Im a bit younger than you guys being born in 84, but I grew up with some form of computer in the house at all times, when I was young I remmber playing on the commadore we also had an 8088 system. By the time I was about 11 and picked up programming the house computer was an ultra exspensive 486dx66. But as a hand me down first very own computer was the 8088 it had a sweet orange monochrome monitor with hercules graphics . I had that computer about 6 months before getting a 386 33 lol. Anyways I have really fond memories of that 8088 and I really wish I had kept it around, although I still have the IBM keyboard in fantastic contidon its what I use with the prop now . I think the oldest stuff I have anymore is a few 486 and p1 boxes with win95.
If I were to go with a z80 or an 8088, would it be possible to implement an ISA slot? Or would this be an insane amount of work?
I don't know about it being an "insane" amount of work, but it would not be trivial. If you have existing 8 bit ISA cards you want to use it might be worth the effort but I have my doubts about that.
For simple I/O expansion you could add a bus that provides 8 bits of data, 8 bits of address, I/O read, I/O write, and interrupt lines. No real need for a full expansion bus if all the memory is on the same board as the cpu chip. A ribbon cable with 24, 26, 34, or 40 pins could be used. An old 34 pin floppy disk cable could be used and the pins not required for signals could be used for power and ground. Makes for a simple inexpensive way to add interface boards.
i was thinking maybe ide and more serial. The major problem with using boards i have is documention on the acuall hardware on q board uses, so id have to implement my own most likely
I took a look at the cosam site, and that's a great project. I would suggest building that as is so you can take advantage of having a tested circuit design and working software to start with. Once you are more familiar with the hardware and software you could build your own board using the propeller to act as the terminal for that system. It will be a great learning experience.
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If I were to go with a z80 or an 8088, would it be possible to implement an ISA slot? Or would this be an insane amount of work?
For simple I/O expansion you could add a bus that provides 8 bits of data, 8 bits of address, I/O read, I/O write, and interrupt lines. No real need for a full expansion bus if all the memory is on the same board as the cpu chip. A ribbon cable with 24, 26, 34, or 40 pins could be used. An old 34 pin floppy disk cable could be used and the pins not required for signals could be used for power and ground. Makes for a simple inexpensive way to add interface boards.
What sort of I/O boards did you plan to add ?
Check out the cosam.org link I posted earlier. The author has a IDE interface made from 8 TTL 7400 series chips. It's about as simple as it gets.