Corsham SS30 USB Serial Board

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Reproduction Corsham SS30 Serial Board

Differences between the Original and Reproduction:

Corsham released at least 2 versions of their SS30 USB serial board.  Although schematics of the first version exist, I could find little information on the latest version other than a photograph. This board is based on the schematic of the first board and a photo of the latest board and incorporates changes I made to use a new chip used to replace the obsolete chip on the first board.  The  visible changes were to move the TX/RX LED to the top of the board and add faster baud rates. Therefore it is hard say how close a reproduction this is to the original.

Most of us use our PCs/MACs/Linux machines with a terminal emulator program to connect to our SS-50 systems, usually with a USB serial port.  That works great, but adds an extra signal conversion that doesn’t need to happen.  With our new USB based serial board, your SS-50 machine can directly plug into the USB port of your main computer.

• Uses a 68B50 ACIA: Fully software compatible with SWTBUG, SBUG and any other vintage software.  The B version runs at 2 MHz
• Uses a well established FTDI serial chip.  Drivers for all major operating systems are either already in the OS or easily installed from the FTDI site.
• USB A port to plug into your computer.
• Board rate generator on-board for 1200, 2400, 4800, 9600, 19200 and 38400 baud.  Those signals on the bus can be used for other things (like extended address lines for the 6809 based systems).
• USB power from the USB bus, so when you shut down your SS-50 system the main computer doesn’t lose the com port.

Just set the baud rate, swap this board for your existing serial board, plug it into your computer and you’ll be up and running.  For  most machines it takes a minute or two for the OS to properly identify the port, but then it is always available.  The board shows up as a normal serial (COM) port, just select the new port and you’re good to go.

The bare board has two surface mount IC's. You should consider if you have the tools and ability to solder these parts to the board. The surface mount IC's can be purchased from Mouser or DigiKey.

Downloads

Corsham SS30 Serial USB Manual.pdf 

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