From Newsgroup: comp.sys.tandy

bill <bill.gunshannon@gmail.com> writes:

On 4/5/2023 1:25 AM, Walt Perko wrote:

Hi,
A lot of old chips are not manufactured anymore. We need to save
them. It took me two years to find the last part to build a
reproduction DAZZLER board. They quit making half the chips on that
board back in the 1980s ... today I have the last chip that was in
an obscure collections of chips.
The chips on all these old machines need to be recycled for
repairing other old computers ... even Model 100s ... I have a
working Model 100 ... I keep it under a plastic cover to keep dust
out when I'm not playing with it. Yeah, it's not a great machine
compared to my Altair 8800c or my IMSAI-JAIR or my IMSAI Z-1 or my
Sol-20 that I'm slowly repairing and have to make my own cabinet for
it as I only got lucky to get the main board and S-100 backplane.
But all these machines use old out of date chips and they all have a
lot of chips in common.

And yet, when people offer these old systems for sale they have no
value at all.

bill

At some point, you may cross a website called ebay. You'd find a world
really alien and unrecognizable.

Here, click on this link https://www.ebay.com

D
sysop Air & Wave BBS
411: finger calcmandan@bbs.airandwave.net
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.tandy

Josh Malone <josh.malone@gmail.com> writes:

On Tuesday, February 7, 2023 at 3:25:54 AM UTC-5, Daniel wrote:

I'm planning a replica, one-for-one drop in of the board and all traces,
stencils, etc. Some dead devices are due to battery leakage and traces
will be destroyed in many areas - but many components will be okay. In
these cases the device is usually salvaged for parts only and that means
one device removed from circulation. Like the commodore, I'd like a
board replacement and there's been very little interest in the project.

I have a couple of "parts boards" from dead 100s, but I specifically
want the unique parts on them, so I would have to depopulate them
before I send you the board (for which I have no use). I'm not sure
how quickly you want to get these boards, but, given a bit of time, I
could provide one.

I need to get a dead device so I can depopulate the board, remove all
solder/flux, and do a high definition scan of both sides for all three
boards.

Later, I'd like to redesign the power supply and convert it to USB-C
input and rechargable batteries, but that's way down the road.

I would REALLY love to see that happen. There's lots of "improvements"
that I think need to be made to these machines to make a modern
replica board useful. Use modern RAMs instead of the Tandy
modules. Maybe make the optrom socket JEDEC standard. Definitely the
power supply, as you say.

-Josh

Life sidetracked my plans. The project I started is in the box still
in my den closet. The idea of creating a drop-in replacement for
the model 100 pcb has fallen by the wayside. If there were interest in it,
the community would've done it already like the C64 community did for
theirs. You can get a fresh new PCB for every revision of that computer
and build a new one from scratch with off-the-shelf components. Can't do
that with a M100 in any respect. At this point, I know the Model 1 has a
drop in replica of the pcb for that machine. So there is a bit of
interest in the product family to create replicas. But anyway..

My original plan was a bit short sighted. Initially, the
thought was to replica PCB's to transfer M100 components
to a new board in an effort to revive an existing unit. The boards
would be made with modern manufacturing standards vs the cheap pcb's of
the original. And this would've served as a learning opportunity
regarding PCB creation, design, etc. I woujldn't have designed anything,
but replicating an existing design would've helped. but, the original
plan was to bring a dead product and restore it to factory fresh, if not better. Naive.

The last few years have seen a dramatic increase of homebrew projects
that expand the features of our beloved model T. And since I am in love
with system-in-the-keyboard builds, my attention is sort of pulling
toward a homebrew project.

there are loads of system-in-keyboard builds out there. The feonix is a
recent addition to the world. Though I hope it doesn't end up a
commercial failure for the dev. Commodore was revived and they're
building yet another C64 by the thousands. The zx spectrum has been
rebuilt. Then there are others that aren't built into keyboards like the
color maximite. All these systems load basic from rom.

None of those systems appeal to me. Their keyboards are simply too
custom for my liking. Not saying they suck or anything, I just have a
habit in the way I type. The M100/102/200 keyboards were close enough.

I may start a new thread on the topic as I conduct research.
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.tandy

Daniel <me@sc1f1dan.com> writes:

I guess I've decided to do a board replication project starting on the
M100. At this point, I'm looking for a dead model on ebay but no one
wants to sell for less than $100 with shipping it seems. I'd pay $50 for
a 'for parts' unit.

Success will define this project if I can get some assistance. I have designed pcb's in the past but for simple projects. This will be, by
far, my most complex effort to date. And I hope a success in this
project will lead to more restoration projects in the future.

Daniel

Someone took the original schematic of the 100 and replicated it with a
kicad high quality rendering. Should be able to replicate the board with
all that work completed. I have some thoughts.

I will be playing around with it while I relearn kicad. It's been a
while but having fun.

I'm glad the open source solutions are popular vs the old school
expensive suites running only on mainstream os.

kicad works on both my old, decrepid laptop and my raspberry pi 500.

Got to research the BOM for the 100 and see if they all have modern,
backwards compatible equivalents for the chips.
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