the S-100 bus that is of >interest to me. Has anyone subscribed or, at least, seen this magazine? I >hesitate largely because the $24 annual rate is for four issues. A bit >expensive for a few product announcements, don't you think? ... Yes, I subscribed to it for two or three issues, about a year ago (maybe a year and a half). They are now in some cardboard box behind my desk. The first issue I received was still called "S100 magazine", then they renamed themselves. Even at that time it was only 20% S100 coverage, the rest all VME, Multibus etc. Their cp/m coverage (from any non-S10 point of view) was nearly null. I don't think it's worth the price just for its S100 or cp/m coverage; except if you are desperate for the last magazine which has ANY (if little) S100 coverage. By the way ... speaking about cp/m and computer magazines: In Germany (and probably in Austria and Switzerland, too) there is still quite a bit of cp/m activity going on. I think there are three main reasons: (1) A whole lot of industrial control systems, based on the ECB bus (first used by Kontron); many boards are available (often from very small, innovative manufacturers). Many of the industrial control system boards are pretty expensive, but often powerfull (for example, the typical memory board is 64kB static CMOS memory with battery backup !) (2) Two popular German computer magazines picked up on the ECB bus, and had several lines of boards for it. There are several very nice boards available, and you can get empty PC boards and part kits pretty cheap. These days you have a choice of Z80, 64180, Z280, 8088, 68008, and even 68020 and 8086 for your processor on ECB boards, while sharing periphereals. One magazine even did an IBM XT look-alike on ECB boards. (3) The Amstrad cp/m machines (sold under the "Schneider" brand name) are pretty popular in the lower end of home-computers. Getting back to magazines, the two are - "mc" (which these days caters mostly to the IBM, Atari and Amiga market, and is more oriented towards product reviews and software, similar to Byte. Carries a few cp/m or Z80-hardware articles A YEAR, so not worth the price, - "c't" (yes, with an apostrophe in it), which is more hardware and project oriented. Typical projects these days are for example an 68020 adapter board for your Amiga, or a Z80 microcontroller board on 5cm x 8cm with ECB bus adapter (using SMD). Still has on the average a few 8-bit articles per issue. Very much recommended. If you happen to speak German and are interested, send me a message, I can give you the adresses where to subscribe (and even get back issues). If you happen to be close by, drop by my office and look at a stack of c't's. On the other hand, I am probably the only subscriber to this list in Hawaii who speaks German ... Ralph Becker-Szendy RALPH@UHHEPG.PHYS.HAWAII.EDU University of Hawaii / High Energy Physics Group RALPH@UHHEPG.BITNET Watanabe Hall #203, 2505 Correa Road, Honolulu, HI 96822 (808)948-7391
cjl@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Charles J. Lord) (02/07/89)
I subscribed to S-100 Journal and the magazine comes out when they feel like sending the next issue- over 6 mos between issues at times. The magazine never had anything that useful on S-100, and now that they are diversifying into the other buses... Well, forget it. -- * Charles Lord ..!decvax!mcnc!ecsvax!cjl Usenet (old) * * Cary, NC cjl@ecsvax.UUCP Usenet (new) * * #include <std.disclamers> cjl@ecsvax.BITNET Bitnet * * #include <cutsey.quote> cjl@ecsvax.uncecs.edu Internet *
fifi@cosmo.UUCP (A.F.Zinser) (02/14/89)
In article <8902052300.AA01115@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Ralph Becker writes: > (2) Two popular German computer magazines picked up on the ECB bus, and > had several lines of boards for it... These days you have a choice > of Z80, 64180, Z280, 8088, 68008,.... ^^^^ ----- I happen to speak german (cause I am one..) and I'm very interesting in Z280. Please tell (post) me, which issue of which magazine you mean. thanks in advance, - fifi - +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | _ _ ! ! Axel F. Zinser (_!_) (_!_) ...uunet!mcvax!unido!cosmo!fifi | | Hannover, BRD ! ! fifi@cosmo.UUCP ! ! ! +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+