| In the PC world, it became a pathological issue that lead to the "Plug and Pray" initiative, which failed because of the need to register your devices with a central authority and there was BIOS level database issues.
The final solution for PCs was the PCI spec which allowed the BIOS and hardware to sort out the port, interrupt and DMA requirements.
S100 being part of the First Cause of micro-computing still requires manual integration and anything we can do to streamline (and make understandable) that process is helpful.
Boards with fixed (unconfigurable) I/O, interrupt, or DMA requirements become fixtures around which other boards must be configured, and in the case of an unresolvable conflict, hard decisions must be made about board combinations that cannot be used.
Douglas
On Jun 13, 2011, at 11:23 AM, Brian Marstella wrote: Hi, John,
Thanks for the information! I had intended to do exactly that, but I hadn't gone back yet to see which ports you were using. I wasn't sure if you had an existing list. Otherwise, I was simply going to utilize as much of the existing code and schematics as I could to determine your configuration.
I've run into the same problems with the ISA bus years ago; some vendors just assumed that you would have a particular port (or IRQ) available and didn't provide much flexibility.
Thanks again!
On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 2:18 PM, John Monahan <mon...@vitasoft.org> wrote:
Guys it would indeed make sense if we all (as best we can) , use the same port designations for hardware ports. In the past I looked into many of the commercial S100 boards at the time and tried to pick “slots” that did not conflict with common boards (or the lower 8 bits of 16 bit ports of the IBM-PC). This is how I arrived at the strange numbers! Those left unfortunately were port designations that did not lend themselves nicely to simple 74xx chip determinations! Those were early on used up. Thus the use of 74LS682’s on all our boards.
I am attaching an Excel spread sheet of the ports I use. The S100Computers/N8VEM ports used are in red. If I may be presumptuous, perhaps we could use those ports going forward.
John
From: n8vem...@googlegroups.com [mailto:n8vem...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Brian Marstella
Sent: Sunday, June 12, 2011 6:15 PM
To: n8vem...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [N8VEM-S100:304] Re: Disk Images
Hi, John,
I'm hoping that once I have something up and running I'll be able to start helping others out with disks, images, etc. Getting everything together and running is currently my biggest priority by far. As my Z80 assembly and electronics skills are nowhere near the level required to actually design and prototype these systems, I'm hoping that I can provide some of the other services that will help those who are bringing their first system live.
Thanks for all of the great stuff you've already delivered to the community. I look forward to reading each update and seeing each bit of code as it helps me understand more.
Thanks!
On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 8:47 PM, Elsid <le...@swiftdsl.com.au> wrote: Sorry John,
I really didn’t mean to bother you anymore. You have done more than
enough via your S-100 web site and making all your designs and
software available to everyone. I just thought someone else may be
able to make an image disk available to help me and the other N8VEM
S-100 builders.
I have not exhausted my options yet, and will try using the Simulator
as outlined previously.
Thanks again
Leon
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