In the 1980s, BYTE magazine was one of the best known publications relating to personal computers, and one of the most popular columns was "Circuit Cellar" by Steve Ciarcia, a do-it-yourself hardware forum. In the 1985 October and September issues, Steve present the SB-180, a powerful single-board computer.
The SB-180 features the HD64180 processor, which ran Z80 code, but faster, and had an internal memory management unit allowing much more than the usual 64k RAM to be used. This made it one of the most powerful 8-bit computers available. The low parts count, and the fact that you could order a printed circuit board from MicroMint - Steves mail-order company, made the design popular with hobbiests who could build a very powerful (for the time) computer at low cost.
Click any photo to view a large high-resolution image.
This SB-180 was built into the enclosure shown by Rich Cini. In the space
under the floppy drives is a SCSI hard drive. Behind the SCSI drive is the
SB-180 board (with piggyback SCSI controller), and above that (behing the
drives) is a PC/AT power supply.
Rear view. Here we see the two serial ports, the Centronics printer interface,
and a reset switch on a long lead which can be pulled out and accessed from
the front of the machine.
Looking in from the top, we can't see much except for the top floppy drive,
the PC/AT power supply and a few cables.
From the side we can get a better view of the layout. Under the floppies and
power supply we can see the SCSI hard drive, and the edge of the SCSI
controller and SB-180 circuit boards.
Removing the power supply, we can see the SCSI disk controller, which is
perched on top of the SC-180 main board.
Finally, by removing the disk controller, we can see the MicroMint SB-180
main board.
