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Capability's of a s-100 system

J

josephdaniel

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Florence, Texas, United States
I am seriously contemplating building a s-100 system, but I need to know will there be any way to use a 8088 and will it be possible to run a DOS on it because I know NOTHING about C/PM. I am basically looking to build a s-100 system that will *hopefully* be somewhat compatible with some DOS software 8-)
Also I need an excuse to buy a serial terminal and something to take up my time and money since I have pretty much finished my ultimate 5160 and have nothing to do now...
 
Compupro made systems that had S-100 bus, 8086 processor boards, and MS-DOS. It is therefore possible to do. Not much MS-DOS software ran on such a configuration; it might be easier to get CP/M-86 (or MP/M) software that works.
 
If you can find one, a Compupro/Godbout 85/88 board is the best of both worlds. You get the 8088 to run MS-DOS and CP/M-86 and the 8085 to run 8-bit CP/M-80. As I recall, it was one of Bill Godbout's most popular CPU cards. Somewhere, someone even detailed instructions on how to get the 8085 side to work with an NSC800 CPU (essentially a Z-80 clone with 8085-type signals).
 
CP/M is similar enough to MS DOS that compared to what you typically have to do to get an s-100 system running, you'll find learning enough CP/M to get by is the least of your worries. I have the COmpupro system described above, I seem to remember the copy of MS DOS I have requires 19200 baud terminal, but I never used MS DOS for anything as there is so much more a person can do with CP/M on a Compupro.

If not CompuPro something of the later S-100 era is the best way to get started, or Mike's new boards. If you like punishment get a Polymorphic 88 or something of the 75-77 s-100 era.
 
They also made a 286 board, one of which I have in storage. I've been wanting to try it with a Make-it-486 upgrade just to see what it will do. Ok, so it's just to say that I have an S100 system upgraded to a 486, but I haven't had a chance to do it. I would also be curious as to how many 256K RAM boards you can use with the S100 bus.
 
If you've got a Z80 system, another option to try is TurboDOS, but you may be on your own when it comes to customizing it to work with your hardware.
 
SGTSQUID said:
They also made a 286 board, one of which I have in storage. I've been wanting to try it with a Make-it-486 upgrade just to see what it will do. Ok, so it's just to say that I have an S100 system upgraded to a 486, but I haven't had a chance to do it. I would also be curious as to how many 256K RAM boards you can use with the S100 bus.
Click to expand...

There were also 68000, Z8000 and NS32016 boards as well from Compupro and others.
 
BYTE magazine had an article on building an 8088 CPU S100 board over three issues, and also mentioned the following CPUs were available in S100 boards: 8080, Z80, 8085, 6502, 6800, 6809, 9900, 8086, Z8000, MCP1600. I think Kilobaud had an article on building a TMS9900 S100 board (or might have been BYTE). I have an Australian made Applied Technology 2650 S100 bare CPU board (unfortunately junk as the traces didn't etch properly, I saved it from the rubbish bin). That's a good range of arhitectures...
 
One thing that the OP should be aware of is that the S100 world is far less standardized with regard to peripherals. That is, unlike the PC world, where most serial cards employ the 8250 command set and a more-or-less common set of port addresses and interrupts, this is not the case for S100. You can have anything from an old TR1602 to an Z8440 for serial I/O, both necessitating their own driver routines. CP/M, unlike DOS, does not utilize installable drivers--you build the CBIOS with the needed driver code in it.

Maybe things have changed, but that's the way it used to be.
 
Chuck(G) said:
One thing that the OP should be aware of is that the S100 world is far less standardized with regard to peripherals. That is, unlike the PC world, where most serial cards employ the 8250 command set and a more-or-less common set of port addresses and interrupts, this is not the case for S100. You can have anything from an old TR1602 to an Z8440 for serial I/O, both necessitating their own driver routines. CP/M, unlike DOS, does not utilize installable drivers--you build the CBIOS with the needed driver code in it.
Click to expand...
Funny this is making a comeback with ARM decades later.
 
SGTSQUID said:
They also made a 286 board, one of which I have in storage. I've been wanting to try it with a Make-it-486 upgrade just to see what it will do. Ok, so it's just to say that I have an S100 system upgraded to a 486, but I haven't had a chance to do it. I would also be curious as to how many 256K RAM boards you can use with the S100 bus.
Click to expand...
I think they also did a 386 board with an extra connector for RAM.
 
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