>The APC III was not IBM compatible at all in it's original form. It had a
>special version of DOS and the floppy drives are _Quad_ density not double
>density.
>
Not at all??? It's got an AMD 8086 and a Intel 8087 directly on the
motherboard.
About the only thing that I can see that is non-standard is the bus
archetecture. It's got a standard (looking) floppy, and an MFM (or RLL) HD.
>When NEC later saw the error of their ways, they offered a special card
>called an SLE that when installed allowed the machine to run standard IBM
>compatible software. This came with another version of DOS, which I think
>was also specific to this machine for booting purposes. SLE stood for
>Software Library Extender.
>
>I think the special card had it's own 8088 cpu.
>
>APC III's were heavily marketed here in Australia and were once very easy
to
>find. I have a number in deep storage (ie too deep to get out and look at
>easily). NEC also provided financial incentives for software developers
here
>and I have come across several cases of startup companies built on these
>incentives, all now gone though.
>
>I think NEC learned about compatibility the hard way.
>
>To get your machine going the first question is whether you have the SLE
>card or not.
>The second question is whether you have the correct monitor. I don't think
>normal IBM style monitors will work.
>
It's got either an CGA or EGA (made by NEC) on it. It works on an old Tandy
1000, so, I'd say the monitor is standard.
--
-Jason Willgruber
(roblwill_at_usaor.net)
ICQ#: 1730318
<http://members.tripod.com/general_1>
Received on Sat Feb 27 1999 - 00:37:31 GMT