Cromemco Dazzler

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Sat Feb 20 10:54:34 1999

There are supposed to be three of these board sets, though I saw one or two
for the first time in 20 years yesterday. One appears to be complete with
doc's and software, though the others, which I know were "played with" by
my associates, may not be as complete, and some duplicating may be called
for.

I'm pretty certain that I can lay hands on two of these sets more or less
right away, including one set of doc's and software, which I believe I held
in my hands yesterday. The quandary arises out of the fact that there is
at least one other board set, and i don't have a running CP/M box, since
I'm not a collector.

I've had a couple of modest cash offers, but would rather leave $$$ out of
the equation if possible. If you have anything swappable, I'm interested
in single-board computers, preferably small and simple, with documentation
and firmware so I can USE them for something.

If you're a Cromemco addict, you may be interested in the fact that I have
a couple of functional PERSCI floppy drives, which were commonly available
(though EXTREMELY expensive at the time) with the Cromemco systems back
when Computerland used to sell them. These are single-sided (model 277)
drives, of which one is packaged as an external unit complete with power
supply, while another enclosure is in some less-than-functional state and
extensively disassembled. I've recently looked at the power supply and
noted that the regulator circuitry is missing. I also have parts of a
third unit which is useable as parts only. What's probably more
interesting is that I have the maintenance documents for these PERSCI
drives. These are voice-coil-driven rather than stepping-motor-driven
units, (for which provision was made on the later Western Digital floppy
controllers) capable of stepping microseconds rather than milliseconds.

I also have quite a few enclosures, power supplies, cardcages,
motherboards, and other boards, mostly CPU's, FDC's, memory and I/O, some
as yet unassembled, some under repair, some fully functional.

Does this give you any suggestions?

regards,

Dick

----------
> From: Lawrence LeMay <lemay_at_cs.umn.edu>
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu>
> Subject: Re: Cromemco Dazzler
> Date: Saturday, February 20, 1999 9:30 AM
>
> [Charset ISO-8859-1 unsupported, filtering to ASCII...]
> > I was digging throught the pile of "stuff" from days of old, and find I
> > have a board-set (S-100) which is a Cromemco (remember them?) Dazzler
video
> > board set. I don't remember using this for anything. What probably
> > happened is that I read the doc's and determined it was indadequate for
my
> > purpose and set it aside . . . the box (the cardboard box in which it
was
> > pacakged by Cromemco, looks like sh*t but the contents were apparently
> > unharmed by the passage of 20 years, of which most were spent in the
junk
> > pile.
>
> The Dazzler produces a 128X128 resolution color raster image on a color
> monitor, or TV set if you use an RF modulator. It was the second board
> that Cromemco produced.
>
> >
> > Is anyone interested?
> >
>
> Sounds like something interesting to put in this Cromemco computer that
i'm
> upgrading, so i'd be interested in it. Do you have the documentation, or
> any of the software (the game of life, kaleidoscope, dazzle writer)
>
> -Lawrence LeMay
Received on Sat Feb 20 1999 - 10:54:34 GMT