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Single Board Computers - need their own forum?

billdeg

billdeg

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Nov 18, 2003
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Landenberg, PA USA
I was thinking about SBC's like the KIM, SYM, Jolt, MEK, 8085 SBC's, TI 9900 101 SBC, etc. They're mostly not pre-Altair, not S-100, they're not all the same processor, or manufacturer. Has there ever been a call for a "Single Board Computers" forum? As a topic of conversation do others here think of SBC's worthy of their own forum?

Bill D
 
Such a forum would probably degenerate into an endless religious war over what is or is not an sbc, and therefore what is on/off topic. My own notion of an sbc is very flexible, and includes examples such as Kaypro, Xerox 820, etc. I think for now the 'Other' category has it pretty well covered.

--T
 
And the Apple II?
...common, you know what I am talking about! SBC's are a pretty well-defined sub category of early microcomputers - bare/kit boards, yes including the AIM 65, plus what I previously mentioned. There were many popular SBC / kit computers more that I could list.

Magazines of the 70's and early 80's like 6502 and Micro were very SBC-centric. Devotees of the genre may be less in numbers compared with the S-100 crowd, but as a genre, this is a pretty well defined segment. Each year at the VCF there are a number of fine examples.

My point isn't to get into the semantics of what is or is not a SBC. I was considering the fact that we have an S-100 bus section yet no SBC section. It seems reasonable to me to at least consider that this category deserves it's own forum. From a sales perspective, I have information to indicate that in '77-78 more SBC kit computers were sold than S-100's of the same era.

But, will I lose sleep if there is no SBC category? No!
 
I don't personally have a problem with an SBC category. The reason I haven't created one (or chimed in yet) is that I think we're already fragmented enough here. I'm actually trying to think of ways of consolidating sections on the board or eliminating areas altogether.

I like categorizing posts, I think it benefits the community and I think the structure of a board like this lends itself to doing that, but there is such a thing as too much in that regard.

So, what would you do to spruce this place up a little bit? Aside from adding an SBC category what could we do to make the Forums friendlier to our users?
 
Eventually all computers were single board....Yes?

Eventually all computers were single board....Yes?

If you think about it, almost all computers that were not S-100 were eventually single board computers by the early 80's. I always took the term SBC as the developement kits like the KIM and SYM-1. They too had add on boards for increased functionality so whould they no longer be SBC?

However should we deny SBC their equality in the history books? Will we have to resort to afirmative action policies down the road to correct what could be a preducial catagory selection now? Would it be separate but equal? Does it create segration by de facto or de jure?

Perhaps we should have another discussion on how we feel. I like to talk about I feel and I believe everyone should too.

Is it right to want too talk soley of SBCs? Should SBC have the right to connect with S-100 and modern computers? Does this make them truely SBC or does mean they are now less of a vintage SBC now that they have crossed over to the other side?

I feel the need to start a drum circle. And learn to spell.

Sorry, I couldn't help it. The thread was already going south and I just had to help it along.

Unrelated... Has anyone posted a summary of the VCF West yet. Just wanted to see how it everyone faired.
 
REVISED
Erik - To answer your question, just a thought...

Perhaps "genres" could be split into two sections as follows:

1. genres: manufacturers

2. genres: processors, monitors and operating systems

- within the 2nd, you could add a forum for "processors, assembly language, SBC's, and trainers

- the rest of the current genre forums would be moved to one or the other section.
 
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Bill,

I know what you meant by sbc, I have several of them myself, and they are among my favorites. In fact, they are some of the few items which will survive my current (ongoing) liquidation of most of my collection. I just thought I'd play Devil's Advocate. No, my definition wouldn't include an Apple ][, because it cannot (easily) function as a stand-alone board if it's case and other trappings were stripped away. You'd have no means of interacting with it without adding another board, such as a serial port to hang a terminal off from. OTOH, a Kaypro II mainboard can be removed from it's case, jacked-in to a terminal & power supply, and still function, as it has it's serial port (and floppy hardware) on board. Even some S-100 boards are considered sbc's, having processor, I/O and memory all on one board.

--T
 
Oh, BTW...I used the Kaypro and Xerox as examples because both are considered to be clones of the Ferguson BigBoard, a device I'm sure all of us would agree is a classic sbc in the usual sense of the word.

--T
 
Terry Yager said:
Bill,

I know what you meant by sbc, I have several of them myself, and they are among my favorites. In fact, they are some of the few items which will survive my current (ongoing) liquidation of most of my collection. I just thought I'd play Devil's Advocate. No, my definition wouldn't include an Apple ][, because it cannot (easily) function as a stand-alone board if it's case and other trappings were stripped away. You'd have no means of interacting with it without adding another board, such as a serial port to hang a terminal off from. OTOH, a Kaypro II mainboard can be removed from it's case, jacked-in to a terminal & power supply, and still function, as it has it's serial port (and floppy hardware) on board. Even some S-100 boards are considered sbc's, having processor, I/O and memory all on one board.

--T
Click to expand...

IMHO, the individual message volume would probably be low, but I think the sub-section is warranted. I think that if you put a sticky-message about what defines a single-board computer, we should be OK. The Kaypro, FWIW, I see as a microcomputer rather than a single-board computer.

I would include the KAOS machines (KIM, AIM, OSI and Synertek), random SBCs (like ones from Micromint, Hawthorne Technologies, and Ampro, for example) and maybe even STD-BUS ones (not exactly hobby-oriented, but single-board none the less, and ones using the 8080, Z80 or 6502 are certainly vintage).
 
Being an AIM65 kinda guy you've got my vote; sometimes the reason there isn't much traffic is 'cause there's no forum - chicken & egg...

Then there are also all the little-known low-volume boards; for instance I've got a couple of Bell Engineering 6502 SBCs.

m
 
Well, there seems to be some interest, so I'll throw in with the 'in favor' crowd, provided that this thread be merged and stuck, so there will be a proper place for such discussions, and the whole forum doesn't degenerate.

--T
 
Although only new to the board I'd like to chip in on this.

I think SBC is probably the wrong term - most computers of the era (and even most of todays machines) are technically on a single board. A more general rule would be 'if it came with a case it doesn't count'. However that would knock out the original Microbee which came with a case, an unpopulated board and a plastic bag full of components.

I think the intent of the machines was that they appealed more to the electronics hobbyist rather than just the computer hobbyist. That subset would include SBC's, kit computers and homebrew machines.

I like the idea of a separate section for these type of machines (it's my special interest after all) but deciding what is on topic and what's not would be a complex problem. Perhaps it would self police after a while once it found it's footing?

Anyway - that's my 2c :)
 
If I understand correctly, single-board computers rarely or never outputs video (perhaps serial I/O) and only occasionally take use of a QWERTY-type keyboard? Or am I thinking too narrow?
 
afaik...The Nascom(s) had video output, and a qwerty keyboard, but no case, & probably count as an SBC, but AIM 65, micro-professor, Mk14 and most of the microprocessor development kits, certainly should count...

I think Ghost has it in his/her last posting, a machine designed with the electronics rather than the software as the main reason to be.
Probably with a rudimentary user interface & primarily designed to be programmed in machine code/assembler.
 
Compute II - The Single-Board COMPUTE

Compute II - The Single-Board COMPUTE

"The 6502/1802 resource"

There was an off-shoot of Compute magazine dedicated to only the SBC, and issue #1 was April 1980.

OSI, KIM, SYM, AIM, ELF

From Editor's Notes -

"Well here it is. I'll cover the highlights of the reasons for compute II for those of you who didn't see the announcement in Issue #3 of Compute. We were bursting at the seams after just three issues, and the logical split in the magazine seemed to be to move the single board machines into a magazine of your own. Everyone ends up with more magazine this way, and we can provide better coverage. Compute II will be a bimonthly , with months of publication alternating with Compute."

On the Goals of compute II (my summarizing):

..basic and machine language tutorials...advanced applications...educators/learning lab computers...6502 boards, 1801 boards, external card case interfaces, keyboard and cassette interfaces...the art of doing it yourself...RS232 connections...transferring programs to and from KIM, OSI, SYM...audio...AD/DA conversion, and so on.

None other than Jim Butterfield is a contributing writer/editor of Compute II. There was no need for the editor to have to explain what the SBC genre was/is. I believe we in 2007 have simply forgotten how "big" these computers were in their time (1975-1985)

Bill


P.S. - I should add - the separate magazine only lasted for three issues, and SBC coverage re-merged with Compute again returning to one magazine.
 
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Ghost is a he for those that are wondering :)

I agree with Nige - the focus on the electronics hobbyist is what separates this class of machines from others (I won't say SBC because not all of them were). I've seen a friend (who was very into amateur radio) convert a 8051 based dot matrix printer controller board into a packet radio decoder (additional hardware to decode the FSK transmissions and an AX.25 stack to handle the protocol as well as reusing the printer control code to generate the text output). Although it's not a real 'vintage computer' I think it something worth talking about in these forums because it uses vintage technology to achieve the goals - not to mention the reverse engineering involved (decoding the original ROM, add extra hardware, adjusting the code to suite his modifications) which is something a lot of vintage computer collectors have to deal with to get the old gear to talk to the new gear.

I guess the point of the new section would be to add a place for those with more of a hardware bent to hang out. Remember, things that start out as completely custom designs (like a slow scan TV - SSTV - receiver) can become plug in modules for unmodified retro systems. The space shuttle still broadcasts SSTV transmissions so it's not altogether pointless. As far as I know the two voyager probes are still transmitting SSTV signals so if you have the right antenna you could pick those up as well.

I've stopped adding to my collection because it is so easy to use emulators these days to run the fun programs that you remember. The machines I collect now are those that are so rare that you can't get emulators, the ones that I have a particular emotional attachment to for whatever reason (if anyone has a NeXT Cube they want to get rid of please let me know) and those that had interesting hardware features that I want to play with.

To me it's not just enough to have a CoCo3 - it's more can I get the CoCo3 to act as a VT100 terminal over ethernet, can I get a CoCo3 to act as a VT220 over ethernet, what about emulating a Tectronix graphics terminal? Before anyone gets excited I have not succeeded in any of these goals - do a google search and you will probably find people who have though.
 
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