Hi and thanks

[jbtech]

Hi all, like many others I was drawn to this site by fond memories of my first computer which was a Superboard II, purchased new in 1980.

That computer set me on a path to a career in computers and professional electronics so was really a significant starting point for me. Sadly I didn't have the space to keep my original computer, as new systems came along the old ones had to give way but looking back I wish I had retained that original OSI 600 PCB at least.

In recent times with a renewed interest in older technology I've searched on and off for an original Superboard II but haven't come across one which was within budget and shipping range. I don't know how many would have come to Australia originally or how many survive here but they don't seem to come up for sale very often.

Meanwhile browsing this site I was impressed by the fine work being done to provide an information resource and even to reproduce some of the hardware including the Superboard II PCB. Although my main interest is repairing original systems from that era I became intrigued by the possibility of assembling a Superboard II reproduction using the Klyball PCB design so that has been a recent project which is now just about complete.

I've been attempting to document all of my current projects which are mostly in the form of repair logs but also include the build of the Superboard II reproduction which can be read here if interested: http://www.jbtech.linkpc.net/ohio.htm .

I'd like to thank Dave for this excellent site and Grant Klyball for the perfect Superboard II reproduction PCB design. Also I would be interested to hear about original Superboard II computers in Australia, how many may survive, examples in museums etc.

Thanks, regards John.

[Scott Larson]

The C1P I bought in 1979 is also what directed me to my career in computers. I continued to use it up to 1990 as a terminal for the university's Unix machines (it had the 64 column mod) until I graduated. I wrote the terminal program in assembly and wrote a matching "termcap" entry for it which is little file (or string) which tells Unix how to move the cursor around the screen, delete or insert lines and characters on it, etc. Once in a while the screen would look wrong so I'd take a break from school work to debug my terminal program.

Eventually I got tired of sitting in front of the C1P so I used my Radio Shack Model 100 as the terminal keyboard which conveniently sat on my lap. I simply connected the RD line of the modem to the C1P and the TR line to the Model 100.

Once I got a job I never bothered with any OSI stuff ever again. I felt that eight hours of working with computers every day was enough and I wasn't really interested playing with a small computer after spending the day working on huge mainframes with megabytes of memory.

[jbtech]

Hi Scott,

Running a terminal program on your C1P gave the old machine a new purpose and extended its useful life for several years, well done.

I wonder how you loaded the terminal program each startup, whether you committed it to the ROM space or maybe saved it onto the mainframe and then downloaded it each time.

My original Superboard II fell into disuse when I finished school and eventually gave way to some early PC hardware but with hindsight I should have tried to keep it anyway as it seems very significant looking back.

I guess you must also have a renewed interest in the OSI systems to be viewing this site as well.

Regards, John.

[Scott Larson]

Using it as a terminal also made me feel good about the 64 column upgrade I made to it as a kid before I had any business doing anything like that to a computer. It took me at least a week to figure out all the mistakes I had made and in the end I learned a lot about how CRT video works.

To write the terminal program I'm pretty sure I used one of OSI's standard assemblers. The assembly code itself was stored on my Radio Shack Model 100 which I loaded through the serial port if I wanted to change it. Each assembled version of the terminal program was burned into an EPROM which replaced the BASIC ROMs which I was never going to use again. I burned the EPROMs in the university's EE lab but I don't recall exactly how I got the images to the burner (I probably uploaded it to a file on a mainframe there).

It was incredible how Unix's termcap could work with any kind of full screen terminal with any kind of capabilities. As I added more features to the terminal program, the faster the screen would update since it had to send fewer characters to make the screen look right.

I can't say I have a lot of interest in OSI now. It amazes me how primitive it was compared to other computers at the time especially OSI's disk OS.