[vcf-midatlantic] What projects are you working on?

[Dave McGuire]

On 12/28/20 1:00 PM, Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
> During this time of year many of us are off work or inside for one reason
> or another.
> I'm curious what projects everyone is working on.

   I'm always "inside".  That's where I belong. ;)

   This being one of those rare occasions where I'm actually doing 
something for *me*, I'm in the process of resurrecting my old IMSAI 
system.  The only thing "IMSAI" about it is chassis, no IMSAI 
boards...it's got a CCS 2810A CPU, a DRC/Tanner 64KB RAM board that I 
built ~36 years ago, and a Tarbell disk controller. (and several other 
boards of course, but that's the core of the system)

   It was originally in a nice ECT chassis when I got it in 1984 or so, 
but I bought the IMSAI chassis at TCF (of 1985 I think) for fifty bucks, 
and transplanted it.  I lost track of the ECT chassis, probably sold it 
but don't remember, but I purchased another one (these are quite rare) 
from Jeff Galinat a year ago.  I'll build another system in that, 
probably with a stack of new S-100 boards from the John Monahan side of 
the world.

   My original 8" drives are long gone (don't know where they went) but 
I've replaced them.  All of my disks appear to have been lost, which 
sucks a lot, so I'm re-porting CP/M 2.2 to the system, writing a new 
BIOS.  I've not done that in awhile, but it's like riding a bike.

   It sure is nice seeing those lights blink again.  I'd not powered 
this machine up in probably 32 years.  Seven or eight tantalum 
capacitors doing their popcorn impression, but no other issues thus far.

   Other than that, I'm writing some ARM firmware for a client, and 
working on various random things for LSSM.

              -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA