Is bus termination needed with the 18-slot motherboard?
 

Dear all:
I'm furiously building kit #22 now: 1MCS board and CPU boards done, front panel almost. This is the coolest thing I've done in _years_ . I would have given a body part for one of these in the mid 1970's, but I was a teenager and didn't have the cash.

My question is this: I got the 18-slot motherboard, with 8 S-100 connectors. I recall from the old days that bus termination was an issue with bigger S-100 motherboards, longer than a few inches, especially as bus speeds go up. What have other 18-slot users done with regard to termination? Is the frequency low enough on the 8800 that it is not an issue? If termination is required, either just resistors or active, a schematic or even text description of what you did would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Richard

I've never looked at the signals on the bus to see how noisy they are, but I've run my unterminated 18 slot machine for days at a time with boards all grouped together at one end as well as spread out across all 18 slots, and I've never had a crash or noticed any problems. Some boards may be more finicky than others, of course, but so far so good.

Geoff.