I am thinking....
Please correct me if I'm wrong:
The old
Bridge Connector was the short cheap version of the original never released
Expansion Motherboard.
But the Bridge doesn't have the line protection circuits that the Expansion Motherboard got planed. It was intended for only one expansion card, the EXDOS controller.
Later, on the 90's, the great Gyula Mészáros released his Bus Expansion card and his superb expansion cards line. For it he followed the EXDOS schematics, adding some line protections, slightly different to the lost original project. Due to the lack of original schematics, Mészáros didn't correctly use the expanded pins on the Bus, SA0, SA1, SA2, +12v and -12v. On all the five slots of the expansion card, SA0 was fixed to +5v and SA1 and SA2 to ground. +12v and -12v where left unconnected (Now is too late to re-implement the SA 3 bit code on the cards, I think, only the original EXDOS card and an external memory expansion card, never released, use it. Also, it seems that no card uses the +12v and -12v lines).
----------
Now that the EPNET time is approaching, I would like to additionally connect to my EP the two cards I own: Pear's Spectrum emulator clone and Microteam EXDOS clone. In fact, my Microteam card, supplied by Zozo, has an extra expansion bus, similar to the short one that the EPNET card has.
But I will love an Enhanced Bridge Connector with line protections, i. e. like the EXpansion Bus card but with only one slot. Why? because I would like to have al the cards encased and stacked horizontally like the
original concept design....
Not so neat, but with some sort of flexible cable and connectors, I would have well organized the desktop....
I was only dreaming...
