followup: Rinky dink hamfest

From: Joe <rigdonj_at_intellistar.net>
Date: Mon Mar 29 11:25:05 1999

At 08:40 AM 3/29/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Joe, CP/M-80 is 2.2,

  I looked throgh the XEROX manuals last night. There's a separate manual
for 2.2, CPM-80 and CPM 86 and MS-DOS 2. 2.2 is the oldest in this bunch.

> and real computers don't need more than 64K...

  Yeah I know but 128K is nice to have.
>
>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.

  I got new manaul and 8" disk with WS 3.3. Also D-Base II and some other
stuff.

> 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.

   Do you know where I can find a copy of that? Do you still have any of
your XEROXs? I think I have the CPU portion of an 820-II here but no
drives (or the controller/daughter board) and no keyboard. The drives and
keyboard should be a problem but the controller is.

    Joe
>
>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 - 11:25:05 BST