Another strange z-80 / CP/M box...

From: Julian Richardson <JRichardson_at_softwright.co.uk>
Date: Wed May 13 04:45:00 1998

Ok, whilst on the subject of big old CP/M machines..

I've got an old Philips P3800 machine, in a grey cabinet about 1 metre
deep, maybe 80cm high and 40cm wide. Tracking down any info on it has
proved impossible so far; has anyone got one of these they could share
information about, or know anything about them?

It was damaged in a flood a few years ago, the switchmode PSU in it has
failed and just gives a whining noise when power is applied - I seem to
remember I tried loading the PSU without connecting it up to the system
backplane or drives, so I think it really has failed rather than there
being a short or anything within the system.

The hard drive (I *think* it was a10MB Seagate full-height, sadly my
entire collection is a couple of hundred miles away from me so I can't
check!) controller board went with a bang when power was applied - can I
simply swap in another board from an identical drive in the hope that
this'll work, or are boards calibrated in some way to their respective
motors? I tried this swapping with another identical drive and the drive
span up ok, so maybe it would work... I don't know what state the data
on the drive it in though.

Other info needed:

Tape drive - mine is missing, having been put in another machine years
ago. Anyone know what sort it was, and will the system run without it?

Cabling - what sort of terminal could be connected to the cables hanging
out the back of the machine? Are they RS232 in which case a vt100 could
be used?

Was there the concept of a console, or would the machine silently boot?

What was needed to boot the machine? Would it boot from hard drive, or
was a floppy needed? (I have zero docs and disks for this thing
sadly...)

Phew! That'll do for now I guess! :*)

cheers,

Jules
Received on Wed May 13 1998 - 04:45:00 BST