Televideo TS1603

From: Sam Ismail <dastar_at_crl.com>
Date: Fri Jul 25 01:07:27 1997

I got a nice system for free today from a nice old couple who run a
thrift shop that they are closing down.

Its a Televideo 1603. What's interesting about this system for one thing
is that it was made by Televideo, whom I thought only made terminals. It
has two 5.25" floppies integrated with a green monochrome monitor on a
swivel armature and a detached keyboard. On the back are two DB-25 serial
ports, a D-type connector RS-422 port, a telephone jack for a mouse (which
I didn't get), and two dipswitch blocks. Inside it has an 8088 and a
6502! I was talking to Doug Coward tonight about it and he suggested that
the 6502 was for the terminal operation, and the 8088 was actually the
main processor. This makes sense, but I was wondering if anyone knew more
about it.

When it boots it says on the top line of the screen:

TS-1600/1603/1603H POWER ON DIAGNOSTICS Z2.2

then it says below that:

RAM TEST IN PROGRESS.....

then changes to:

FLOPPY DRIVE TEST IN PROGRESS.....

at which point it turns on the floppy drive for a few seconds, then goes to:

WAITING FOR HARD DISK.....

Inside there is a multi-pin connector which I'd assumed was for a
hard-drive but there was no cable for it. I didn't write down the number
on the WD controller chip. I think perhaps the RS-422 port is where
you'd hook the hard drive to.

Anyway, after it doesn't find a hard drive, it clears the screen and
becomes just a dumb terminal. Doug suggested I try booting an old
version of DOS or CP/M+ on it.

Any information on this would be appreciated.

Sam
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Received on Fri Jul 25 1997 - 01:07:27 BST