IBM FSU Static RAM Board...for S-100?!
This has to be one of the most unexpected S-100 boards I've acquired. The seller says this was created due to the need for denser RAM boards for IMSAI 8080's at IBM's Advanced Systems Development Lab in Los Gatos, California. Apparently FSU RAM was the densest static RAM available at the time, and of course they had access to it, being IBMers. Extra boards were produced for engineers with S-100 machines at home. I wrote up what I know about the boards here: http://www.glitchwrks.com/2016/01/20/fsu-ram Fortunately they came with a copy of the 3-page manual and a (very faded) blueprint copy of the schematic. I've digitized both and made them available. I've tested one of the boards so far, which works fine with my IMSAI 8080 and a 2 MHz 8080 CPU board. I'd be interested to hear if anyone else knows anything about these, or has one, or has spare FSU RAM modules they'd be interested in parting with. Thanks, Jonathan
Here is a photo of an early IBM bus RAM card, same FSU RAM. This is a 256K RAM card for the IBM PC. http://vintagecomputer.net/vcf8/Degnan_exhibit_IBM-256K_memory.jpg On Thu, Jan 21, 2016 at 10:02 AM, Systems Glitch via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:
This has to be one of the most unexpected S-100 boards I've acquired. The seller says this was created due to the need for denser RAM boards for IMSAI 8080's at IBM's Advanced Systems Development Lab in Los Gatos, California. Apparently FSU RAM was the densest static RAM available at the time, and of course they had access to it, being IBMers. Extra boards were produced for engineers with S-100 machines at home. I wrote up what I know about the boards here:
http://www.glitchwrks.com/2016/01/20/fsu-ram
Fortunately they came with a copy of the 3-page manual and a (very faded) blueprint copy of the schematic. I've digitized both and made them available. I've tested one of the boards so far, which works fine with my IMSAI 8080 and a 2 MHz 8080 CPU board. I'd be interested to hear if anyone else knows anything about these, or has one, or has spare FSU RAM modules they'd be interested in parting with.
Thanks, Jonathan
-- <strong>@ BillDeg:</strong><br> Web: <a href="http://www.vintagecomputer.net/">vintagecomputer.net</a><br> Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/billdeg">@billdeg</a><br> Youtube: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/billdeg">@billdeg</a><br> <a href="http://www.vintagecomputer.net/readme.cfm">Unauthorized Bio</a>
On 01/21/2016 10:17 AM, william degnan via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
Here is a photo of an early IBM bus RAM card, same FSU RAM. This is a 256K RAM card for the IBM PC.
http://vintagecomputer.net/vcf8/Degnan_exhibit_IBM-256K_memory.jpg
I don't do much with PCs, but I soooo want to find one of those. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
I have three of the FSU ram cards for IBM PC, they are quite odd indeed. That S-100 board though is the most interesting use of them I have ever seen. I'd think the only way to get reliable replacements would be to make a small PCB with a small surface-mount S-RAM chip on it to break out to the original header. And if you feel you must make it look original as possible you could pop the cap off the old chip and stick it over the new board. I'd think this would be the only reasonable way to get replacements. I will be checking my ram boards shortly since I just picked up an IBM PC that should be in good working condition. If there are any failures of the FSU modules that's the route I will probably go. Sadly you obviously can't use the ISA card's chips to replace the ones in the S-100 board since they were made about 10 years apart according to size and chip date codes. The FSU modules on the ISA card should be 64k x 9 (maybe only 64k x 8)? The part number being 6119927. -Connor K On 1/21/2016 10:17 AM, william degnan via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
Here is a photo of an early IBM bus RAM card, same FSU RAM. This is a 256K RAM card for the IBM PC.
http://vintagecomputer.net/vcf8/Degnan_exhibit_IBM-256K_memory.jpg
On Thu, Jan 21, 2016 at 10:02 AM, Systems Glitch via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:
This has to be one of the most unexpected S-100 boards I've acquired. The seller says this was created due to the need for denser RAM boards for IMSAI 8080's at IBM's Advanced Systems Development Lab in Los Gatos, California. Apparently FSU RAM was the densest static RAM available at the time, and of course they had access to it, being IBMers. Extra boards were produced for engineers with S-100 machines at home. I wrote up what I know about the boards here:
http://www.glitchwrks.com/2016/01/20/fsu-ram
Fortunately they came with a copy of the 3-page manual and a (very faded) blueprint copy of the schematic. I've digitized both and made them available. I've tested one of the boards so far, which works fine with my IMSAI 8080 and a 2 MHz 8080 CPU board. I'd be interested to hear if anyone else knows anything about these, or has one, or has spare FSU RAM modules they'd be interested in parting with.
Thanks, Jonathan
On 01/21/2016 10:02 AM, Systems Glitch via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
This has to be one of the most unexpected S-100 boards I've acquired. The seller says this was created due to the need for denser RAM boards for IMSAI 8080's at IBM's Advanced Systems Development Lab in Los Gatos, California. Apparently FSU RAM was the densest static RAM available at the time, and of course they had access to it, being IBMers. Extra boards were produced for engineers with S-100 machines at home. I wrote up what I know about the boards here:
http://www.glitchwrks.com/2016/01/20/fsu-ram
Fortunately they came with a copy of the 3-page manual and a (very faded) blueprint copy of the schematic. I've digitized both and made them available. I've tested one of the boards so far, which works fine with my IMSAI 8080 and a 2 MHz 8080 CPU board. I'd be interested to hear if anyone else knows anything about these, or has one, or has spare FSU RAM modules they'd be interested in parting with.
I'm quite shocked to see IBM built anything at all for the S-100 bus. How bizarre. That's a keeper. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
participants (4)
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Connor Krukosky -
Dave McGuire -
Systems Glitch -
william degnan