I have a Luggable all-in-one Zenith ZFA 161 with a passive
backplane. Z(enith) F( 48 TPI double sided) A( amber screen ) 161
model 5 (slots) 2 (fdds'). It has an 8088 CPU.
I see yours has a mix of 8 and 16 bit slots. Mine is buried (like too
much of my collection) and I can't remember if I had both types. The
8088 could handle both TMK. What is the processor ?
Zenith had an excellent monitor program to access the BIOS. The
paper tape with the key combination is faded but I can make out
Ctrl _? Ins. The middle key might be delete. That would confirm that
it was indeed a Zenith. Zenith put out it's PC line after the success of
it's Z100 CP/M line started fading.
I was told that the Plus-20 hardcard was drop-in compatable. A NEC
V20 CPU upgrade was common. There was also a CP/M card
available for it to keep the Z100 customers happy.
Apparently there where quite a few passive backplane computers
altho most of them were industrial. I like it's uncluttered look which
makes it easier to work on.
Lawrence
> I ran across an old XT clone with bus board in it instead of a true
> motherboard. I have never seen an IBM PC compatible computer like this
> before. Is this common? I have several XT's, but all the ones I have
> ever seen had an actual motherboard. I just thought this was an
> interesting machine. I have some pictures of it -
> http://24.194.68.104/computerland_xt.html. Does anyone know anything
> about this? Were there other PC's made like this?
>
> BTW - I hope the page will work OK, it's on an old Pentium 166 running
> Linux I use as a webserver.
>
> Ian Primus
> ian_pimus_at_yahoo.com
>
lgwalker_at_mts.net
bigwalk_ca_at_yahoo.com
Received on Sat Nov 30 2002 - 14:12:55 GMT