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    Concurrent CP/M 86

    Hi folks -- just performing a resurrection of a very old thread here :) I wanted to document and share my recent experiments with ccpm-86 on a DEC Rainbow 100B. CCPM, in many ways, is pretty cool on the Rainbow. you can have up to 4 consoles active, so it seems there's some proper...
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    Rainbow 100A Memory beyond 256K?

    Hi there -- I gave the A19 "being maybe pulled high" issue a try yesterday by grounding out the A19 pin on the card connector to force it low, but it made no difference. So.... at this point, I'm going to take a pause on trying things -- I'm really not sure where the issue lies and I'm just...
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    Rainbow 100A Memory beyond 256K?

    Apologies -- I've attached the datasheet here, with the entire truth table. (What I provided was an excerpt of the most relevant rows, with the headings modified to describe our use case) Thank you for the shared memory explanation -- I didn't realize that this is what was being talked about (I...
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    Rainbow 100A Memory beyond 256K?

    Hi there -- OK, so yesterday I did some testing and poking around. I had built a little fixture to allow me to mess with the outputs of E104 without extensive resoldering (I've included pics as attachments -- note the appropriately rainbow cables used :)) I had started by taking a look at the...
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    Rainbow 100A Memory beyond 256K?

    Hi there -- I got the board socketed (15 of 16 pins were co-operative lol; the ground pin was NOT). All still in working condition. I added the modification connecting pin 24 of E87 to pin 8 of E72 and cut pin 8s ground connection. Unfortunately my result was poor -- scrambled video flowing...
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    Rainbow 100A Memory beyond 256K?

    Hi all -- I have the 100A board back out and will try to solder in the socket tomorrow (it's Tuesday night here now, Toronto Canada). I will also take pics of my motherboard and I will take pics of the 100A memory adapter. I will also see if I can trace continuity from E104 pins 12-14 through...
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    Rainbow 100A Memory beyond 256K?

    Hi na103! I'm glad you're joining the discussion, the more the better :) If you ask me, a modern re-engineering of the Rambow (lol) would be amazing. The only thing, it seems to me, that really limits the 100A is the memory size, and the only thing causing that is a scarcity of the OG solutions...
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    Rainbow 100A Memory beyond 256K?

    Oh, the bodge wire on the back of the 100B expansion card was me grounding pin 29. As I mentioned before, I wasn't able to find anything on the board pin 29 was connected to, which seemed odd to me -- I was expecting some kind of pull-up resistor type connection to enforce logic high. It may...
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    Rainbow 100A Memory beyond 256K?

    Hi! Thank you for the comprehensive reply! (I very much appreciate it) I agree that it might be best to socket E104 and go from there, so that's what I will likely do -- I do have some desoldering experience BUT I find with (well made and thick) boards like IBMs etc getting enough heat into...
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    Rainbow 100A Memory beyond 256K?

    Hi there -- I found time today to try out the initial mods to get the 100A to 512k. Sadly, I've not been able to get it working yet. I've re-routed the IO/M signal to header pin 30 (I have continuity back to the 8088) and connected pin 11 on E104 to header pin 43, removing the connection to pin...
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    Rainbow 100A Memory beyond 256K?

    Thank you! This is fabulous! I would like to try to enable the 512k option first, as being simpler from a rework point of view. If I can get that working, I'll work on reconnecting A19. My understanding of the procedure for the 512k mod so far is (please correct me if I've misunderstood): a)...
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    8087 on DEC Rainbow 100A

    Thank you also for this! I do see an expired listing on ebay for one of these. I will add the part numbers to my ebay saved searches! Cheers! A
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    Rainbow 100A Memory beyond 256K?

    Thank you for this! I've got a copy of the technical manual addendum and will work away on wrapping my head around the memory expansion function. At a first read, I see what you mean that the 100B switches the meaning of 3 pins on the connector (as well as the NONSHRCYC pin difference) to use...
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    Rainbow 100A Memory beyond 256K?

    Hi there -- hey, that's brilliant news! I'm happy to do some reworking on the card and/or board -- I could try the simpler 500k mod first and go from there. Would you be ok to share the specifics of the lead that has to be wired for the simpler expansion? (And/or is there a schematic or...
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    8087 on DEC Rainbow 100A

    Hi Nicola, Resurrecting an old thread here -- I just had it explained to me how this works on a 100A -- I am EXTREMELY keen to acquire one of these 8087 adapter boards, so am now on the hunt. If I do find one, I'd be more than happy to provide any information you wish if you still want to...
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    Rainbow 100A Memory beyond 256K?

    Thank you so much! This is exactly the information I needed. that was the post that made me think there was a chance for the 100A, but I misunderstood the nature of the 8087 board entirely. Now, to find one.... :) Cheers and thank you! A
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    Rainbow 100A Memory beyond 256K?

    Hi folks -- dumb question du jour: Does anyone know if it's ENTIRELY impossible to expand the memory on a Rainbow 100A past the 256k mark? I did acquire a 100B expansion board, but the naive approach of inserting it (it's configured correctly) just hangs the machine immediately. I had seen...
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    Ontario WTB Dec Rainbow 100B or 100+ (or parts thereof)

    Hi all -- I have a Rainbow 100A which I love, but would love to find a 100B or 100+ that can support more than 256kb RAM. I know these are rare and pricey, but hey :)
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    The Official Nabu PC Floppy Disk Controller thread

    Hi all -- I realize that NABU activity has died down a little, so this is a minor resurrection :) I was revisiting my NABU a while ago, having built the repro FDC (thank you all for that work!) and using a gotek, and the track 0 out-of-band DPB issue forcing the use of .hfe images was bugging...
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    Rainbow 100 Hard-disk partition scheme?

    Hi there! I stumbled across this thread while attempting to find information on (and understand) exactly how the Rainbow stores dos boot sector data on RX50 floppies (trying to find a cpmtools-style solution to working with dos RX50 images, i.e. to add and remove files from images directly...
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