Northstar Horizon

From: allisonp_at_world.std.com <(allisonp_at_world.std.com)>
Date: Tue Nov 2 20:33:30 1999

On Tue, 2 Nov 1999, Bob Stek wrote:

> Define late entry. The N* Product Catalog I have in front of me is dated
> January, 1978 and it says:
>
> "North Star Computers ... was incorporated in June, 1976. ...North Star now
> offers a complete S-100 bus computer."

The MDS-A was available about some 6months earlier. I bought mine MDS-A
in very early 77. The CPU a few weeks later and the box in mid spring
78. They were a mid player in the S100 market with MITS, IMSAI and POLY88
being the early players.

To put some perspective around it. Around the time TRS80s with disk were
becomming common with TRSdos, the NS* ran NS*dos, CPM and UCSD Pascal
P-system. The Apple][ was the other one that ran that pascal!

I paid $799 for the box and I already had the disk system and CPU.

> (I remember reading warnings about using dynamic RAM w/o parity 'cause stray
> cosmic rays were likely to corrupt your memory at admittedly infrequent
> times!)

That noise was on the streets a year later. I was working for NEC then
(upd416 16k dynamic).

Allison
Received on Tue Nov 02 1999 - 20:33:30 GMT