Doug Yowza wrote:
> On Wed, 4 Mar 1998, Russ Blakeman wrote:
>
> > Well they called it the "Silver Box" but most of us that ownedd them
> > started to call them the "Silver Junk Box" after we really found out
> > what clunkers they were. They made a PCJr look to be 100% compatible.
> > Sanyo didn't even put an ALT key on it.
>
> Ouch. As former editor of some San Diego Sanyo MBC newsletter who's name
> escapes me, I must protest. I thought the Sanyo keyboard was much better
> than the klicky IBM keyboard, and it had that one key that lights up.
> Plus the silver box was very cool looking in a cheap stereo kind of way.
It's all in what you like I guess, hence people search forever for parts for
the Rambler they own...The newsletter is still out - Sanyo PC Hacker's
Newsletter - and it never says a thing about the Sanyo anything. I don't know
why Victor Frank even publishes it anymore. The "First Sanyo Opus BBS" is
still online in Pennsylvania too and it has just a few 55x specific files on
it, otherwise they're invisible. Soft Sector magazine is gone but Falsoft
Publishing is still very alive out this way in the Louisville area. They
nearly went under with the demise of the magazine, but only due to the way
they did the subscribers. They decided overnight to dump the magazine which
was the bible of the 55x machines and suddenly Sanyo owners were getting a
Tandy 1000 series support publication. I remember myself and thousands of
other subscribers calling Falsoft and demanding a refund of the remaining
prepaid subscription. We got them too.
> It was a welcome challenge trying to get the Sanyo to do things the other
> PC's could do. And it was pretty hackable. I remember porting KERMIT to
> work with the non-standard serial ports (8251?) after Sanyo sent me the
> source of their BIOS.... OK, I also remember running away from the Sanyo
> as fast as I could once the cheap clones from Taiwan got off the boat.
Like the first thing you had to do was to modify the power supply to keep it
from tripping under the load of two floppies and the optional CGA video
card/memory. Then hacking the joystick port to bring the Apple port out to
the back so you could use an IBM 15 pin sub-d. Then dealing with the 8251
UART instead of the 8250 for the optional and very expensive serial
port...and the list goes on. I did learn a lot with the machine though. By
seeing what the IBM did and trying to get the "box" to do that taught me that
I too needed to sell mine as quick as possible.
I remember seeing articles in the SPCH newsletter with your name in the past.
I don't remember specific things but that's good as if I did it would mean
that I strongly disagreed with the article or was overly impressed. Mostly
disagreed with were the ones I remember.
Take care Doug.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Russ Blakeman
RB Custom Services / Rt. 1 Box 62E / Harned, KY USA 40144
Phone: (502) 756-1749 / Data/Fax:(502) 756-6991
Email: rhblake_at_bbtel.com or rhblake_at_bigfoot.com
Website:
http://members.tripod.com/~RHBLAKE/
* Parts/Service/Upgrades and more for MOST Computers*
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Received on Thu Mar 05 1998 - 08:08:03 GMT