[vcf-midatlantic] PEP Modular Computer

[Neil Cherry]

On 2/6/21 5:08 PM, Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
> On 2/5/21 8:00 PM, Neil Cherry via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
>> I have just pulled out my PEP Modular computer with a 68K KA. I think it
>> has 1M of RAM and possibly 13 serial ports (9, 15 and 25 pin ports). I think
>> this also has a parallel port of two but isn't broken out. I haven't tried
>> to start it yet. I need to remove the drives, let them warm up and see if
>> they work. There is one floppy which I think is a 800K drive and two hard
>> drives. I'll boot the machine and see if I can get into the ROM monitor.
> 
>    I had to look that one up.  That looks like really nice hardware!
> 
>                -Dave
> 
Somewhere around here I think I have a prototype board but I have no idea where it is.
I pulled some of the card and it has a 8Mhz 68K with 16K of RAM. I am looking for the
manuals but I have doubts on that. It definitely has 1M of ram. The CIM-2 has 2 6850's
and 2 6821 (header is there but no cable). The 2 hard drives in it are ST506 interface.

There are 2 backplanes, one is triple row (male on the card, female on the backplane).
The other is 2 row (male on the card, female on the backplane) and connected to the
triple via an I/O board. I can't recall if one is a VME bus, or Euro Bus or STE Bus.

I definitely want this up and running as it's a good example of an industrial micro-
computer before the IBM PC became popular. I know it runs OS9 as that's what I had
on it and the ROMs also say so. :-) Microware's OS-9 for the 68K became OSK which
later became OSK. Microware OS-9 still exists and supports a large number of
processors including the one for the Raspberry Pi.

-- 
Linux Home Automation         Neil Cherry       ncherry at linuxha.com
http://www.linuxha.com/                         Main site
http://linuxha.blogspot.com/                    My HA Blog
Author of:    	Linux Smart Homes For Dummies