JonnyGators
Experienced Member
I have an ebay saved search for Computerland BC88 computers, and every now and then I get an alert. Well, this month I got 2 back to back hits.
First one has arrived today. It's an 8088 model - the seller didn't know which it was, but seeing it has 2 floppy drives in the picture made me think it was likely a no hard drive 8088, and I was right. And it's in great condition. It also came in it's original box - although it was taped up quite a bit and isn't in the greatest of shape, but still very cool to have that.
Unfortunately, the video card in it isn't working. Just makes the CGA monitor do a flickery white screen thing. But I have a spare EGA card kicking around that works in it, and it booted right up from a floppy boot disk.
What's also cool about this one - the speed led works on it. Which seems to suggest that the speed led not working on my other one, or ones I've seen videos of, isn't a missing driver or software issue. It lights right up green when turning it on, and when I use the cp84 command to put it in fast mode, it changes to amber. Now I'm going to have to dig a little deeper to see if I can figure out why that doesn't work on my other one.
The next one is arriving Friday, and that one has an internal hard drive. I'm hoping that still has an original installation on there - would be nice to get a copy of ComputerLand DOS 2.11. I'm still looking for the original binders and disks. I may have to do a live stream this weekend playing around with both machines.
Here are some pictures.
First one has arrived today. It's an 8088 model - the seller didn't know which it was, but seeing it has 2 floppy drives in the picture made me think it was likely a no hard drive 8088, and I was right. And it's in great condition. It also came in it's original box - although it was taped up quite a bit and isn't in the greatest of shape, but still very cool to have that.
Unfortunately, the video card in it isn't working. Just makes the CGA monitor do a flickery white screen thing. But I have a spare EGA card kicking around that works in it, and it booted right up from a floppy boot disk.
What's also cool about this one - the speed led works on it. Which seems to suggest that the speed led not working on my other one, or ones I've seen videos of, isn't a missing driver or software issue. It lights right up green when turning it on, and when I use the cp84 command to put it in fast mode, it changes to amber. Now I'm going to have to dig a little deeper to see if I can figure out why that doesn't work on my other one.
The next one is arriving Friday, and that one has an internal hard drive. I'm hoping that still has an original installation on there - would be nice to get a copy of ComputerLand DOS 2.11. I'm still looking for the original binders and disks. I may have to do a live stream this weekend playing around with both machines.
Here are some pictures.