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1) Is S-100 still supported or available for serious home brew? Does anyone still actively sell new boards, cases, designing, support, etc? If not, then about what year did S-100 development stop?

2) If S-100 is still supported what is the most popular OS and basic configuration (if there is one)?

[ I built my first computer as a Z-80/CPM based Altair system (~1978) and eventually donated it to a business in about 1990. As I remember it, a company named Morrow (or something like that) still was selling business systems at least to the 1987-88 period and I think S-100 was still going well enough for advertisers in the computer magazines. My system consisted of a case that supported about 20 cards and had a power supply that brought the weight to about 40-50lbs. I had another case that held two 8in floppy drives and weighed about the same. Both cases where approximately 18" square and 10" high!]

jwzumwalt
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1 Answers1

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Yes, there are still a few communities using and developing S-100 boards. A good place to start is the S100 computers site, which lists a number of new S-100 boards which can be ordered and used to build new S-100 systems. The corresponding forum is very active.

I think the most popular S-100 configuration is still a Z-80 with CP/M, albeit with newer peripherals — VGA output and PC keyboard input, and IDE storage. You can also build DOS systems, e.g. using a 486 CPU board and SRAM board, or even a PDP-11 clone with this PDP-11 CPU board and associated support board.

Stephen Kitt
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