IMSAI News?

From: Tim Shoppa <classiccmp_at_trailing-edge.com>
Date: Sat Jun 15 22:03:04 2002

> > > This last bit was really problematic becuse the Z800 cannot execute the
> > > VGA bios code
> > > in the ISA board's rom.
> >
> > Can't you get a VGA card where the registers are documented well enough
> > to at least put the think into a simple text/graphics mode without using
> > the BIOS ROM code? In other words, ignore the ROM and hit the hardware
> > directly from the Z80? I know I'd have tried soemthing like that if I'd
> > _had_ to use a VGA card with a CP/M machine...
> >
> The obvious solution, here, is to get a mono card. CP/M software didn't
> support graphics unless the graphics were associated with a specific display
> adapter anyway, so the use of a mono card, particularly one of the "short"
> mono cards with two serial ports and parallel port on it would probably be
> just the thing.

In the 80's Compupro sold a S-100 card called "PC Video" which was a
IEEE696 implementation of the IBM-PC video card. That way you could run
code on a Compupro S-100 8088 (or 80286) box which actually hit the
video hardware directly and it would work just like a PC-clone.

It is strangely relevant to the current thread that in the 80's there
were manufacturers trying to make a S-100 box work like a PC-clone; today
there are manufacturers trying to make a PC-clone work like a S-100 box.
Both seem like unnatural acts to me.

Tim.
Received on Sat Jun 15 2002 - 22:03:04 BST