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Its Back!!! IMS 8000

A

alan8086

Experienced Member
Joined
Oct 1, 2016
Messages
331
Location
Burnley, UK
For anyone interested - My IMS 8000 S100 machine is back online after being broke for the last 4 years or so.

I recently acquired a rebadged ABI chip tester off eBay. Today I tested all 128 of its 2114 RAM chips and found 2 badduns - a quick robbery from my superbrain motherboard and...

WP_20190218_01_17_04_Pro_LI.jpg

Im still puzzling over the settings in HyperTerminal. I seem to be able to get a basic disk directory at least.

I need to make some decent boot disks which should be easy as I have abundant SSSD floppies in great condition.

I'll post some more pics/vids of the machine itself tomorrow, just got into bed!

I just wanted to share. I've really wanted to get this machine going again, it's a fascinating old beast!
 
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Excellent! Just got another not-IMS system finished today with an IMS 4 MHz Z80 board, they seemed to make really solid hardware. Glad to see it living again :)
 
You haven't joined the club until you show us some pictures! ��

The brain is on hold - I can't get the picture back after recapping the VDU board. Im waiting for some non polar electrolytic and a couple of power transistors.

The IMS 8000 was an easy fix once I worked out how to test the chips. 2 down, one to go!
 
Anyone know cheap source if upd2114 chips? Doesnt have to be NEC. The prices on eBay are amazing if you want more than two!
 
I've got a quantity of them, if you can't find a source in the UK. PM me if you need some!
 
I have some Intel P2114ALS devices here at work (brand new with a Certificate of Conformance...) - if you only need a couple.

Send me a PM with your address and I will go and fish out the antistatic tube...

Dave
 
Thanks for your offers of 2114 chips - Larry pointed me in the direction of an online retailer and a seller on eBay that sells them quite cheap. No point me using other peoples collections up needlessly.
 
One other thing, Having revisited Dave Dunfields site, I've realised he only has disk images for uUSCD. My original CP/M disks are very flakey but I do have lots of decent SSSD 8"floppy disks.

I've looked at the Maslin Archive, Gaby Chaudreys site plus various collections linked to on Herb Jonnson's rather extensive site - I can find very little about the IMS 8000, let alone OS disk images out there on the net. I did find images for the IMS 5000 which is no use to me.

I also tested the floppies I made when I originally IMD'd my TLO and MBASIC disks - the ones I posted here a week or so ago. They seem to be a lot of bad sectors :( despite the fact that ImageDisk read them with no complaints.

Does anyone have a CP/M disk image for the IMS 8000 or know of an archive somewhere?
 
Corey986 said:
Which tester did you buy on eBay? I’ve been looking for something that can test drams.

Thanks,
Corey
Click to expand...

Its a ABI Electronics ICT - 24 rebadged as an RS Components device.

This is the auction: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/123602450740

There is a blog page about the ABI device here:

http://www.jammarcade.net/abi-ict-24...ter-tech-info/

The manual/device list is downloadable from that site too

Its been a godsend so far - I can test almost every chip on my IMS 8000 as they are all socketed. It almost makes desoldering all the chips on my Superbrain and testing/socketing them worthwhile too.
 
I received an IMSAI 8080 with what I believe to be the guts of an IMS 8000, it included an IMS Z80-451 CPU, IMS 442 I/O board, 64K RAM, but it was missing the FDC-400 floppy controller. I have been unable to locate a replacement FDC-400 for it, I tried substituting the newer IMS FDC-930 board, but it was not software compatible. The machine came with a box of disks which included TurboDOS v1.2 and maybe a CP/M disk, I will have to dig it out. If this matches the hardware in your machine, then I should be able to supply a boot disk.
 
Hi - sorry for taking ages to reply. That's a very kind offer! I got a bit further with my IMS 8000, although I can't boot off the system disk, I can boot off a different disk that has been sysgen'd but just has lots of BASIC files on it. I can also read the files on my system disk. One thing I can't do is write in any manner - just ends in drive not ready errors and the odd parity error. I've been waiting for some new 2114 chips to arrive from Jameco.
I'm pretty sure I have the same FDC-400 floppy controller. If I check first and contact you via PM re the boot disk, that would be very much appreciated! Im quite happy to pay for the disk plus postage or send you a good SSSD disk in return - or even just take an ImageDisk backup of yours and send it back? What other software do you have in that box? Anything IMS seems rare as hens teeth
 
glitch said:
That does seem odd, doesn't it? Especially since their hardware is so common!
Click to expand...

It's odd and unfortunate. The hardware is of a very high quality. Maybe the boards and drives are worth more sold individually and to the casual collector, it's just a heavyweight monster?

Alan.
 
new_castle_j said:
I received an IMSAI 8080 with what I believe to be the guts of an IMS 8000, it included an IMS Z80-451 CPU, IMS 442 I/O board, 64K RAM, but it was missing the FDC-400 floppy controller. I have been unable to locate a replacement FDC-400 for it, I tried substituting the newer IMS FDC-930 board, but it was not software compatible. The machine came with a box of disks which included TurboDOS v1.2 and maybe a CP/M disk, I will have to dig it out. If this matches the hardware in your machine, then I should be able to supply a boot disk.
Click to expand...

We are talking about the same floppy controller - this is mine:

WP_20190303_09_00_41_Pro_LI.jpg

Same layout as the one depicted in s100computers.com

C00401 ?
 
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