STEbus

The STEbus (also called the IEEE-1000 bus) is a non-proprietary, processor-independent, computer bus with 8 data lines and 20 address lines. It was popular for industrial control systems in the late 1980s and early 1990s before the ubiquitous IBM PC dominated this market.

It remains a well-designed standard. Although no longer competitive in its original market, it is valid choice for hobbyists wishing to make 'home brew' computer systems. The Z80 and probably the CMOS 65C02 would be good processors to use. The standardized bus would allow hobbyists to interface to each other's designs.

In the early 1980s there were many proprietary bus systems, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Most had grown in an ad-hoc manner, typically around a particular microprocessor. The S-100 bus is based on Intel 8080 signals, the STD Bus around Z80 signals, the SS-50 Bus around the Motorola 6800, and the G64 bus around 68000 signals.

This made it harder to interface other processors. Upgrading to a more powerful processor would subtly change the timings, and timing restraints were not always tightly specified. Nor were electrical parameters and physical dimensions. They usually used edge-connectors for the bus, which were vulnerable to dirt and vibration.

The VMEbus had provided a high-quality solution for high-performance 16-bit processors, using reliable DIN 41612 connectors and well-specified Eurocard board sizes and rack systems. However, these were too costly where an application only needed a modest 8-bit processor.

In the mid 1980s the STEbus standard addressed these issues by specifying what is rather like a VMEbus simplified for 8-bit processors. The bus signals are sufficiently generic so that they are easy for 8-bit processors to interface with. The board size was usually a single-height Eurocard (100 mm x 160 mm) but allowed for double-height boards (233 x 160 mm) as well. The latter positioned the bus connector so that it could neatly merge into VME-bus systems.

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