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Cordata Turbo XT Clone with Apple Bridge Board (Discussion)

Junk Junkie

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Jan 7, 2012
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East Tennessee
Does anyone remember this machine? This was my very first real computer. I was in highschool and we used Apple II's. I knew nothing of a PC except that they existed and they were expensive. We didn't own any computer, few families did. This was 1987 and I was 17. I was working part time at a convenience store and I managed to save about $500. I heard of a salavage store that sold some computers among other things. I found my way there with my cash in hand hoping to find any sort of apple clone that I could afford. I explained to the salesman that I was looking for an affordable apple clone and he tried with all his might to talk me into a PC. When I wouldn't budge he showed me something I will never forget. He described it as a PC that ran Apple programs too. It was brand new and only $300. Certainly I was intrigued.

It was a Cordata PC Clone with approx. 512K memory, Dual 360K Floppy Drives, Hercules Graphics and an Amber Monochrome Monitor. Plugged into one of the 8bit bus sockets was what was called a bridge board. it connected to one of the floppies with an adapter and allowed a PC floppy drive to read and write Apple programs. The machine would naturally boot into PC mode, but with a special disk, it could be booted into an Apple II and for all practical purposes, it ran and acted like an Apple. For many months I used it exclusivley for Apple II purposes. At some point though I found myself with a PC program that I needed to run. I think it was for keyboarding class in college. Thats when I first began to use the machine as a PC and I purchased a Gorrilla Bannana Dot Matrix Printer ( remember those). Thats when I pretty much abandoned Apple and began using this machine as a total PC. I rogued all the memory off of the Apple Bridge Board and updated the PC memory to 640k and added a 10mb mfm hard drive and 720k 3.5" floppy drive. Having a PC was much more practical. Apples in those days had their place, but certainly PC's were more widely used and far more software was available.

Today I think about that machine very often. I wish I had never sold it. Back in those days I was very young and quickly discarded things that had no purpose. I would probably trade my whole collection today for that machine, just the way it was, an apple and a pc.
 
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Cordata PC's were-for a time-quite common here in Greece in the early nineties.I have never heard the combination of a cordata pc with an apple II card.I'll try to find my old greek computer magazines and scan some ads from cordata pc's..
 
I would be interested in any ads or articles about cordata in general. A google search reveals littlte informat about cordata computers. Some information about a Cordata portable can be found, in my experience. I check eBay often for this machine. I've only found listings for the keyboard and maybe a manual. I'm thinking that perhaps this machine was not very popular or successful and that is why it ended up at a salavage store. I don't know, but thinks for your help.



Gary Fletcher
 
I seem to remember, cordata used to be corona systems. My dads first computer for his accounting practice back in the early 80s was a mostly PC compatible Corona.

I think they were sued by IBM for the BIOS..

As for an Apple II on a card, the only thing I could find was this.. http://www.applelogic.org/Trackstar.html
 
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Cordata PC's were-for a time-quite common here in Greece in the early nineties.I have never heard the combination of a cordata pc with an apple II card.I'll try to find my old greek computer magazines and scan some ads from cordata pc's..

I have an A+ back issue (a prominent Apple II magazine at the time) from the 1980s that has a multi-page review of the Cordata Bridge, along with reviews of other utilities, boards, and such that would allow Apples and PCs to run each others' programs. I'll see if I can find that issue, if you're interested.
 
Thanks! My company Calibre Industries Inc. was the original designers of the WPC Bridge dual platform system. Suffice it to say, Our dealings with "Cordata" and the Daewoo group left a bad taste in my mouth. There was a difference between the "trackstar" board and the board in the WPC bridge, The "Trackstar" was designed and built by "Diamond Computer Systems". The early WPC bridges ( all in 1 system with built in monitor ), contained our board which you could consider "Heavily modified" clone of the "Trackstar" and propritary software that we developed for the system. After Cordata/Daewoo forced us to have to sue them ( a process that lasted 8 years ) for reverse engineering our hardware and software , they tried to use "trackstar" boards as a replacement. We were a small company and it incapable of manufacturing the product ourselves so we teamed up with Cordata. In retrospect, I'm glad the product was built and from reading some of the comments I'm glad that you got the use out of the machine the way I intended it :) -Lenny
 
This is Awesome information!!!! Thanks so much for sharing. Sorry so late responding. I loved this Cordata computer and the WPC Bridge Board was the heart of it for me. I'm looking for this computer or even the board. You happen to have a prototype around?
 
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