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Exidy Sorcerer S-100 Expansion

tempest

tempest

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Does anyone know if any S-100 type expansion will work with the Exidy Sorcerer, or if it had to be the specific one that Exidy put out? I'd really like to try and expand my Sorcerer, but finding the official Exidy one is nigh impossible. Finding a generic one might be *slightly* easier.
 
I agree. These Exidy expansion boxes seem particularly elusive. They existed at sometime though. See page 33 of this "Software Source" (Australian) catalogue from 1981. As Dick Smith supported the machine in Australia quite aggressively prior to the System 80, there are probably a few expansion units kicking around there.

I was interested to see a stringy floppy option for the Sorcerer in that catalogue! (page 36)

Tez
 
tempest said:
They exist an can be yours for only $12,500! :) http://www.ebay.com/itm/Exidy-Sorcerer-Large-Collection-/252549489066
Click to expand...

Right. Fortunately obsession has its limits, so I'll pass :)

tempest said:
Never heard of the Stringy Floppy option, but if it worked as well as it did on other systems I'd say it's a good thing that they never got into the hands of anyone.
Click to expand...

LOL. Well, that's not quite true. I did "compute" for at least two years with nothing but a stringy floppy as my main storage device on my Dick Smith System 80. However, once those tapes stretch and wear out.... I became a dab hand with tweezers. :)

tempest said:
I'd love to see some of the software listed in that catalog. Only a fraction of it has been archived (mostly by you!).
Click to expand...

Yes, it's a shame. I am in communication with someone in Australia who is digitising his own tapes and might have a few more titles I can add to the archive later this year. I suspect a lot has been/is lost though.

Tez
 
I was fortunate enough to find an Exidy Sorcerer with non-standard S-100 expansion chassis via an Exidy S-100 expansion chassis card with dual 8" drives and a hard drive! I also have a few 8" disks that I have yet to explore. Unfortunately, I haven't taken the time to create the appropriate cables and try it. I think this was the cheaper way to go S-100 with the Sorcerer.

It was a bit of a mystery because I couldn't figure out what the Exidy S-100 card was as I got it in a large lot. I finally pieced it together but no cables.

http://vintagecomputer.ca/exidy-sorcerer-mystery-solved/
 
I have one of those Exidy to S100 cards but have not tried it - never even heard of them until I received it. Yours is only the 2nd one I have heard of. I would think the cable would be the same one used for the Disk drive setup the was available back then - it was a ribbon cable with 50 conductors with a 2X25 edge card connector. There were several after market drives using the Exidy disk drive card and (I Think) MPI 5 1/4 drives and I believe there was a boot pak that slide in to the side slot where the basic pak would go so you could boot CPM.
 
I forgot to add I lived in Sunnyvale Ca. back then and knew several techs that worked for Exidy learned a bit about the different products they were making also on how the boards that did not pass were piling up and needed repair before they were installed in cases to be shipped out. I also "Heard" how more than a few went out the back door to reduce the pile.
 
So to connect any S-100 chassis to the Sorcerer I'm going to need a specific Exidy S-100 Expansion kit card?
 
tempest said:
So to connect any S-100 chassis to the Sorcerer I'm going to need a specific Exidy S-100 Expansion kit card?
Click to expand...

I believe there were three ways to expand an Exidy Sorcerer.

One is the cheaper way and that was to use this card and get your own S-100 bus motherboard and cards (like mine). You would add your own drives, etc. This is similar to the IBM 5161 concept.

The second way was the fancy pre-made and branded S-100 expansion box. I don't know what the internals look like but I would imaging this card is built into the motherboard of that expansion box along with appropriate slots.

The third ways is the monitor/drive combo that is depicted here: http://www.geocities.ws/peterochocki/computers/1980comp/exidy.html I don't believe there is any S-100 expansion in this unit.

So, you don't necessarily need this card.
 
Except the second and third option are REALLY rare. :)

I wonder if reproduction cards could be made? Then again even if I had the card I'd have to find an S-100 motherboard which can't be cheap.
 
tempest said:
Except the second and third option are REALLY rare. :)
I wonder if reproduction cards could be made?
Click to expand...

I think these cards are actually more rare than the other two options. That said, I have two. One is unpopulated so it might be useful for copying. Before you ask, I want to keep it for my second Exidy Sorcerer.
 
If it's all off the shelf components then it might be easy enough to duplicate, although finding a compatible S-100 motherboard in this day might be tough. I've never really looked into S-100 stuff, but I image it's getting rare.
 
snuci said:
I believe there were three ways to expand an Exidy Sorcerer.
Click to expand...

There is a fourth way and this is a floppy disk controller card with no S-100 backplane. The card could be mounted either in the Sorcerer of in the case with the drives.
There were two third-party controllers developed in Australia: Digitrio and Dreamdisk and I believe the Dutch may have developed their own as well.
 
exidyboy said:
There is a fourth way and this is a floppy disk controller card with no S-100 backplane. The card could be mounted either in the Sorcerer of in the case with the drives.
Click to expand...

How would this be connected? I just learned of the external Micropolis drive unit. I also looked at the Exidy Internals manual and page 2-3 states:

SORCERER PARALLEL PORT

The parallel port differs from the serial port mainly in that data is
transferred an entire byte at a time. This is ideal for fast printers and
sometimes even some floppy disk units.

Could the external Micropolis drive unit be parallel based? I can't find this documented anywhere.
 
snuci said:
How would this be connected? I just learned of the external Micropolis drive unit. I also looked at the Exidy Internals manual and page 2-3 states:

SORCERER PARALLEL PORT

The parallel port differs from the serial port mainly in that data is
transferred an entire byte at a time. This is ideal for fast printers and
sometimes even some floppy disk units.

Could the external Micropolis drive unit be parallel based? I can't find this documented anywhere.
Click to expand...

Never heard of a parallel interfaced floppy - sounds like wishful thinking.

The FDS (Floppy Disk System) connects where the S-100 expansion connector would connect but the controller board is integrated into the drive case doing away with the S-100 chassis. Check out this ad for the FDS (in contrast to the DDS that Al discusses above) https://archive.org/stream/EA1981/EA 1981-06 June#page/n139
 
I currently have 2 sorcerers with the Exidy expansion units to recap. One unit has 2 micropolis 5 1/4 inch drives. The floppy controller card doesn't use LSI floppy controller chip and name "FDCONTROLB MICROPOLIS". The other unit has 2 8 inch drives with a controller labelled "Disk Jockey 2D/B Copyright 1980 George Morrow" the external drive are by Morrow Designs.

If anyone needs photos or anything else let me know.
 
David_M said:
I currently have 2 sorcerers with the Exidy expansion units to recap. One unit has 2 micropolis 5 1/4 inch drives. The floppy controller card doesn't use LSI floppy controller chip and name "FDCONTROLB MICROPOLIS". The other unit has 2 8 inch drives with a controller labelled "Disk Jockey 2D/B Copyright 1980 George Morrow" the external drive are by Morrow Designs.

If anyone needs photos or anything else let me know.
Click to expand...
Hi David,
It would be good to take a copy of the ROM's from the Morrow controller for safe keeping.
 
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