> Sam Ismail <dastar_at_ncal.verio.com> wrote:
>
> Oh cool. I didn't think anyone would have ever heard of these, let alone
> work with one as Jim did.
>
I think they're genuinely rair ;)
I also own two. The first was a hand-me-down from the Scottish university
where I worked in the early 80's. (Too bad I wasn't able to inherit the
Perq they had around then too!) I found my second Rair, incredibly, at a
garage sale in Aylmer, Quebec, only a few months ago.
Information about these machines is scarce also, although I'd expect Tony
and other friends in the UK might be in a better position to dig something
up. These rather elegantly styled micros (well, for the time: 1979-81)
originated in England. The earliest models were built using the 8085,
around an idiosyncratic motherboard/bus design (not S-100), and ran CP/M.
Mine has the most complex-looking, overdesigned switch-mode power supply
I've ever seen (although some DEC models perhaps come close). I think, but
I'm not sure, that they put 8086's into their later models.
Around 1981, I recall the British computer conglomerate ICL re-badged the
Rair micros under their own name and sold them that way for a couple of
years, probably because like many other huge computer companies they needed
to get a micro on the market quickly to regain some credibility in the new
marketplace for small computers. Somewhere, I have a reference to a defunct
American company (Drake Micros?) that sold Rair for a while. If anyone is
desperate to know I will dig up that bit of history.
My original Rair machine is I think the original design: dual floppies, 32K
ram, running CP/M v1.4 with a dumb terminal. It runs, and I can supply a
boot disk for this model.
The other machine is a little more recent and is blessed with a hard drive
and is supposed to run CP/M v2.2 --but it won't boot. The hardware design
is quite different from the original model, and my v1.4 floppy won't boot
up this machine. So, if anyone can provide a system disk for this beastie
I'd be very grateful.
Arlen
--
Arlen Michaels amichael_at_nortelnetworks.com
Received on Tue Dec 22 1998 - 09:54:17 GMT