The next build is the bus supervisor module. This module is designed by Dr. Scott M. Baker and I have the PCB manufactured by OshPark. I thought with this module I can do assembler debugging easily without have to rewrite the ROM by changing the system into full 64k RAM.
Here is the PCB. As you may know, the PCB from OshPark always have some annoying finishing on the edge of the board. So I cleaned it up with my Dremel tools.
As usual, preparing the components and all the ICs sockets. I like to put sockets for all the ICs, in case I broke something later, I can replace those ICs on the spot, as desoldering process is so annoying and sometimes broke the PCB traces. I also use IC sockets for the resistor arrays.
Not much components to solder. I also use socket for the oscillator, just in case I want to change the clock speed later. Everything looks nice, I use different color for pin header and the bus header. As always, I like to cleaned up the flux after the soldering process.
Here is the finished board, with all the resistor arrays, ICs, Oscillator and jumpers implemented. I have test this module a while and it works very well. We can do some cool stuff like slow clock, can set the clock rate as we desired, dumping the memory and also write something to the memory. We can also do some debugging with the IO ports and interact with other module on the rc2014 bus. I planned to make all RAM board and replace the current ROM and RAM module, so I can use it to debug and do some coding for my project. I am planning to learn something about computer system and try to write my own BIOS sometime later.
