Most recent revision dated July 27 2015. .
I'm Herb Johnson, in New Jersey USA. I provide some support services for old S-100 (IMSAI, Altair, Compupro, etc.) computers and also floppy disk drives. For more information on what I have available, check my S-100 Stuff Home page.
This page has discussions from S-100 system owners. They describe what they have, or why they are interested in these systems. There may also be some S-100 owners in my links to S-100 sites page. I created this Web page for people who own and operate just a few systems and don't have their own Web sites. However, I like to cheer on other S-100 owners who DO have Web sites! Finally, I also have some S-100 repair stories on my vintage computer repair and restoration pages. - Herb Johnson
Check my Morrow Web page for discussions of Morrow history by Marc Kupper, a former Morrow staffer; and Robert Parker formerly of the Los Angeles (CA, USA) Morrow's User's Group.
Bill Beech has been working again on S-100 and Multibus systems in the last several years. Most but not all run CP/M. From his home page at nj7p.org you can look at his menu for "My Computers" and choose that; then see a variety of operating systems, or bus architectures, or software tools. many are related to CP/M or S-100. Much of Bill's work is diagnostics or repair, and he describes that work and the details of the tools he uses.
Peter Edgley in the UK, told me in May 2009: "I have no objection to you listing me as an S100 owner. Its an [Industrial Micro Systems] IMS 8000 with [these boards by feature and model number:] Z80 (450), I/O (440), 4 x 16K (282), and floppy disk controller (400). Plus, 2 huge [Shugart] SA 800 8" floppies. Total weight of box is 50 kg - unbelievable, built like the proverbial tank. - Regards". Peter was kind enough to provide a copy of his IMS docs. Check my S-100 home page for a link to my IMS documents.
Mike Sharkey has a commercial Web site at Pick Areospace Research, but he has a section devoted to his S-100 system and some S-100 cards he's designing. He has an Ithaca Audio and Compupro board set. As of Jan 2010 he's working on an 8-port serial card on a PC board of his design.
Rich Cini of the Altair 32 emulator and USB-based Altair front panel, describes his Imsai system with iCom floppy controller on this Web page. The iCom controller is a very early, pre-S-100 floppy disk controller, with an IMSAI/Altair interface card and with iCOM's own OS. Rich wrote up his IMSAI activities on his own Web pages at classiccmp.org. He restored the IMSAI to operation, with a Compupro floppy controller; in 2009 he was working on a BBS system for the IMSAI.
Bill Degnan of "vintagecomputer.net" has a Cromemco System One he's working on since late 2006. Here's his discussion and photos of it. He has a lot of Commodore stuff on his site, among other systems. HIs other S-100 systems include NorthStar Horizon and MITS Altair 8800b and IMSAI 8080. Look for other S-100 systems on his site. Most of these are described in a blog/diary sort of way as he works on them. Lotsa photos.
Rich Camarda of richcamarda.com has several running S-100 systems. A Compupro running CP/M 86, Concurrent DOS, and CP/M 2.2 on a Seagate MFM hard drive. Also, a Cromemco "System One" that can run CP/M 2.2, CDOS, and CROMIX PLUS, with a WDI-II set up. Another Cromemco system with an STDC hard drive controller, set up to running the same CROMIX PLUS and CDOS. Also, a S-100 box with a CCS 2422 floppy controller system with my modified CCS BIOS running with a Cromemco ZPU and TUART, and a Diablo 630 daisy wheel printer. This is the system I put a GIDE (Z80 IDE controller) on. He also has another S-100 box with several CCS boards; check my CCS Web page for details. He says "I still have the Morrow S-100 boards, but have not got the MPU-Z80 to work yet. I also have 3 versions of the Disk Jockey controllers, but I can't get them to work." He's looking for the Morrow DJ boot disks, which I have. - Herb
Greg Bober in Michigan shows his IMSAI PCS 80 system. He has photos of each card, the system and screen shots of the VIO's video display. Greg's site is mostly about his interest in small-scale railway.
Robert C. Kuhmann was an early customer of Cromemco, and knew the founders. He built an early CP/M based BBS system with Cromemco products. He told me his story in Jan 2008, and it's on my Web site at this link.
Mark Dahmke contacted me in late Dec 2009. Here is Mark's Web page on his Computalker and Compupro system. He writes: "I was a Consulting Editor at BYTE Magazine from Dec. ’79 through about 1988. I have a system based on the Advanced Digital Super Six in a Compupro chassis, with dual 8” DSDD Lobo drives. I also have a working Computalker CT-1 speech synthesizer board. Other than what is described on my Web page, I haven’t done much with the system other than to make sure it continues to be bootable. I made backups of the EPROM and periodically build fresh boot floppies. I’ve not had any problems reading diskettes that were last written in 1980. Actually I have some 5.25” SSSD floppies from 1976 that are still readable."
Late in 2010, Mark updated me with a Web link to other S-100 systems he built including a S-100 extension to a Martin Research MIKE III motherboard.
Louis Denbow of Maine (USA) contacted me about his Teletek SBC-1 S-100 card in November 2009. With a little discussion, he got it going. Check the details and see his setup on this Web page.
Richard Thwaites in Australia, contacted me in March 2009, about his Industrial Micro Systems IMS-5000 S-100 system. It wasn't running and he debated discarding itHere's some of our email exchanges as he worked on bringing up that system by Sept 2010, with the help of many people.
John Monahan has some SD Systems boards, and discussed with me his work on the SD Systems Versafloppy II controller. Here's our email conversation and some photos and documents. By May 2009, John established his own Web domain - s100computers.com. He describes and photographs all kinds of S-100 stuff there.
Ron Ward of Washington State has an Ithaca Intersystems with boards he wire-wrapped from the 1970's and still in use today. Read his story from 2009 on this Web page.
Larry Ryan of Washington State has a long history with S-100 and with Intel processors. Read his story from 2008 on this Web page.
Brent Martin has a lot to say about his history with microcomputers. Read his story from May 2007 on this Web page.
I recieved an email in Nov 2003 from Marcus Lewis about his Z-100 from Zenith.Read his story from Nov 2003 on this Web page.
Dan "Ragooman" Roganti has a number of old computing interests, and hobby robotics interests. He's done a great job in supporting a vintage computing travelling exhibit, supported by the Pittsburgh Vintage Computer Users Group. Check his Picasa Web photo page for his 2008 and 2009 exhibits at the Pittsburgh Breezeshooters annual hamfest.
Mike Loewen has been active with "old technology" computing for some years. He recently contacted me about some restoration work he did on an IMSAI 8080 with some Cromemco and Morrow boards. I thought you might be interested in a 2009 writeup I did about recovering an 8" CP/M boot disk for my IMSAI 8080: Here's the Web link to Mike's work, on his Web site.
Contact information:
Copyright © 2015 Herb Johnson