What the hell is financial responsibility?
I love me a good '70s computer. They don't have much in the way of heavily integrated circuits because those things just didn't really exist. You've got small things like the Elf and the KIM-1, you've got mid-sized things like the Apple II and Sharp MZ-80K, and you've got bigger things like the DEC PDPs or a Xerox Alto. All of 'em are just TTL soup and it's so neat to me.
I've known about Data General for a while now. A good friend of mine has a pair of AViiON systems (that lost their bootloader code and are thus kinda just funny 88K bricks, whoops), I remember watching some videos by Tech Tangents where they bought some Nova systems, and I've spent at least multiple minutes looking at Dasher terminals going "man it would be neat if I owned one of those".
I never really planned on owning any Data General anything because it always seemed a bit out of reach, a little too pricey here or a little too far of a drive there. Then, out of the blue (haha because Data General used blue get it), I saw an eBay listing: A Nova 2 CPU that looked real clean shipped to my door for $100. It checks off the boxes for things I like because it's large and it has a ton of chips on it. My friend who owns said AViiON systems said that it may not be too hard to make some sort of simple system around it. That price was super enticing. I haven't bought a retro computing item in a while. Could I say no? Yeah. Did I have the self control to say no? Nah, I bought the thing.
I'm writing this two days before the Nova 2 CPU actually gets to me. I decided I would do a little bit of "info gathering" so I know relatively what I'm about to dive into, something that I rarely actually follow thorugh with doing. I'm pretty happy that I am actually going through with it this time!
The first issue to overcome: I bought a CPU but I have no chassis to put it in.
The second issue to overcome: I bought a CPU but I have no RAM, no ROM, no I/O...
My original plan regarding the first issue was that I'd basically just make my own backplane and box. Bitsavers has the technical manual which has the power requirements listed on Page P-9 (50) and backplane connections listed on Pages I-12 and I-13 (70 and 71). I could do like I did for my original LSI-11 test chassis before I had a Q-Bus backplane! I'd get a nice fat sheet of G-10, source the connectors (that currently to me are identified as being equal to S-100 backplane connectors? This may change if I find otherwise, probably whenever the boards come in and I can measure the fingers), plot a pattern onto said sheet of G-10 with through-holes marked for mounting screws alongside the pins, drill out every spot of said pattern, put the connectors in place, put screws through the mounting ears, lock 'em on with nuts, and wire wrap myself a backplane. I go get myself some cards over a few months on eBay... yeah let's be honest, about five minutes after drafting that out I realized just how tedious it would be. It wasn't very fun when I had to do it for a LSI-11, there's no way it would be any fun here. Said plan was scrapped.
My new plan goes something more like this: Why rely on $100+ eBay listings/luck when modern solutions can be made? Buying a core stack is cool but do I really want to deal with that? Nah, give the core stacks and whatnot to the people with legit systems so they can keep said systems alive in original configs. I just want this thing to work at a reasonable price, I have no attachment to the original card bus. I just need one slot for the CPU then all my everything else can attach however the heck I feel like attaching it. I'll get two card edge connectors to make that one slot. Instead of keeping the card edge connectors going for four/seven/ten slots, I'll break it out to four 50-pin IDC box headers. The power pins can get merged into something like a Molex header that runs up the side and gets fed by Mean Well bricks. Stuff of the sort is a good enough solution for the beautiful board stacks that Kuninet and Kimoanman make. Why not make it a good enough solution for me? Building a chassis to hold all that shouldn't prove too tough either, I just need one massive set of card guides for the CPU itself and then the rest can exist in a more reasonable space.
You might say that this plan commits me to actually building basically every card that isn't a CPU. You're not wrong! It's sort-of being done on purpose. I'm not too afraid of the prospect because I think it's going to be a good project. Will it make bring-up take forever? Sure but that's alright, learning new things is cool. Throwing myself in the deep end has worked out before, we'll try it again here. In the event it's too much work/I find a good deal on more original cards, I can just adapt the IDC connectors back to card edge connectors.
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