jcwren
Member
I've decided it's time to part with my IMSAI 8080 system. It's been sitting in the basement for a long time, and I've kept promising it that I would bring it back up and relive the golden days of computing. Unfortunately, Real Life(tm) has a way of interfering, and I've got more pressing projects than I can handle. Here's what's I have:
The system hasn't been powered up in *ages*, and I'm a little concerned about not doing that properly. Last thing I want to do is dump 8V into the 5V rail and watch everything go up in smoke, or watch a couple of 22,000uf caps grenade. The front panel can't single step or examine memory at 8MHz. If I remember correctly, dropping the CPU speed via the switch on the CPU card will put the clock into a range where the front panel works correctly. You can, of course, stop/reset/run the CPU at 8MHz.
The front panel is *perfect*. I think there's a minor scratch on the cover. It does still have the suicide power switch. Anyone who's been around IMSAIs know they should be reworked to put the power switch on the back, and optionally use the front panel power switch to drive a relay.
I'm pretty sure the floppies need the belts replaced.
I haven't done a lot of research so I don't know what they're going for these days. I'm looking to get a fair price, and while I'd love to get $2500 for everything, I'm not sure that's realistic. I know that shipping costs would be insane, so I'm willing to drive 200 miles from Flowery Branch, GA to meet.
I have some sentimental attachment to this system, as I spent thousands of hours in front of it. I built the motherboard myself, soldering all 2200+ connections. It wasn't my first computer, but it was my most prized computer. I can't remember if I paid $900/ea or $900 for the pair for the Datatrak 8 drives, but it was a major chunk of change at the time. The GPIO card was for a Diablo Hytype I daisy wheel printer. I wrote the first set of drives in assembly, where each of the motions was sequential. I rewrote it in Aztec C so that the platen, print head, and wheel motions overlapped, and sped up printing dramatically. I wrote a rather complicated utility for managing Televideo 950 terminals, and a bunch of other utilities for Hayes Chronographs, some checkbook software before Quicken existed, lots of stuff. So yeah, a bit sentimental
If there's interest expressed, I'll take a bunch of pictures and post them. Pulling everything out to take them is a little painful
- IMSAI 8080 22-slot chassis
- Northstar 8MHz Z80-H CPU
- 64K static memory card
- Tarbell DSDD floppy controller
- 256K DRAM card (as a virtual disk)
- 4-port serial card
- IMSAI GPIO card
- S-100 extender card
- (2) Qume Datatrak-8 8" floppy drives in a chassis w/ PSU
- (1) Qume Datatrak-8 8" spare (possibly more)
- Spare toggle switch covers
- Several hundred diskettes, much software (assuming diskettes are still readable).
- Tons of documentation
The system hasn't been powered up in *ages*, and I'm a little concerned about not doing that properly. Last thing I want to do is dump 8V into the 5V rail and watch everything go up in smoke, or watch a couple of 22,000uf caps grenade. The front panel can't single step or examine memory at 8MHz. If I remember correctly, dropping the CPU speed via the switch on the CPU card will put the clock into a range where the front panel works correctly. You can, of course, stop/reset/run the CPU at 8MHz.
The front panel is *perfect*. I think there's a minor scratch on the cover. It does still have the suicide power switch. Anyone who's been around IMSAIs know they should be reworked to put the power switch on the back, and optionally use the front panel power switch to drive a relay.
I'm pretty sure the floppies need the belts replaced.
I haven't done a lot of research so I don't know what they're going for these days. I'm looking to get a fair price, and while I'd love to get $2500 for everything, I'm not sure that's realistic. I know that shipping costs would be insane, so I'm willing to drive 200 miles from Flowery Branch, GA to meet.
I have some sentimental attachment to this system, as I spent thousands of hours in front of it. I built the motherboard myself, soldering all 2200+ connections. It wasn't my first computer, but it was my most prized computer. I can't remember if I paid $900/ea or $900 for the pair for the Datatrak 8 drives, but it was a major chunk of change at the time. The GPIO card was for a Diablo Hytype I daisy wheel printer. I wrote the first set of drives in assembly, where each of the motions was sequential. I rewrote it in Aztec C so that the platen, print head, and wheel motions overlapped, and sped up printing dramatically. I wrote a rather complicated utility for managing Televideo 950 terminals, and a bunch of other utilities for Hayes Chronographs, some checkbook software before Quicken existed, lots of stuff. So yeah, a bit sentimental
If there's interest expressed, I'll take a bunch of pictures and post them. Pulling everything out to take them is a little painful