followup: Rinky dink hamfest

From: Merle K. Peirce <at258_at_osfn.org>
Date: Mon Mar 29 07:40:53 1999

Joe, CP/M-80 is 2.2, and real computers don't need more than 64K...

The 820, at least the later ones, used big 984K discs. I hardly ever ran
out of space. There was an 8 meg rigid drive available too, but I neever
filled that up either. WordStar on the 820 just grinds along, and works
very satisfyingly. At least 3 word processing packages were avialable
plus business graphics, multiplan, quite a few programming languages.
XWP wasn't so great, apparently a primitive WordStar, WordStar was superb
if cryptic, and there was another nice one, a bit glitzy and modern for
my taste, but put WordPerfect to shame, but hey, even a blank screen does
that. Don Maislin may remember the name, he likes that particular
programme. Ran very well on 5-1/4 inch drives.

There was a memory expansion available for the 16/8, but I've never seen it.
The DEM-II is interesting because the card rack is very like the NEC APC-II.

Incidentally, Hyperion's DOS 1.25 runs circles around the Xerox DOS 2.0.

On Mon, 29 Mar 1999, Joe wrote:

> Merle,
>
> At 10:24 PM 3/28/99 -0500, Merle wrote:
> >The 16/8 is an interesting machine. It came in 2 versions, the earliest
> >with 8" Shugart drives, a later with a DEM-II expansion case housing
> >5-1/4 inch drives. The CP/M-86 is not bad, but the MS-DOS is...well
> >MS-DOS.
>
> Not surprising considering it's only ver 2.0 . At least that's what I
> got in this load.
>
> > Incredibly primitive compared to CP/M 2.2.
>
> I don't know that much about CPM but this machine only has CPM-80 and
> CPM-86. How do they compare to CP/M 2.2?
>
> One problem is that
> >many were shipped with 128K memory. With the dinky drives, the machines
> >are disappointing. The old 8" 820-II is a far better and more usable
> >machine.
>
> Better than the 16/8? I thought it was newer. How much memory did the
> 820-II have?
>
> Thanks for the info.
> Joe
>
> >
> >On Sun, 28 Mar 1999, Joe wrote:
> >
> >> Today I went to see a couple of the people that I meet at yesterday's
> >> hamfest. One of them used to service XEROX computers. He told me that he
> >> threw out three rooms full of old XEROX computers less than a year ago. :-(
> >> He gave me part of the stuff that he had left, I have to take a Truck
> >> (note capital) back to get the rest (estimated at two cubic yards but no
> >> complete machines). So far I've found lots of docs and 8" flopppy disks
> >> for the 820 and 16/8. The 16/8 looks pretty interesting, it ran CPM,
> >> CPM-86 and MS-DOS. Does anyone have one of these? What's your opinion of
> >> them?
> >>
> >> He has a floppy disk drive control box to manual operate 3.5", 5.25" and
> >> 8" drives during alignment. Anyone have an idea of what one of these is
> >> worth with the alignment disks and manuals?
> >>
> >> Alos found a Lisa mouse to go with the Lisa that I got yesterday.
> >>
> >> Joe
> >>
> >>
> >
> >M. K. Peirce
> >Rhode Island Computer Museum, Inc.
> >215 Shady Lea Road,
> >North Kingstown, RI 02852
> >
> >"Casta est qui nemo rogavit."
> >
> > - Ovid
> >
> >
>
>

M. K. Peirce
Rhode Island Computer Museum, Inc.
215 Shady Lea Road,
North Kingstown, RI 02852

"Casta est qui nemo rogavit."
              
              - Ovid
Received on Mon Mar 29 1999 - 07:40:53 BST