80-Bus News

GM834

Special version of the Gemini GM827 keyboard for the German market. Replaced by GM852 low profile version.

GM835

5.25″ Winchester hard disk drive sub-system. Contains a Rodime drive, along with hard-disk controller board and switch-mode power supply. Currently available in 5.4, 10.8 and 16.2MByte (formatted) capacities. Connects to SASI interface on GM829 board.

GM836

MultiNet interface board. This small board is connected to the system via a Z80A PIO. An on-board DIL switch provides a unique station address to allow up to 32 systems to be connected together. The board transmits data onto the Network at 250 kbaud, at distances up to 600 metres using RS422 differential transmission.

GM837

80-BUS Colour board. Previously produced by Climax Computers, production of this board has now been taken over by Gemini. The board uses the Thomson EF9365 controller chip and provides high speed vector graphics of 256 x 256 in 16 colours. The chip also has a built-in character generator, and can write text in various orientations. Output is PAL UHF and analogue RGB TTL.

GM838

Special version of the Gemini GM827 keyboard for the French market. Replaced by GM852 low profile version.

GM839

80-BUS prototyping board. One of the great attractions of 80-BUS is the ease with which one-off boards can be interfaced to it, and this board provides an ideal base for one of these, incorporating extensive power rail connections, and laid out to allow high density IC packing.

MP840

14 slot 80-BUS backplane from Microcode. NOT supplied with any 80-BUS 77-way edge connectors. All active BUS signals are terminated into a potential balanced RC filter and are interlaced with ground shield tracks. The board can be easily ‘cut-down’ if required for smaller systems.

GM841

This 80-BUS extender board allows 80-BUS boards to be brought outside of a frame for testing and debugging purposes. Test point pins are provided on all lines, and all lines have their 80-BUS nomenclature.

Well, that’s enough for this time. Next issue I hope to continue through to GM888, and possibly beyond !! I hope that the above descriptions bring out a few points that you were possibly unaware of before, and thus help you to find your way through the growing maze of products. 80-BUS provides a very flexible means of producing so many possible self-tailored systems, and if the information above in some way helps just one reader from making a potentially costly incorrect decision then it has been justified.