VersaLogic P-SBC67

[Jeff_Birt]

I acquired this 1999 vintage single board computer today. It had a small LCD connected, smallish HD, and PS2 sized mouse/keyboard connectors, and some USB ports on board (might be USB1 though). I suspect it has a Pentium II (it is a Socket 7), but the heatsink is glued on so I can't tell at this point.

I have not been able to find out much information on it w.r.t. pin-outs, etc. I found a similar board on VersaLogic's website that is close enough to figure out what some of the connectors are. I sent VersaLogic an email about documentation but I'm not going to hold my breath.

I was hoping someone on here might have a manual for this SBC or know where to scare one up. It would just be neat to get it running again.

Thanks

 

[glitch]

You may have the wrong number for the model number if you're not finding any manual results -- VersaLogic is usually really good about keeping old manuals online forever. One reason I often choose their products in for-work applications is the long support life.

 

[GiGaBiTe]

and some USB ports on board (might be USB1 though).

If the SBC was manufactured in 1999, it could theoretically have USB 1.1 (which came out in 1998 ), but it's more likely to have USB 1.0. It definitely doesn't have 2.0 since that came out in April of 2000.

I suspect it has a Pentium II (it is a Socket 7), but the heatsink is glued on so I can't tell at this point.

There was never a Socket 7 Pentium II, it used the Slot 1 SECC package. Available CPUs on the Socket 7 ranged from the Pentium, Pentium MMX, AMD K5, K6, K6/2, K6/3, IDT Winchip, Rise MP6 and Geode.

It would just be neat to get it running again.

Assuming you don't want to precariously solder power wires to it, you'll need a backplane to plug the SBC into which provides a power connector. Something like this:

http://www.mouser.com/search/ProductDetail.aspx?R=0virtualkey0virtualkeyPCI-8S-RS-R40

 

[Jeff_Birt]

You may have the wrong number for the model number if you're not finding any manual results -- VersaLogic is usually really good about keeping old manuals online forever. One reason I often choose their products in for-work applications is the long support life.

That is the number on the board silkscreen, but I have known manufacturers to have no correlation between a model number printed on the PCB and the model number used in literature. I looked again at the VersaLogic website this morning and clicked through the older PDFs and found the VSBC-6 manual seems to describe the board I have. In the manual they have a link to a 'secret' webpage which has more info: http://www.versalogic.com/private/vsbc6support.asp

Assuming you don't want to precariously solder power wires to it, you'll need a backplane to plug the SBC into which provides a power connector. Something like this:

This board has a 7-pin Molex power connector so there is no issue there, except for making an adapter cable to go from an ATX supply, come to think of it there was a power supply in the box (the guy I got it from just wanted the nice NEMA 4x enclosure the board was mounted in) I'll see if I can get the power supply as well.

It also came with a carrier board to which a Cisco Aironet 350 wireless adapter is plugged in. There is also a Stonestreet One Bluetooth<->RS232 board (100-00014) which I have found nothing about on Qualcomms's website (they bought out Stonestreet One).

So, off to see if I can acquire the power supply that was originally used, and now that I have an idea of what connector is what I should be able to hook things up. I will need to acquire a PS2 mouse and keyboard though

 

[glitch]

Some of VersaLogic's boards seem to have larger, more prominent "not the model number" printings on them, while the actual model number will be in tiny print on one of the copper layers or something. Glad you found the right manual though! These little SBCs are neat, and can mount to the bottom of a 5.25" drive usually. You can e.g. mount them to a 5.25" floppy drive in an external enclosure and have a full PC in there. There was probably originally an adapter to go from the little 7-pin power plug to AT or ATX power.

The carrier board is most likely PC/104+ which is a stacking ISA/PCI bus arrangement. You can get lots of different boards for that bus. Is the carrier just a PCMCIA adapter with a regular PCMCIA Aironet card in it? If so, you can eject the Aironet card and plug in other PCMCIA cards, if desired.

 

[Jeff_Birt]

Embarrassingly I failed to see the little white sticker with VSBC-6 printed on it that was on another part of the board. I did obtain the power supply that was with the board but the 5V and 12V were both low so I scrounged up another and got it to power up. I first got a series of POST beeps which I guessed might be related to a dead CMOS battery (it was about .6V). I pulled the CMOS battery off and now get a low long beep and a short beep which sound like a normal booting type of sound. (With the memory removed I get three short beeps which is correct.)

The LCD display is not working so I can't see what it is outputting but I'm guessing it is complaining about the CMOS needing reset. The LCD has at least one broken wire, I'll have to inspect the other connections to see if they are OK or not (only the backlight seems to work for now). There is a 16 pin header which is an VGA connector so if nothing else I'll make up an adapter cable and try that.

The old PC I got the 2nd power supply from also had a 3.5" floppy which I grabbed along with the cable.

I'm curious to see what OS is installed on the HD.

Thanks for the help everyone.

 

[Jeff_Birt]

It is alive! I borrowed a monitor with a VGA input, spliced together a VGA cable and the tail end of an old game port cable (the MB has a 2x8 pin header for VGA output) and was able to see the BIOS POST. A bit of fiddling and it booted to the HD which has Windows 2000 Pro on it. The processor is a AMD K6 3D and there is a whopping 128MD of RAM installed. I need to rig up a replacement for the CMOS battery and find a working PS2 mouse and I think I'll be all set.

 

[glitch]

Does it use the little square/rectangular TimeKeeper battery that other VersaLogic boards use? If so, this is still an available part, though it's not particularly cheap. On the plus side, they're designed to never leak.

 

[Jeff_Birt]

Yes, it has the little square 'Keeper II' battery, LTC-3PN. Since I am trying to be cheap and use what I can scrounge up (for now) I dug up a 3.7V Lithium battery that is about the size of an AA (had several left from an old project). The only problem is that the OCV (open circuit voltage) is about 4.2V when it is fully charged up so I put a couple of 1N400x diodes in series to provide a .6V voltage drop, the diode leads were just the right size to plug into the sockets where the original COMS battery was. This works fine for now. Incidentally, you might be wondering why I had to use two silicone diodes to get a 0.6V drop when typically you would see about 0.6V drop across one of them. Well the current draw from the CMOS is so low that you have very little voltage drop. This new CMOS battery set up is a bit of a kludge but it works for now. The Keeper II batteries are available for $15 to $20 and if I do anything useful with this SBC I'll spring for one.

The last remaining problem is that I can't get a mouse to work. It had the factory cable with it to allow plugging in a PS2 mouse and keyboard. The keyboard works fine but all three mice I have tried prevent it from booting. Two of the mice I have are serial mice with the PS2 adapter and one is a USB mouse with the PS2 adapter. I'll have to do some more scrounging around to see if I can find a mouse that will work. Maybe there is some BIOS setting to configure the mouse?

 

[Jeff_Birt]

Now the USB Logitech Mouse with the USB<->PS2 adapter is working, I'm not sure why it decided to work all of the sudden.

On an unrelated note I found a (free) copy of "The C Programmer's Handbook" from AT&T Bell Laboratories (printed by Prentice-Hall), from 1985. Physically it is about the same size as the classic Richie and Kernighan "The C Programming Language" book.