Imsai Vdp 40

From: Don Maslin <donm_at_cts.com>
Date: Sun Aug 16 19:09:36 1998

On Sun, 16 Aug 1998, Sam Ismail wrote:

> On Sun, 16 Aug 1998, Jack Peacock wrote:
>
> > >Has anybody heard of the Imsai Vdp 40 machine? What is it, and
> > how many have been made?
> >
> > Not sure how many were made, but the VDPs came out in the late 70's,
> > around '78 or '79 as I remember. I bought several to use as special
> > purpose POS terminals in a casino. They were in a "standard" size
> > IMSAI/S-100 case, but they had a short motherboard (8 slot? have to
> > look) and bays for two full height 5.25" floppies. Typically they came
> > with an IMSAI 8085 CPU card, a two board floppy controller (not very
> > reliable), PerSci floppies, and a 64K DRAM memory board. The power
> > supply was scaled down from the big 500 watt version, plus it had an
> > extra regulator board for the floppy power. There was no front panel,
> > just two buttons, RESET and INT (I think this was connected to one of
> > the S-100 interrupt lines), and a power switch.
>
> That's interesting. I've got two of these but always referred to them as
> "turn-key" IMSAIs. I thought the VDP-40 was that all-in-one computer that
> IMSAI came out with in the same timeframe that was so bug-ridden that most
> were returned to IMSAI and hardly any are in existence anymore?
>
> Is my information wrong?

Sam, I think that what you refer to was the VDP-80 which was their
'desktop' model. And 'desktop' is exactly the right expression, as it
virtually covered one! It is reputed to be what put them out of business.

                                                 - don
Received on Sun Aug 16 1998 - 19:09:36 BST