Terak 8510

From: Frank McConnell <fmc_at_reanimators.org>
Date: Sun May 12 21:19:11 2002

John Foust <jfoust_at_threedee.com> wrote:
> Congratulations on saving them, and be sure to find the other
> collector while the trail is still hot! He may decide to trash it.
> Where was this?

Thanks, my pleasure, and if I get tired of it (which is possible,
I have to admit my interest is pretty much derived from seeing an
"8510" prompt somewhere in UCSD Pascal for the Apple ][ and wondering
what it was 20+ years ago) I will pass it along to someone else who
will appreciate it.

Anyway, this was at Foothill College, Los Altos Hills, CA. I know who
the other collector is and don't think he's likely to trash it. I
just don't know him well enough to say too much about who he is.

> Yes, it's a bit old-style, but it's mono composite. I think
> someone else contacted me about wanting to build a compatible
> keyboard, but I never heard if they did it.

It doesn't look hard, but then I'm a software guy and would be
thinking about how to change the encoding of an existing keyboard with
parallel output, or how to front-end a keyboard with another processor
running my code, even if that other processor is newer and faster.

What I'm curious about is that this doesn't seem to have quite the
same arrangement as the 8510/a machines that you have described on
your web pages and the manuals in the ITDA. This one has the "terak"
name plate at the top front, both disk drives in the one box
(something which I guess was made possible by the introduction of
half-height 8" drives), and the serial card and distribution panel
appear to be different. Guess I should try to take some pictures,
next weekend perhaps.

-Frank McConnell
Received on Sun May 12 2002 - 21:19:11 BST