Terry Yager
Veteran Member
Gotta try running CP/M on it, no bought adoubt it.
--T
--T
patscc said:V40 more than qualifies.
What you want is a Olivetti Prodest PC1.
Ran both MS-DOS, and CP/M
Say thanks to my ex for me not having one anymore.
I suspect it would also have run Windows 1.x (not that it took much), but didn't have a chance to try this out.
yaspc is a new term on me, though.
For some reason, yaspc sounds like something out of a Slackware distribution.
Should anyone have one that needs a home....
patscc
patscc said:Sort of an addendum, since we're on the topic of NEC's V-series.
Why V20 ? Was there a V10 ? What ended up happening to the V-series, anyway ? I seem to remember a V70, altough I'm not at all sure about this. I'm pretty sure there was at least a V50, though.
patscc
Terry Yager said:I went a-googling last night, but couldn't find anything authoritative re: NEC V-series. Even NEC seems to disavow any knowledge of such, although they do have a current product called V850, but no info whether or not it owes it's ancestry to the original V-xx series or not. Actually, I had never heard of the V-40 until last week, then the ref came up in a couple different places at once, which got me intrigued at the prospect of running CP/M on one. (Now I can hardly wait to try it).
--T
Chris2005 said:Somebody could stand to spend some time dissecting a dictionary lol.
Chris2005 said:I'm not familiar with the multibus thing, but just met someone who used to own one. If you read down, you seem to consider the 8086 a kludge, so how is this even relevant? The Victor 9000 packed 1.2 megs onto double density disks, and even the Tandy 2000 used quad density drives. I'm interested to know what you mean by "a reall meg of ram". Light years ahead? I think that's an overstatement.
Chris2005 said:>The S100 crate...
You said it. Many built inside of milk crates lol.
Chris2005 said:>The PC didn't invent crap...
No one said it did, but just did everything the others did faster generally and w/less constraints.
Chris2005 said:>Actually I abandoned "hex pads and toggle switches" by early 1979...
Lol I was actually kidding about that stuff. I never suspected peeps were actually using them as late as 1979!
Chris2005 said:>My running joke for years about PCs is the PDP-8 used to do what PC >users wished for. The only difference is size. That and for security I'll >run VAX/VMS against a PC anytime.
What's the point of comparing a micro w/a mini? Remember, a pc will always fit in yer trunk, a mini never will. You have to drag it behind. VMS only runs on big iron.
Chris2005 said:And I hope you're not talking about the PDP-8 I saw at the MARCH exhibit at the Trenton Computer Fest this past weekend. Because that would indeed be a very big joke. A fascinating early beast, which I'll bet was unparalleled, and smaller than the alternatives (ahem like the PC). Particularly interesting to people, like me, who have a smattering of assembler under their belt. I especially got a kick out of watching the operator load the boot sequence with the toggle switches, whereby the OS? would subsequently be loaded from the paper or mag tape. But this thing definately was your grandaddy's PDP-8 lol. Weighed in at about 600 or so pounds, I help load it back in the truck, I would know. And I know for a fact a Mindset - Y-A-S-P-C - would run rings around it. Prolly even a Peanut lol. Sorry Mike.
Chris2005 said:>Actually the breaking point for me to switch from CP/M as a working >environment full time was 1988, The replacement was an 11/23 with
>RD52 (30mb) disk and RSTS, RT11 and RSX-11....
Yada yada yada. Blah blah blah. Whatever lol.
Chris2005 said:> Remember even the newest PC has two buttons in easy reach power >and reset.
Ok...fine. But in reality that's a good thing. I'd hate to have to wind up that crank up everytime to fire up my PDP-?, like an old Model T.
Chris2005 said:I wasn't suggesting you couldn't get anything done with the alternate platforms. There day was coming to end though. The Apple's graphics were attrocious compared to the pc's. Perhaps a few more colors, and may have had some redemption with hardware sprites like the C64, I'm not sure about that though. I looked at all of these before I bought me first puter. A PC was the only logical choice.
Chris2005 said:TRS-80 means alot of things to alot of people. To some it just meant trash lol. My Tandy 2000 was a TRS-80 - 640 x 480 x 8, with a pallet of 16 colors. The earlier TRS-80's and Coco's had miserable graphics. I happen to have a fondness for both, in particular the Model 3/4, but there was no comparison with any of them.
Chris2005 said:>The 8088 has got a half-assed method of addressing memory, which for the next 10 years had every programmer who had to deal with their segmented memory model cursing IBM and Intel.
The PDP-8 also used segmented addressing I'm told. The 8088 wasn't the first chip to do that. And remember - no one foresaw software requiring a full meg of memory. The original PC mobo had 64k soldered on, and don't quote me but I think you needed a card to advance it any further. As a side point, the original mobo also had a provision for cassette storage. Those were early days. It's always so easy w/20-20 hindsight to point out what could have been done differently.
Chris2005 said:That's business. And if they had come out with the super duper whatever, it probably would have cost 3x more. The PC was something of a bridge between the 8 and 16 bit worlds. There were loads of stuff for cpm and whatnot still floating around. One or two of their attempts to introduce a pc flopped, so they wisely decided on allowing for the use of earlier os's and apps. That trend still continues, because as you know, compatibility is everything.
Chris2005 said:We're talking about 2 entirely different things here. You'd rather boot your computer - manually - then pop in a disk? And plug and play wasn't around in 1981, so you're complaining?
Chris2005 said:>The only reason I got one in the first place is because clones were so >cheap, and I couldn't afford anything better at the time.
That goes for alot of us. If it wasn't economical enough, we wouldn't have one at home, on our desk, etc. All in all it worked out pretty well wouldn't you say?
Chris2005 said:>the PCs were a throw back and took years to get on track. I'd say the >XT and 286ATs really didn't leave the scene till the early 90s.
I don't know, does anyone else see the suggestion of longevity in that?
Chris2005 said:All the development systems, even Intels, came with hexadecimal keypads, even into the mid 80's or beyond I guess. But if you talk to engineers, they'll tell you they rarely designed boards that way. I personally didn't learn assembler that way, though lots of anal college courses insisted on doing it that way. I consider it a waste of time.
Chris2005 said:And with all this talk about how the Intel micros are so terrible, tell me why there's probably still untold thousands of '186's in use out there on sbc's? I can imagine someone will say that it's easy to develop for it, being that you can write code on a stupid pc, but give some credit where it's due at least.
patscc said:Sorry this isn't quoted, doesn't seem to work properly on my browser.
patscc said:If we start comparing aftermarket cards, especially ultra-high end ones that cost more than the base computer, we'll be here for a while. Perhaps we should go back to the S100- MicroAngelo card as a baseline.
patscc said:Actually, I'm probably the wrong person to talk to about early personal and workstations. Perhaps some of the users of these early systems could sched some light on this, you know, the people that did desktop publishing, animation, medical imaging, video editing. Let's see how manyof them used PC's for their work.
patscc said:By the way, if you're talking about the 68000 based beast IBM put out for the scientific market( this was their series 9000 stuff), and ran BASIC, and I think FORTAN, and used a custom mask for the 68000 to mimic the System/370 instuction set, look how many of them were sold, period.
As far as I'm concerned, that was a workstation. I don't think I bungled it since at the time I had no need for a brick that ran a custom OS and mimicked a s/370. I don't recall that particular model being much of a success for IBM, since HP and others at the time were also putting out 68000-based workstations, and anyway, I thougt we were talking about PCs, not workstations.
patscc said:Oh, and I don't think CP/M 80 runs on a 8088. There was CP/M 86 available, but IBM didn't want to pay for it. Go look it up, it's history, as they say. Apps written for CP/M don't run on DOS, so I'm not real sure what you're talking about when you say '...wisely decided on allowing for the use of earlier os's and apps' Perhaps a few examples, and then I might be able to remember.
patscc said:One more thing, what languages did you use ? I'm primarily a C/C++ programmer, with some assembler thrown in( though my 80x86 assembler is rusty these days)In C, on 80x86 architecture, until 80x86 offered linea-mode addressing, you had to worry about near, far and huge pointers. I don't call this this 'transperant'. One of the burdens of segmented architecture isn't just on the programmer, it's on the actual performance of the machine in question, since shfting your base segment address around all the time takes up instructions, which take up CPU time. Why do you think Intel finally introduced flat access to the 80x86 family.
When PC's finally had more than a meg available, because of the way DOS is stuctured, you couldn't even access it until you either linked in a DPMI memory extender lib or loaded an external one.
I've never met a programmer, at assembler level, or C-level, that actually prefers segemted architecture. But then, I'm sure there's one out there somewhere.
patscc said:There's also thousands of other microprocessors and microcontrollers out there on SBC's, at least I hope so, it'd be a shame to think I'd been wasting my time reading 'Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar' all those years ago.
Pull out some SBC's and do a head count, and let's see what you find.
Chris2005 said:>>The PC didn't invent crap...
>No one said it did, but just did everything the others did faster generally and w/less >constraints.
>
Chris2005 said:>>Actually I abandoned "hex pads and toggle switches" by early 1979...
>Lol I was actually kidding about that stuff. I never suspected peeps were >actually using them as late as 1979!
>
Chris2005 said:>And I hope you're not talking about the PDP-8 I saw at the MARCH >exhibit
>Older nearly pre-70s machine. Slow but then the PC was yet to be by 12 >years.
Not a moment too soon though.
>What you dont understand you discard.
If it were possible, I could ramble on about things you never heard of either. From the sound of it though, you've done it all Allison. I'm in deep water here. Help!
>Never had to, Core never forgot on power fail. So craking up often was >turning on the power and hitting run. Often if the system was shut down
>in a clean state a simple power up was to set the restart address in the >switch register, hit load address and then run. That put you right where >you stopped last session.
Whatever lol.
>Yes everyone forgets the Commie thing that could make a PC look >seriously poor especially for graphics. Had a funny name like Amiga.
Somewhere in my response I touched on the Amiga. Came out years after the pc. The 1000 kind of flopped, imagine that. The Amiga probably found it's ancestry in the Mindset, which flopped too, it wasn't it's time. And personally I have an aversions to computers, even in my collecting, that have alot of custom ic's. Too hard to get replacements, and too expensive initially. The whole mobo would have to be replaced. But my Tandy *RIP* I could get back up and running after a memory parity error, or blown capacitor in the power supply - for between 20 cents and 2 dollars. And all of it's ic's were more or less commonly available.
>Chris2005 said:>TRS-80 means alot of things to alot of people. To some it just meant trash lol. My >Tandy 2000 was a TRS-80 - 640 x 480 x 8, with a pallet of 16 colors. The earlier >TRS-80's and Coco's had miserable graphics. I happen to have a fondness for both, >in particular the Model 3/4, but there was no comparison with any of them.
>
>Yep and some of the most incompatable versions too. Though some were far more >creative than big blue.
Yep, it's easy to improve on an original. But compatibility is everything. Funny all those aftermarket graphic cards didn't last long. Must have been expensive to support them all. Come to think of it, economics is everything.
>The COCO was an interesting anomoly as the 6809 was really a bridge cpu between >the 6800 8bitter and the high potential 68000.
Coco's are fun. And cheap if you want to play with the innards. But the original point was that the graphics were pretty lousy, no contest between it and even the cga.
>Right you are the PDP-8 was nearly a hack for addressing more memory
>though it did also do I&D addressing. However for the 8088 to do that many years >later show a lack of creativity or plain understanding history.
Well the 8086/88 came out in 1979. And you said yourself that the only chip that was truly linear back in the day was the 68000.
>Yep, it was cheap. Took a lot of years to get where I was. Good thing I had >all that old clanky stuff running to get useful work done.
Even my highly incompatible 2000 had all the basics, and then some. And 896k of ram to run it in.
>Chris2005 said:>the PCs were a throw back and took years to get on track. I'd say the >XT and >286ATs really didn't leave the scene till the early 90s.
>I don't know, does anyone else see the suggestion of longevity in that?
>
>If it were then I'd say it was eclipsed by the 30+ years of PDP-8, the better than 30 >years of PDP-11 (they are still made!) and the lowly 1802
>chips ca 1976 did get the first rover around Mars. Longevity?
Ok, and I saw a Pro 350 (350 Pro?), which had the PDP-11, at the fest last weekend. The guy wanted 5 bucks for it. I should have grabbed it right then, but figured who else was going to buy that p.o.s. lol, and someone else did. Provided it worked, where would I get any software for it? Or parts? Yet if I had found a pc, and there wasn't a one strangely, I could pull down apps off the net all day long. Longevity means more than just being able to turn something on. I saw one guy scarffing up early copies of Lotus 1-2-3, and would run them on a Pentium, because he felt he could get the job done easier that way.
>Chris2005 said:>All the development systems, even Intels, came with hexadecimal keypads, even >into the mid 80's or beyond I guess. But if you talk to engineers, they'll tell you they >rarely designed boards that way. I personally didn't learn assembler that way, >though lots of anal college courses insisted on doing it that way. I consider it a >waste of time.
>
>Err no. Your thinking of SDKs (single board development kits) those crude >demonstrators. The development systems were all disk based and had ICE.
"SDK" usually mean software development kit I thought. But there's no point in arguing that. The point was that keypads are a tad prehistoric - very collectible though - and a tad anal lol.
>If they were so great why are they outnumberd by Z80s. Actually of the intel cpus >the 8048/9, 8051 class were far more commonly used. Figure there was an 804x >and later the 805x in most every car with electronic controls and those that weren't >were other vendors cpus. I'm talking millions.
Maybe I'm a bit over my head here, but this I do know, the 8048 series was used in most pc keyboards. And was an Intel. If more of them were used then '186/'188's, it must have been because it would have been overkill. The '48 had very very little on board ram and rom. I had thought that auto's used their own chips, but I'd be happy to find out that it did use stock ic's so if one blew, I could replace it. The 186 was used ALOT, that's all I know. Strangely in precious few desktop puters, the T2K being one of them, although the 186 was supposed to drastically reduce the chip count, and yet there's like double the amount as in the original PC.
>Okay, what BIOS calls are you talking about ? Everything video funneled through >call 0x010 on a standard IBM BIOS.
>If you're talking about function 0x00C and 0x00D, well, I don't really call the ability to >read and set an individual pixel "bit-mapped" graphics. To me, bit-mapped graphics >entail some kind of graphics primitives suppoerted by the machine. If to you the >ability to read/set a pixel is all you need advertise "bit-mapped" graphics, then >perhaps you should have worked for IBM way back when. Perhaps you would have >been able to help them turn the series 9000 workstation into a success. Go ahead, >google it. See what a piece of crap it was. See how well it sold. It also wasn't >compatible with the PC. There's more about it further down.
I thought bit mapped graphics referred to the ability to turn each itty bitty pixel on and off, and change it's color if present. Goes hand in hand with the term all points addressable. It's just that. As far as I know, the "primitives" you're referring to weren't built into the machines, but came as kits. Set me strait if you know better. I have a package for the NEC APC III called GSX or something, and it's disked based. Was there that much demand, just to make a few pie charts? Your original words indicated that bit mapped graphics weren't possible, unless presumably you programmed the hardware directly. This simply isn't true. Yeah int 10h or whatever, it's been a while. And let's not talk about the Amiga again (...and again). It came out years later.
You were compaining that they didn't build THE PC w/a 68000. IBM had a couple of earliy flops, and they did make a 68000 based unit. That's all I was saying. I know it was a flop, but that's just the point. Putting one in a computer didn't make a success. And now pc compatibility is a good thing? I think we're going around in circles.
>But, maybe there's there's "secret" BitBlt built into the BIOS that I've been missing >ll these years. If so, please share it with us. At least tell us what routines for for >"producing bitmaps' where actually built into an IBM bios.
>And, of course, call 0x010 functions 0x00C and 0x00D weren't available if you had >an MDA, which is what a lot of the stock "business" PC's at the time shipped with, >since CGA was just plain awful for business use.
Right, whatever. NO you absolutely can't produce graphics on with a card that doesn't support graphics. Irrelevent point. There were options. Many. The original pc was like $3-5000, and many of the advanced options were pricey too. The people/businesses that had the need and the money bought them. And how much did you want to be built into 8k of rom???
>Bit planes weren't even available until EGA, (or PGA, possible, I'll grant you that, >never had to program for a PGA) and that meant any attempt at drawing graphics >usually involved writing in system memory, and then copying to graphics memory >with plain 'ol MOV type code.
>This is incidently the cause of the infamous CGA 'snow' problem.
In all of this, all I keep hearing is IBM, IBM, o God, IBM. There were many stupid pc's remember. And the truth is, I've been told, alot of people didn't understand how to use the bios subroutines, yet this amazes me, because for simple tasks they were simple to use. And the reality is most commercial software didn't use them, because there were slow (The same deal with the C64 and other computers too I'm sure). The main reason why all the "incompatibles" were just that. If software was "well behaved", most everything would run on these machines. It was an absolute no no to do anything of the sort on a Macintosh. Everthing had to use the API's that Apple provided. One of the reasons Macs were slow.
The problem of "snow" was circumventable. You know that.
>It was a interesting card, considereing how much real estate took up, and how much >it cost. I've never seen on used in a business setting, but then I certainly haven't >seen everything. If we're comparing cards at the PGA level, which, if you think about >it, was probably IBM's attempt to give the PC an air of "workstation", go look at >some of the other workstation-class cards available out there.
The EGA also came out in '84. The PGA was loads more powerful, yes took up 2 slots, was in effect a seperate onboard computer, with it's own 8088. Vermont Microsystems had a similar board (x2), with an 80186. But the point is if you needed the power, you had to pay for it. All the high end cad/cam stuff was pricey, regardless of who made it. Tens of thousands of dollars. You needed drivers and support for that stuff too. It's awful stupid to spend money on systems that would be obsolete in a year or two.
>I still stand by what I say, that for many years IBM graphics lagged far behind >almost everything else out there. Of course, after a while, there wasn't that much >else left.
>Macs, Amigas, Ataris (the 16-bitters) had tons of graphics primitives built into ROM, >which all their OS's used.
They all came out years later too, and each had their issues. Each found ia small niche. For some reason I liked the Atari's especially, but it's graphics capability, in terms of resolution, was considerably less than a pc with something like a Sigma 400 (the T2K's were better also, considerably). Many of the clones, lets not forget about them, early on had high resolutions. You didn't have to buy an IBM, but that's all I'm hearing. Many of the semi's were superior. Way better graphics, speed, everything. But people weren't inclined to buy them, alot of times not even full compatibles that didn't have the IBM moniker.
>Okay, so the early Mac's were a bit slow on the video side.
>Of course, the Mac ran a full GUI. Try running a GUI on the PC,XT, or AT, and let's >see how fast it is.
But the mac didn't even have a dedicated CRT controller. And towards the end of 1985 it was $2500. One of those things you'd love to have around, stylish as all hell, but had very limited internal expandability, came with 128k initially, and had to be upgraded to the, look out, Fat Mac just to get to 512k. A very interesting yuppy toy early on, I bought one in the early 90's for 50 bucks, had a ball with it.
>Remember, though, once they actually implemented a seperate video card (I think >Mac II, but I'm not a Mac expert) this changed.
1987, maybe '88. The SE's could accept some sort of card too, not sure about color, but then you'd get a little black and white mini-mi sitting next to a giant color monitor forever.
>When the original PC shipped there was only MDA and CGA. Sure, aftermarket >cards came out, but look at the cards that were coming out at the same time for >Macs and Amigas.
No. Years later. You could buy quite respectable card for pc's by probably 82-83.
The other things excelled in the graphics arena. But it depends on what you were doing. Again, the Amiga used interlaced video in the higher modes. The color macs were expensive, and the stock Apple color card was no better than vga.
>For instance, one for the Apple II that was available was called the Graphics Tool Kit >made by Damco Electronics.
>It did 640x768, and to work with the stock monitor, let you have a 'virtual desktop' of >384 in the vertical.
>Not bad considering how much longer than the PC the Apple II had been around.
I'm not familiar with that card, but if the thing wasn't operating at the monitor's native resolution, it must have had to interleave the video. Not too kind on the eyes. And how many colors could it produce?
>Actually, I'm probably the wrong person to talk to about early personal and >workstations. Perhaps some of the users of these early systems could sched some >light on this, you know, the people that did desktop publishing, animation, medical >imaging, video editing. Let's see how manyof them used PC's for their work.
There were specialized workstations at the time. No one said the pc's were an answer for everything. Tektronix made some. Dazzling. Expensive too. If you needed it, you had to pay.
>By the way, if you're talking about the 68000 based beast IBM put out for the >scientific market( this was their series 9000 stuff), and ran BASIC, and I think >FORTAN, and used a custom mask for the 68000 to mimic the System/370 >instuction set, look how many of them were sold, period.
>As far as I'm concerned, that was a workstation.
>I don't think I bungled it since at the time I had no need for a brick that ran a custom >OS and mimicked a s/370.
>I don't recall that particular model being much of a success for IBM, since HP and >others at the time were also putting out 68000-based workstations, and anyway,
>I thougt we were talking about PCs, not workstations.
You went on about how the pc's didn't use the 68000. Well, they did it. And you didn't even buy one, so where's the argument? You bought a pc you said.
>They also brought out the RT series, but again, I thought we're talking about PC's >here.
I don't know anything anymore. My head hurts lol. The point is if the pc was such a piece of crap, what are you comparing it to? Most of us bought one because it was the most logical, economical choice.
>Oh, and I don't think CP/M 80 runs on a 8088. There was CP/M 86 available, but >IBM didn't want to pay for it. Go look it up, it's history, as they say. Apps written for >CP/M don't run on DOS, so I'm not real sure what you're talking about when you say >...wisely decided on allowing for the use of earlier os's and apps'
>erhaps a few examples, and then I might be able to remember.
There were other OS's availabe for the pc's. Including the USCD p-system previously mentioned. Dos was the most popular. There was some degree of compatibility with earlier stuff, this I remember reading.
>One more thing, what languages did you use ? I'm primarily a C/C++ programmer, >ith some assembler thrown in( though my 80x86 assembler is rusty these days)
>n C, on 80x86 architecture, until 80x86 offered linea-mode addressing, you had to >orry about near, far and huge pointers. I don't call this this 'transperant'
>ne of the burdens of segmented architecture isn't just on the programmer, it's on the >ctual performance of the machine in question, since shfting your base segment >ddress around all the time takes up instructions, which take up CPU time. Why do >ou think Intel finally introduced flat access to the 80x86 family.
>hen PC's finally had more than a meg available, because of the way DOS is >tuctured, you couldn't even access it until you either linked in a DPMI memory >xtender lib or loaded an external one.
>'ve never met a programmer, at assembler level, or C-level, that actually prefers >segemted architecture. But then, I'm sure there's one out there somewhere.
I'm not even a programmer. I do know a little C, and do know that it's a far cry from programming in assembler. You spend alot of time talking about how difficult to program an Intel in assembler, as if you and everyone else were doing it everyday. No, no one is going to prefer a segmented architecture. Such is life. One platform dominated and you had to take the good with the bad.
>There's also thousands of other microprocessors and microcontrollers out there on >SBC's, at least I hope so, it'd be a shame to think I'd been wasting my time reading >'Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar' all those years ago.
>Pull out some SBC's and do a head count, and let's see what you find.
S. Ciarcia published an article for a sbc based on the 8088 in late '82 lol. Of course there were others. But loads of 80186/88 sbc's are still out there. I can't count that high.
>Now you can by a programmable single cpu thats fast enough to do slow >signal processing, with as much or as little IO as needed including USB >and cheap enough to put in toys. For every X86 sold there must be dozens >of PIC and similar micros on a chip stuffed in talking dolls, microwave >ovens, coffee pots, smart chargers for emergency equipment, Tube and >LCD monitors, TV sets, car radios, and the list goes on.
Pics came out years later. Intels don't find themselves in as many sb apps as in the past, but we were talking about the 80's (and 90's) remember. It evidently became very cheap and easy to build a small, single purpose chip *blob* to fill a calculator or a hand held chess game.
>I'm sorry for our PC centric friend as PCs weren't the center of the world, >they were a result of the pressures that had already seen in other parts of >computing. The PC itself was the commercial fall out from that.
I don't know, I just bought a old Sparc at the show this past weekend to play with. I still have my C64, and an sx-64, and plan on firing them up one of these days. I have pieces and parts of macs lying about. If you're talking "pc centric" with regard to everyday usage, who isn't? Remember, this is a collectors forum. I don't give 2 shits what everyone else finds interesting - with regard to my preferences - I'll collect what's interesting to me. Yet I'll show there stuff the respect it's due. You two can go on and on, and I'm sure you will, about how they were these awful miserable pieces of crap. Had their problems, no arguments. But me and other people owned one as our first puter, and for that reason we find it - collectilble. And the next time I run into a pdp-whatever, I'm going to pay the dude, then stomp on it! lmao
Chris2005 said:>
I guess I'll have to discard that, because it don't make a lick of sense. I'm typing on a PCkyboard too you know. But that's hitting below the belt I'm sure. There's really no point expecting an IT pro to know how to type lol.
Chris2005 said:I would like to find one though. In case you haven't noticed, I'm into that sort of thing!
Seriously? worked with quite a few. I have a bunch in the box that I'm not using.
Chris2005 said:Yeah but they were cheap and even punks like me could buy one if they gave up a whopper now and again. Actually I had to wait until the T2K went on clearance. That stupid p.o.s. was pretty pricey early on.
Later on that was true, in 82/83 that was not true. PC did create the idea of toilet tissue computers, use and toss.
Chris2005 said:Ok, I was a bit off, I for one have no problem admitting that. But I'd like to know what the desktop PDP-8 went for. And DEC didn't waste any time coming out with a stupid pc. Problem is you're always giving 'em away. Hold on to one...who knows, maybe you'll fall in love.
Actually their first error was the DECmate, then Robin(Vt180) and then Rainbow. of all the rainbow was by far the most interesting. Never thought badly of it. I don't collect them mostly due to space as they
otherwise do interest me. I fix them and pass them to good homes.
Chris2005 said:If it were possible, I could ramble on about things you never heard of either. From the sound of it though, you've done it all Allison. I'm in deep water here. Help!
Quite possible on both counts.
Chris2005 said:Even my highly incompatible 2000 had all the basics, and then some. And 896k of ram to run it in.
Tandy and DEC the few that decided than 640k was not enough. Where be they now?
Chris2005 said:Ok, and I saw a Pro 350 (350 Pro?), which had the PDP-11, at the fest last weekend. The guy wanted 5 bucks for it. I should have grabbed it right then, but figured who else was going to buy that p.o.s. lol, and someone else did. Provided it worked, where would I get any software for it? Or parts? Yet if I had found a pc, and there wasn't a one strangely, I could pull down apps off the net all day long. Longevity means more than just being able to turn something on. I saw one guy scarffing up early copies of Lotus 1-2-3, and would run them on a Pentium, because he felt he could get the job done easier that way.
Apples and pigs. However the pro was just another marketing disaster
though the Pro380 had the J-11 cpu and with a couple of megs of ram and a NIC it's was a decent DEC biased workstation.
Chris2005 said:"SDK" usually mean software development kit I thought. But there's no point in arguing that. The point was that keypads are a tad prehistoric - very collectible though - and a tad anal lol.
Collectable yes. I have a collection of SBCs and SDKs. Software development hardly. Most of them were so poor for ram as to be
useless.
Chris2005 said:Maybe I'm a bit over my head here, but this I do know, the 8048 series was used in most pc keyboards. And was an Intel. If more of them were used then '186/'188's, it must have been because it would have been overkill. The '48 had very very little on board ram and rom. I had thought that auto's used their own chips, but I'd be happy to find out that it did use stock ic's so if one blew, I could replace it. The 186 was used ALOT, that's all I know. Strangely in precious few desktop puters, the T2K being one of them, although the 186 was supposed to drastically reduce the chip count, and yet there's like double the amount as in the original PC.
Yep, 8048 was in PC keyboards, 8042 is the other side one the motherboard. Most of the early car cpus were 8048/9 but extended temp range as they had to work at -40 to +80. Then it was the 80860 and friends.
Chris2005 said:No. Years later. You could buy quite respectable card for pc's by probably 82-83.
For S100 maybe. Based on the Byte and other mags I still have for the era your about 1.5 and some cases 2 years earlier than intro or availability.
Chris2005 said:>For instance, one for the Apple II that was available was called the Graphics Tool Kit >made by Damco Electronics.
>It did 640x768, and to work with the stock monitor, let you have a 'virtual desktop' of >384 in the vertical.
>Not bad considering how much longer than the PC the Apple II had been around.
That capability was featured in September 1982 Byte. One problem then was finding a monitor that could handle 640x480 or better!
In the middle of the article there's an IBM ad with Charlie C kicking his cane. Danged if a 360k floppy wasn't an option by then. In '82 I was running losely coupled Z80s and 5mb hard disks.
Chris2005 said:I'm not even a programmer. I do know a little C, and do know that it's a far cry from programming in assembler. You spend alot of time talking about how difficult to program an Intel in assembler, as if you and everyone else were doing it everyday. No, no one is going to prefer a segmented architecture. Such is life. One platform dominated and you had to take the good with the bad.
C is nice. It's close to the metal but not too close. That is until you run
into an application that starts pressing addrssing large arrays. Then you pray to the compiler dogs to hopefully manage it for you. If not you get
real close to the metal again.
Chris2005 said:Pics came out years later. Intels don't find themselves in as many sb apps as in the past, but we were talking about the 80's (and 90's) remember. It evidently became very cheap and easy to build a small, single purpose chip *blob* to fill a calculator or a hand held chess game.
PICs are a revisit of the GI CP1600 devices. they are old.
As to calcs, yes they were easy and cheap. However there was a growing market for the "programable calcs" and there were few chips for that.
Chris2005 said:I don't know, I just bought a old Sparc at the show this past weekend to play with. I still have my C64, and an sx-64, and plan on firing them up one of these days. I have pieces and parts of macs lying about. If you're talking "pc centric" with regard to everyday usage, who isn't? Remember, this is a collectors forum. I don't give 2 shits what everyone else finds interesting - with regard to my preferences - I'll collect what's interesting to me. Yet I'll show there stuff the respect it's due. You two can go on and on, and I'm sure you will, about how they were these awful miserable pieces of crap. Had their problems, no arguments. But me and other people owned one as our first puter, and for that reason we find it - collectilble. And the next time I run into a pdp-whatever, I'm going to pay the dude, then stomp on it! lmao
Me it wasn't my first, not even close by 10 years. The result is I had a base to compare it to and was disappointed. I expected better knowing the technology. Are the pre 386s collectable, your bet. Some were pretty interesting and unique.
It's your money, waste it how you may. But while your doing that I'll be scoping something worth putting effort into to understand.
Allison
Chris2005 said:>Seriously? worked with quite a few. I have a bunch in the box that I'm >not using.
I'll have to do some research. I don't suppose you have pics? I know you just want to find out where I live anyway . I'll ask my friend Sam, he's giving me some Epson thingees wif both '88's and z80's or 8080's...not sure.
Chris2005 said:Computers like the Rainbow created alot of solidarity though back in the day (i.e. user groups). And others like it...TI Pro, Victor 9000, and the T2K even had a newsletter called the Whimper. The dude that owned the PDP-8/e (oops) ACTUALLY OWNS THIS RARE RARE COMPATIBILITY CARD FOR THE TI PC THAT I SWORE MUST HAVE BEEN VAPORWARE! BUT...NOT FOR SALE!!!
Chris2005 said:That thing was remarkably similar in appearance to the Rainbow, as is the Decmate II (a feller wants to send me one). It would have been worth buying it for the drives if nothing else.
Chris2005 said:I think only AT's had the '42 on the motherboard. Something else handled it on the PC/XT's...8255 or something.
Chris2005 said:>For S100 maybe. Based on the Byte and other mags I still have for the >era your about 1.5 and some cases 2 years earlier than intro or >availability.
Omg omg omg. I have Bytes from '83. I guess I'd have to go through them again. But then again maybe not...
Chris2005 said:>PICs are a revisit of the GI CP1600 devices. they are old.
I don't know what those are. But PIC apps were popular starting maybe 10 years ago.
Chris2005 said:Most of us spend very little on vintage puters. My newer honey (T2K) was free, well sort of. I had to pay shipping and handling, and buy some other junk. Most of this stuff gets given to me .
I don't know if any of it is a waste of time though. I remember some programming problems for the C64, who's video memory was layed out really strange, which I would implement in 6-10 lines of of assembly, later reading could be accomplished in 2 using "weird" logic. They say most software these days is awfully bloated. Learning on difficult systems might actually be a good prep for producing tighter code.