My new toys: Apollo and Osborne 1

From: Olminkhof <jolminkh_at_nsw.bigpond.net.au>
Date: Sun Oct 31 06:55:11 1999

Wouter de Waal wrote:


>The 3500 has the following:
>
>9988 rev 3 memory card (no idea of it's size)
>3com ethernet card
>9016 (RGB video adaptor)
>WD7000 scsi/hdd controller

The WD7000 is an ESDI controller

>tape drive
>unknown
>
>Unfortunately I don't have the RGB cable or the monitor.
>
>Questions:
>
>* Can I use the mono display adaptor in the 3500? Can I run one
> of these boxen without a display card, or do they check like
> peecees?
>
>* How ISA compatible is the ISA bus? Can I stick a VGA card in
> there and expect it to work (OK, I know I'll have to write
> the code (port the VGA BIOS) but I mean electrically? Or
> an IDE controller?
>

The bus is completely incompatible with the PC ISA bus. Nothing is likely to
work.

>* Where can I find memory maps, circuit diagrams, whatever?
>
>* How rare are these beasts? I gather they're common? Any
> objections to me ripping out all the cards and the boot
> rom, sticking vmebug in the socket, and an IDE drive in
> the bay, and playing with the thing?
>

I have one I found complete in a dumpster. There were many color monitors
with it but I only took one because they are so huge. It didn't have a
monitor cable with it but I have one from a Decstation that works OK. They
run a unique OS called Domain which I don't have. Mine has a 300meg ESDI
drive and a tape drive. I've had mine up as far as looking for something to
boot from.

Hans
Received on Sun Oct 31 1999 - 06:55:11 GMT

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Fri Oct 10 2014 - 23:32:35 BST