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Looking for good project? [message #8367]

Mon, 01 March 2021 12:24

lynchaj
Messages: 1080
Registered: June 2016

Senior Member

Hi

If there are people looking for exciting projects to contribute, there are a couple of boards that are in desperate need of respins.

First is the ECB Bus Monitor which originated in c't project magazine. Extremely useful for debugging new systems hardware and software, this was one of the first ECB boards after the original SBC and backplane. You can tell it is old from the PCB pictures and needs a refresh in the worst way. Ancient videos from 2008 on the wiki are pretty fun to watch.

Second is the ECB Active Termination board by Wolfgang Kabatzke. This board never quite made it to prime time and needs someone to bring it to life. I don't think there are even KiCAD files for it but there are schematics and PCB layouts. Given how old it is probably just as well to start over from scratch in KiCAD and bring it so others can use it.

Thanks, Andrew Lynch

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Re: Looking for good project? [message #8368 is a reply to message #8367]

Mon, 01 March 2021 12:44

lynchaj
Messages: 1080
Registered: June 2016

Senior Member

Hi,
you can find the ECB active termination board here

https://retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=boards:ecb:orphan ed:active-termination:start

possibly you could email Wolfgang and see if he still has the KiCAD files assuming he is still around and available.

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Re: Looking for good project? [message #8372 is a reply to message #8368]

Tue, 02 March 2021 04:01

b1ackmai1er
Messages: 396
Registered: November 2017

Senior Member

I will do the termination board.

Parts don't seem to be an issue.

Regards Phil.

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Re: Looking for good project? [message #8374 is a reply to message #8372]

Wed, 03 March 2021 03:49

b1ackmai1er
Messages: 396
Registered: November 2017

Senior Member

Hi, here is a rough start.

Question ... this looks like a 16 bit design. Should additional address lines be added A16-A23? Are there other signal lines to be added and which termination point should they go to?

/forum/index.php?t=getfile&id=1999&private=0

/forum/index.php?t=getfile&id=1999&private=0

Attachment: ECB-ATBa.png
(Size: 119.91KB, Downloaded 619 times)

[Updated on: Wed, 03 March 2021 03:51]

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Re: Looking for good project? [message #8376 is a reply to message #8374]

Thu, 04 March 2021 10:13

jcoffman
Messages: 332
Registered: October 2015

Senior Member

The ECB bus dating from the time Wolfgang worked on it was Z80 only. The bus has now grown significantly: 32 address lines ARE used by the KISS-68030. 16 data lines are used by the NS32000 SBC (h/w done, s/2 in process). There are now many signals on the B-row.

My own experience with the RetroBrew ECB indicates that it is very noise-free, even with no terminations. My earlier experience with the S-100 bus, a VECTOR backplane, with termination was that at 6mhz, the order of boards on the bus caused things to work/not work.

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Re: Looking for good project? [message #8379 is a reply to message #8376]

Fri, 05 March 2021 18:34

b1ackmai1er
Messages: 396
Registered: November 2017

Senior Member

Hi,

Based on John's feedback there appears to be very little value in further development of the Active Termination Board.

The regenerated design and manufacture files have been upload to the wiki.

https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=boards:ecb:or phaned:active-termination:start

The board format is 5cm x 10cm which suits 2 up panelization for low cost manufacture.

/forum/index.php?t=getfile&id=2001&private=0

/forum/index.php?t=getfile&id=2001&private=0

Attachment: ECB-ATBa.png
(Size: 169.85KB, Downloaded 546 times)

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