CUTS
With this being my first attempt at writing an article for Wikipedia, please forgive this work's shortcomings; it's been a long time since I've had to include a bibliography.
With the VDM-1 board already posted on Wikipedia and the 3P+S also posted as a stub, it seemed fitting that this CUTS board from the 'Subsystem B' board set would also have a presence (full article or stub).
When approved, this article will provide additional links for the Processor Technology S100 Board List as well as several mentions in the Kansas City Standard articles.
Looking forward to hearing your suggestions as to how I can polish this piece up to meet the high standards of Wikipedia. Jason
CUTS Board
The story of the CUTS board begins with Processor Technology Corporation developing the Sol-20 terminal computer. They later packaged some of the Sol's circuitry into various S-100 circuit boards for use in other S-100 computers.
The Computer Users Tape System aka CUTS[1] interface board provided cassette tape storage and retrieval for the early S-100 microcomputers of the late 1970s. When connected to one or two compact cassette tape decks, early micro-computer enthusiasts could now easily and inexpensively [2] save programs to and retrieve them from audio tape. Reading and writing data at 1200baud, the CUTS board provided a dramatic convenience and speed improvement over the paper punch tape method of program saving and retrieval in use at the time.
Previously, in 1975 the Kansas City Standard for cassette data storage was defined. Processor Technology incorporated the KC Standard as well as their faster compatible CUTS format into the Sol-20 as well as the functionality of this board.
Early kit computer enthusiasts with an S-100 bus computer such as the MITS Altair 8800, IMSAI 8080 or similar chassis usually wanted something more than front panel toggle switches for input and LEDs for output. They wanted to be able to interface their computer to external devices such as a monitor, keyboard, dumb terminal, printer, teletype, paper tape reader/writer and cassette tape drives. The CUTS board first appeared in a company advertisement in the December 1976 issue of Byte Magazine. No details were provided other than the price[3].
Later, Pro Tech incorporated the CUTS board into their Subsystem "B" board set, which simplified system integration by eliminating the need for enthusiansts to source and combine the functions of various boards from different vendors. In the March 1977 edition of Byte magazine, the company started promoting the board set. The advertisement opening line read: "Subsystem "B" makes the computer you already have work almost as well as a new Sol-20."[4] This board set included:
- the CUTS board,
- the VDM-1 video display board,
- the 3P+S Serial / Parallel I/O board,
- the GPM (General Purpose Memory Module) PROM / RAM board,
- one of three different RAM boards.
Combining an 8080 CPU board with the Subsystem "B" [5] board set, along with the company's CUTER firmware (either in PROM on the GPM board or loaded into RAM from paper tape or cassette) the computer was comparable in power and compatible with software written for their Sol-20 all-in-one computer.
References
- ↑ S-100 CUTS Board Manual
- ↑ Byte Magazine, March 1976, Magnetic Recording Technology, pg 6
- ↑ Processor Technology Corp. "Introducing Sol systems" (PDF). Byte December 1976. 0 (16): 75.
- ↑ Processor Technology Corp. "Subsystem "B" makes the computer you already have work almost as well as a new Sol-20" (PDF). Byte March 1977. 02 (3): 63.
- ↑ Subsystem B Manual
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