[Timbucus]

Originally Posted by SiriusHardware

I don't know whether SOC would have ever have gone so far as to implement memory paging as suggested by Tim / tried by Tony, but they might and ought to have got to the point where the bus connections were all available at the edge connector (they did, after all, do this on the ZX80 onwards from the very start). They should have done it on the MK14 on the first issue which had contact fingers for the lower side of the rear edge connector, whichever issue that was.

I deduce that they must have from the promised BASIC board in the manual update letter as NIBL would have needed paging.

http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/d...Update-Letter/

The fingers are not in the Issue IV as I found a photograph of the bottom of one in the "Story of the Commodore 64 in Pixels". In the article on Archer Maclean he incorrectly attributes his to 1976 but the photo is quite clear:

If they'd done that (and with the unwanted PROM images already removed from issue V onwards) they could have introduced a 'RAM pack' PCB which plugged into the rear edge connector in the best tradition of Sinclair machines going forwards from that point, perhaps with an ongoing connector on its own rear edge, appropriately pinned out for the VDU via a DIN connector of the same type which the VDU was obviously laid out for. (Your third or fourth next project, perhaps...)

I had always intended getting to a memory board, again as described in the Update Letter, that perhaps even turned a right angle as well to make the final layout of the VDU go to the right so there was room for a 40 Key keyboard to the right of the board and below the now horizontal VDU putting the UHF/Composite out on the right. This could then contain a second connector for the NIBL board perhaps directly above it. Making the whole thing close to a single board machine of the time... and manageable on a normal desk!

Incidentally the same forum member who confirmed that the issue V did have those unwanted PROM images removed 'out of the box' also told me that there are still multiple images of the RAM I/O and display in the issue V memory map, so he then further modified his issue V machine to remove those images as well. I invited him to post details of the mods (in the area of IC15 through to IC17 on issue V PCBs) to one of these threads but I think he prefers to remain a read-only member.

Maybe they can provide them privately for you to present?