Yup LED lighting is such a blessing.

Tungsten might only be given serious consideration these days for special cases. It's a relative IR "flamethrower" I think because it runs hot and broad out the red end. So you get a 200W specific flood LED and with IR filter on the camera maybe seems to throw light to 200 yards down the (long) back yard and a 500W tungsten might look the same filter in, and to the naked eye, but flip the filter in and the camera sees out another hundred or two in IR. Useful, if critters and felons think they can creep around just out of range of your lighting. Takes a stout filter to block the output to IR only on a tungsten though, because it will get really hot. Then still probably glows perceptibly when on, so not very stealth.

Just in case anyone else could use this (Let me know and I'll post it)...

I've been spending days reverse engineering a fairly complex piece of equipment I designed over 40 years ago (1980s). I still have a few sets of CPU&SERIAL boards, it's based on the 6809 (still one of my favorite micros), and I'm working on project that could use this as a base...

But ... I no longer have schematics (the design belonged to an employer) - I thought I still had printed copies but obviously lost over the years during some "cleanup".

It uses a fairly complex backplane (64+ pins) - I still have one backplane board and trying to draw a referanceable diagram in all situations has proven difficult.

So, yesterday I decided to write this little tool which uses a simple editable text input file describing what I've worked out so far, and can generate some views, from either side, with or without simple "line" numbers, reversable slot numbers&order etc.

YES, input and output are text files! I'm "old school" and find text files much easier to work with than some companies proprietary format, and often work with diagrams in different places (Dos, Winblows, Unix, my own custom OSs)

This has made it MUCH easier, and I accomplished more last evening that I had in the month before! Note that the "TSTBP" sample is one I tossed together to show the tool, and is MUCH simplier than the actual backplace I'm working on!

1show BackPlane
2
3use:    BP bpfile[.BP] [outfile[.TXT]] [options]
4
5opts:   -F      show from Front
6        -R      Reverse slot numbers
7        -S      Swap right<>left
8        -0      show line numbers (origin0)
9        -1      show line numbers (origin1)
10
11BPFILE is in the form:
12
13    ...
14    desc - - dest                                -> from behind
15    desc - - dest                                       where it is often
16    dest - - dest                                       easier to probe
17    dest - - dest       dest - - dest
18    dest - - dest       dest - - dest
19    dest - - dest       dest - - dest
20    ...

This is a sample input file:

1> type tstbp.BP
2   +5  -   - +5
3   +12 -   - +12
4   -12 -   - -12
5   Gnd -   - Gnd      +5  -   - +5      Currently accepts two "slots" ...
6  Irq2 -   - Irq3     +12 -   - +12     anything to the right is ignored
7  Irq0 -   - Irq1     -12 -   - -12
8  Sel2 -   - Sel3     Gnd -   - Gnd     You can use this space for any
9  Sel0 -   - Sel1     Sel -   - Irq     notes etc. that you might want to 
10    A6 -   - A7        A6 -   - A7      refer to as you are creating this
11    A4 -   - A5        A4 -   - A5      base kayout.
12    A2 -   - A3        A2 -   - A3
13    A0 -   - A1        A0 -   - A1
14    D6 -   - D7        D6 -   - D7
15    D4 -   - D5        D4 -   - D5      note that spacing doesn't matter
16    D2 -   - D2        D2 -   - D3      to tools generates output spacing.
17    D0 -   - D1        D0 -   - D1
18   Gnd -   - Gnd      Gnd -   - Gnd

And some sample outputs:

> bp tstbp

1                                     +5 -34 33- +5
2                                    +12 -32 31- +12
3                                    -12 -30 29- -12
4        +5 -28 27- +5               Gnd -28 27- Gnd
5       +12 -26 25- +12             Irq3 -26 25- Irq2
6       -12 -24 23- -12             Irq1 -24 23- Irq0
7       Gnd -22 21- Gnd             Sel3 -22 21- Sel2
8       Irq -20 19- Sel             Sel1 -20 19- Sel0
9        A7 -18 17- A6                A7 -18 17- A6
10        A5 -16 15- A4                A5 -16 15- A4
11        A3 -14 13- A2                A3 -14 13- A2
12        A1 -12 11- A0                A1 -12 11- A0
13        D7 -10 09- D6                D7 -10 09- D6
14        D5 -08 07- D4                D5 -08 07- D4
15        D3 -06 05- D2                D2 -06 05- D2
16        D1 -04 03- D0                D1 -04 03- D0
17       Gnd -02 01- Gnd              Gnd -02 01- Gnd

> bp tstbp -f1

117.1         +5 -33 34- +5                                     17.1 
216.2        +12 -31 32- +12                                    16.2 
315.3        -12 -29 30- -12                                    15.3 
414.4        Gnd -27 28- Gnd               +5 -27 28- +5        14.4 
513.5       Irq2 -25 26- Irq3             +12 -25 26- +12       13.5 
612.6       Irq0 -23 24- Irq1             -12 -23 24- -12       12.6 
711.7       Sel2 -21 22- Sel3             Gnd -21 22- Gnd       11.7 
810.8       Sel0 -19 20- Sel1             Sel -19 20- Irq       10.8 
9 9.9         A6 -17 18- A7                A6 -17 18- A7         9.9 
10 8.10        A4 -15 16- A5                A4 -15 16- A5         8.10
11 7.11        A2 -13 14- A3                A2 -13 14- A3         7.11
12 6.12        A0 -11 12- A1                A0 -11 12- A1         6.12
13 5.13        D6 -09 10- D7                D6 -09 10- D7         5.13
14 4.14        D4 -07 08- D5                D4 -07 08- D5         4.14
15 3.15        D2 -05 06- D2                D2 -05 06- D3         3.15
16 2.16        D0 -03 04- D1                D0 -03 04- D1         2.16
17 1.17       Gnd -01 02- Gnd              Gnd -01 02- Gnd        1.17

Just in case anyone is interested, and to follow-up on progress:

I've pretty much finished the prototype camera-based controller and it's working well. Attached photo shows what I've done (please don't laugh - I live in a rural area and am a bit mobility challanged - not easy to get out to "Get stuff" - I will rebuild the final devices in better "enclosures"):

I was able to make it evem better than I had first envisions. I thought I would have to run the microcontroller 24/7, but in the updated design the only thing "always active" is a little 10v transformer (little can in center) and rectifier - no electronice other than one ID detector and a CR-2032 solid state relay.

Top left is the main controller - I had some card sets from an RS-232 data-switch I designed many years ago, and just tossed together a little "fake backplane" which gives me the CPU (6809, 8kROM, 48kNVRAM) and one serial card (8x 6551 serial ports). Since the ram is NV, I just have my MON09 debug monitor in the ROM, and modified it to detect a valid application in RAM and auto-start it.

Center is the "power controller" - it uses the IRled to the right of the camera to detect when to turn stuff on (via a CR2032 solid state relay). This turns on an area light as well as the main controller. The controller starts, and it's interface to the power controller is very simple - it just asserts a signal to hold the CR2032 ON (so the camera can do other things), that same signal also lights the LED to the right of the camera which gives visual feedback that the controller is up and active.

Top right is my "server" - a small-form-factor Dell-I5 I got free because it's internal "unobtanium" power supply had failed - as you can see I "grafted" a standard ATX supply to the side, and using the deadPS connector, made an adapter. The only reason I'm showing this is so that you can see the connection I added to it which gives external digital access to the front-panel power button and it's internal 5V active rail (so the main controller can turn on/shutdown, and tell when it's operating) - this connector connects to:

Lower right is the "server controller" - very simple, it can "press" the server power-button, and detect if the server is up.

Lower left is the "camera mount" - It has a couple IR detectors I can point the camera at and "press" by turning On/Off IR "night vision". It also has a couple visible LEDs hanging out behind which provide feedback to the camera, making it possible to selectively perform functions like "turn on the server", control pumps etc.

Once the server is up, I can connect to it remotely with AnyDesk, peruse the local cameras, do other functions (the server can do X10 power control)....

At the end, all I havde to do is "shutdown" the server. The main controller will notice that it has, and will drop it's activation of the CR2032, therby shuting itself down.

The main controller can perform appropriate timeouts etc. and can gracefully shutdown the server and itself as needed (going to have lots of fun writing the controller firmware)

And... yeah, I know this could be done with modern stuff, much smaller... but I just love building stuff out of the 40+ years worth of jun...xxx fine high-quality surplus equipment I already have in my basement!