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Xerox 820 boards

falter

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 22, 2011
Messages
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Just a curiosity... why would Xerox sell the 820 motherboard separate of the full computer? My understanding is the 820 and 820-II are just reorganized Ferguson Big Board I and II boards... I'm curious why they'd be potentially competing against the original design.
 
The 820 was a commercial failure and the bare boards were available very cheaply as surplus. I've got a few partially built boards myself. Hobbyists were obviously interested in cheap BigBoard implementations (IIRC the 820 was even a *licensed* implementation), but probably found something prebuilt before they finished assembling them!
 
I'm curious why they'd be potentially competing against the original design.
I was the head technical person at DRC "back in the day" and yes the Xerox was a fully licensed design.
Their idea was different markets. We (DRC) sold to hobbyist while the 820 was sold to their client base with was medium to large companies.
And, yes, the Kaypro was a complete rip off but the lawyers wanted tons of money up front to sue them, so that didn't happen.
Although we did sell a good chunk of big boards, we didn't get rich on them.
 
I was the head technical person at DRC "back in the day" and yes the Xerox was a fully licensed design.
Their idea was different markets. We (DRC) sold to hobbyist while the 820 was sold to their client base with was medium to large companies.
And, yes, the Kaypro was a complete rip off but the lawyers wanted tons of money up front to sue them, so that didn't happen.
Although we did sell a good chunk of big boards, we didn't get rich on them.
Very cool to have you here. I have both an 820 and a Big Board II. I've never gotten around to using it unfortunately. I keep hoping to find the original Big Board but they're quite scarce.
 
We were a lean operation with just 5 of us full time folks. If you called with a technical issue about any of our products, not just the bigboard, you talked to me. Sometimes I might be at lunch or in a meeting so the secretary would take a message and I'd return the call.

I'll admit that the names of you fine folks out there who talked to me are gone from my memory (I was always bad a remembering names) but at the time, I could remember the issue you were having so even if it took several back and forth phone calls I'd get you going as quickly as I could. Most times it would be a simple 'IF this, THEN that' type of call.

I designed several S-100 boards as well as a memory card for the Southwest Tech 6800 machine. I did not design any part of the Big Board nor our ZRT-80 terminal board but I knew them inside and out and could handle any "black magic" (my term for when a board acts opposite from what it should be doing) that arose. Sometimes a big customer would need a special hookup or such and I'd dive into it.

I wrote the article "Big Board Fixes that appeared in Micro Cornucopia #9 page 8.

I hope that this helps and as a new member, I am sure that I should get beat with a wet noodle for hijacking this thread. IF so, please guide me to the correct place/method.
 
We were a lean operation with just 5 of us full time folks. If you called with a technical issue about any of our products, not just the bigboard, you talked to me. Sometimes I might be at lunch or in a meeting so the secretary would take a message and I'd return the call.

I'll admit that the names of you fine folks out there who talked to me are gone from my memory (I was always bad a remembering names) but at the time, I could remember the issue you were having so even if it took several back and forth phone calls I'd get you going as quickly as I could. Most times it would be a simple 'IF this, THEN that' type of call.

I designed several S-100 boards as well as a memory card for the Southwest Tech 6800 machine. I did not design any part of the Big Board nor our ZRT-80 terminal board but I knew them inside and out and could handle any "black magic" (my term for when a board acts opposite from what it should be doing) that arose. Sometimes a big customer would need a special hookup or such and I'd dive into it.

I wrote the article "Big Board Fixes that appeared in Micro Cornucopia #9 page 8.

I hope that this helps and as a new member, I am sure that I should get beat with a wet noodle for hijacking this thread. IF so, please guide me to the correct place/method.
I should have added that I became an outside consultant as of June 1985 so I no longer handled the regular technical issue calls, only the rare tuff dog type that Jim would ask me to to handle.
 
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