Les Berry wrote:
> >Is it possible to somehow slap a CGA or any standard monitor into
> >one of those?
>
> Yup, just set switches 5 and 6 to on dipswitch 1 to disable the video
> controller.
Not a viable option on the earlier 6300s. Angry customers caused
that to change with a major motherboard revision. I don't know what
the numbers are on the two varieties (the WGS series is a different
and more PC compatible situation), but I know that a non-trivial
number of 6300s which _couldn't_ accept video cards came in for
service when I was at a long-time AT&T retailer in the late 80s.
>Was the thing designed for UNIX or was it just a plain "enhanced" PC
> >clone?
The 6300 ran MS-DOS. The 6300+ ran Unix and the first DOS-under-Unix
product, DOSMerge 1.0. Which worked fine, if slowly, as long as you
just did DOS system calls, not hardware calls (as mentioned earlier in
this thread about the 6300 video subsystem). Of course, if you held
yourself to DOS calls instead of hardware calls, performance sucked on
all straight PCs and clones, which is why most software never ran on
superior equipment like the Tandy 2000, the original TI Professional
or the AT&T (original) 6300 series. DOS-under-Unix products can trap
those vectors nowadays, but early efforts and systems relying on MS-DOS
alone didn't have that ability.
> I think it was just meant to be an enhanced PC clone. I have to admit tho,
> the 6300 case design is still one of my favorites (looks real purdy sittin' next
> to a 3B2) and not a bad overall machine for it's age.
Hmm? It must be the contrast between the white 3B2 cases and the black
fronts of the 6300s, because I've always thought the 6300 was as ugly
as party politics. The 7300 (and 3B1), now that's another story.
--
Ward Griffiths
Dylan: How many years must some people exist,
before they're allowed to be free?
WDG3rd: If they "must" exist until they're "allowed",
they'll never be free.
Received on Wed Mar 04 1998 - 02:41:41 GMT