Hyperion (was: Re: This Week's Haul)

From: Doug Yowza <yowza_at_yowza.com>
Date: Mon Aug 17 02:41:42 1998

On Mon, 17 Aug 1998, Doug Spence wrote:

> Did the Hyperion beat Compaq's intro? And if so, how come Compaq
> generally gets the credit?

According to my arm-chair research, yes, Hyperion was first. Compaq gets
the glory because they're American, were much more PC-compatible, and
because they kicked the Hyperion's butt in terms of market success.

It may be more complicated than that. The Hyperion was intro'd in 1982 by
Dynalogic, but Dynalogic was then acquired by Bytec. My manual was
published by Bytec in 1983 (rev 4).

> > I don't see a lot of technical details in the manual, but here are a few
> > tidbits: there's a built-in RAM disk (C:);
>
> Do I need to specify something in the config.sys to get this running?
> Just booting up bog-standard MS-DOS and typing "c:" doesn't get me
> anywhere.

This is probably a feature of their version of MS-DOS. In those days, DOS
was tweaked for each machine.

> How fast is the modem? 300 baud?

Damn, you made me get out of my arm chair. 300 baud.

> > display modes: 320x200, 640x200, 320x250, 640x250.
>
> Are the x250 modes normal for the PC?

Nope. The Hyperion was special (thus its downfall).

-- Doug
Received on Mon Aug 17 1998 - 02:41:42 BST