I first encountered Ampro (and PC/104) while working on mobile robots back in 2001. Embedded systems were lagging quite far behind desktop and laptop performance at the time. We were running soft-real-time control on a 486! Compiling code on-board (regrettable, but sometimes necessary) took hours!
> Compiling code on-board (regrettable, but sometimes necessary) took hours!
Why was that necessary? (Not doubting, just curious)
The short answer is: robot in the field, cross-compilation environment not easily portable.
Aah! Backported VxWorks 5.1 to this back in '08 or something. Still used in a bunch of medical devices I bet.
My first personal computer was based on the Little Board. I put together a two floppy system and ran CP/M on it. I connected it to my HP19 terminal, which I had previously used with a modem to access the University computers. The system is long gone, alas.
Sounds like a fun, capable little machine ... :)
"Late March 2010, I went to the Greater Baltimore Hamboree & Computerfest, commonly called 'Timonium' after the local town. At the outdoor fleamarket near the end of the first day, I obtained an old ISC brand (Intelligent Systems Corporation) Intecolor S-100 system, built inside a color TV monitor. But inside that monitor was also an Ampro Z80 single-board computer called the 'Little Board'. This product was a kind of response to the 'Big Board' Z80 computers of the era, board which were the same area as an 8-inch floppy drive. The Little Board fits under a 5.25-inch floppy drive. (Note: a modern Ampro 'Little Board' is a Pentium class embedded computer.)"
Heh, I wrote the SCSI BIOS for the first SCSI "little board" computers. Amazing to have that be state of the art at one time.
Wow. SCSI ...
The memories!
PS. Hat off to you, sir. That must have been quite the undertaking, the BIOS ...
So, Z80 boards are still produced for some purposes, right?