Commodore Info

From: Philip.Belben_at_powertech.co.uk <(Philip.Belben_at_powertech.co.uk)>
Date: Wed Dec 24 03:22:35 1997

Adam wrote:

> Someone near Sydney just offered me a pile of stuff, mostly old pc/xt bits.
> But in amongst it all was a Commodore 8296-d and a Sharp 1700. I imagine
> the Sharp is one of the plamtop models they produced, rather than the more
> laptop style Sharp PC-5000 - is this the case? And the Commodore I guess
> to be an 8286 with a typing mistake, and thus merely a MS-DOS clone. COuld
> someone please confirm this for me?

No, 8296 is a very late PET. I have three of them, but one lacks a
keyboard. Good old PET 8000 series architecture, although I'm told some
have a later version of BASIC. 128k of memory, but I think you can only
get at 96k + screen.

The 8296-D was the built in disk drive model. Twin floppies, DSQD, on
the GPIB internally. Uses a later version of the Commodore DOS software
than I have docs for :-( (Commodore disk drives all had a CPU in the
drive unit that ran a system they called DOS and communicated with the
system unit over the GPIB or the later VIC/64 interface)

My advice to you: GRAB IT!!!!!!!

Philip.

PS I once found an 8296D in the skip at work. I asked to buy it and was
told officially no, not safe, PSU is playing up but unofficially I could
grab a few parts if need be. I did and upgraded my (then only) 8296 to
the D spec. It cost me _more_ to do the upgrade than it would have to
repair the original machine. I was not pleased...
Received on Wed Dec 24 1997 - 03:22:35 GMT