Ethan Dicks wrote:
>
> My sister-in-law works at the Post Office and knows lots of the
> local customers. She happened to learn that one gentleman had
> some "old computers" in the attic. When I called him, it turned
> out to be an XOR S-100 box w/dual 8" drives, a Liberty 100
> terminal, and some loose S-100 cards (including a Cromemco
> serial/parallel card still in the shrink wrap, a few 8K cards
> (2102 and 2114-based) and a couple of SMS video cards, one as
> yet unstuffed with the chips under plastic).
>
> No OS, few docs (some of the cards _do_ have manuals).
>
> He kept the S-100 prototype card he once wrapped for his first CPU
> (sockets intact, chips missing, wires removed).
>
> The sad news is that he mentioned that he used to have an old computer
> that he threw out... his son brought it home ($20 at a yard sale)
> back when Dad had a 386 in the living room - it was a Digital Group
> machine. :-(
>
> So... Anyone have any info on XOR boxen? I have a CP/M disk for
> the C-128 and stuff for the Kaypro, but nothing on 8". Can I mail
> anyone blank disks to be copied onto? What sort of information
> would I have to provide to be able to put together a compatible
> disk? Brand of disk controller? Type and manufacturer of CPU card?
> Serial card vendor?
>
> Also, how did S-100 video cards work? Did you still have a console
> terminal but use the video card as a secondary peripheral?
>
> -ethan
>
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Having once a S-100 computer (1985) I bought a used
VDM-1 video card. Do the bumps one has in life, all
I have today is the dog eared manual. ( no schematic
or pc board). The display is 16 lines of 64 characters.
Writing to a I/O port sets up the video start address
1K of display memory is mapped to 1k of real memory.
CR , VT look to be the only control characters implemented.
The driver program listed is to patch basic. It looks like
you have a TTY ( i/o device and paper tape reader ) as your
main console until you save a patched basic. ( the paper tape
reader still loads basic )
--
Ben Franchuk - Dawn * 12/24 bit cpu *
www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/index.html
Received on Sat Dec 29 2001 - 20:16:19 GMT