Altos 586

From: Allison J Parent <allisonp_at_world.std.com>
Date: Sat Sep 5 10:52:10 1998

< It is not obvious what it is. Has a 5 1/4" floppy and a hard drive, an 8
< cpu and about 6 or so Z80's. There are no obvious monitor or keyboard
< connections, just connections marked port 1, port 2.... to port 6 and a
< number marked as being hard drive expansions and one marked as "Altos ne

Of course ther are no monitor or keyboard plugs... Thats a PC thing. ;)

It expected serial terminals like vt100 or ADM3s and the like.

< The copyright marks on the boards are marked 1982.
<
< Anyone know what this is? A 1982 server perhaps?

No, server is a newer concept. It was an integrated multiuser system
where there was one CPU (Z80) per user and likely ran CP/M, MPM (or clone
like turbodos). The 8086 was likely a local server for disks and such to
the local z80s. They all used the bus as a physically short network to
exchange data.


Allison
Received on Sat Sep 05 1998 - 10:52:10 BST