First engineering phase and secondly manufacturing phase are done. The top frame for the acrylic glas and the painting in matte black are the next steps to be done.
#Kneisner #M100 #Imsai8080

What a great day, our #Kneisner #m100, a German #Imsai8080 clone, has made it's first boot without a loaded diskette after a few seconds of waiting.
For testing purposes I used a Seagate ST-225, which full capacity isn't used at the moment. I've to figure out how to handle the drives parameters in #TurboDOS reasonable. Maybe it is impossible, but does not care at the end.

After over a year of continuous investigations, tests, measurements, repairs and absolutely active help from the USA, our #Kneisner #M100 is now booting #turboDOS from a floppy disk.
It still has a few quirks with its front panel. But the next step will be to try to boot it from D.Gesswein's MFM emulator from a known working HD image. To see whether the WD hard disk controller and the IMS controller card are still working properly.
The whole thing is now a "once in a lifetime" project for me. What I wasn't aware of until now is that the #IMSAI8080 will be 50 years old this year.
#RetroComputing #ComputerMuseum

Has someone an idea why it doesn't work? Our #Imsai8080 clone called #Kneisner #m100 refuses to work proper. So I need your small advice which part exactly is broken 😀 Thanks a lot *jokingly* 😂
#ComputerMuseum #Tinkering

Because the distance of the MFM emulator contacts does not match the distance of the IMS daughter board in the #Kneisner #m100 I had to solder the appropriate "adapters" this evening. These simply consist of a sawn-out part of the ISA board, which can be seen in the foreground.
#RetroComputing #S100Bus #Tinkering

Ok, setting up the #BeagleBoneBlack with the latest software for the MfM Hard Disk Reader/Emulator.
All hardware, including the emulator board itself, is in da house. Very surprised, UPS was really fast from Monday from the States overseas to Europe on Thursday morning. I'll update the status how that part works to read out our #Kneisner #M100 external MFM harddisk.
https://www.pdp8online.com/mfm/mfm.shtml
#RetroComputing #ComputerMuseum

Tomorrow morning I have a hopefully enlightening phone call with the previous owner of our #Kneisner #m100. You remember, this is the box with the switches for each individual bit of the computer. I hope he has some tips on how we can get it running again. But we've made good progress in troubleshooting over the last three weekends, so "hope dies last" ;)
#RetroComputing #ComputerMuseum

Today we've done a lot of measury at the #Kneisner #M100. With the working riser board it was really a pleasure to do. One of the first things which is unnormal - Pin 52 of the #S100 bus should have -18V and has, are you sitting, +4V. One thing to take a look at next weekend. And we have done a few measurements at the RAM expansion card, somethings goes wrong with BD1 column data bit.
#RetroComputing #ComputerMuseum #IMSAI8080

In parallel we got two presamples for the switches of the #IMSAI8080 clone named #m100 by #Kneisner. I'll take some 'in machine' pictures on Saturday.
#RetroComputing #ComputerMuseum