IBM 5120 (was Re: My First S-100 System)

From: Scarletdown <SecretaryBird_at_SoftHome.net>
Date: Tue Oct 15 01:31:01 2002

On 14 Oct 2002 at 10:28, Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) wrote:


> It all seems rather elaborate for a dumb terminal!
>
> Y'all seem to be moving from building a terminal, into building a
> network server!
>

The idea did just start out as a terminal for the Cromemco. It's
only natural that it is increasing a bit in scope. I figure that
since I have the old components, I might as well see what kind of
weirdness I can concoct with them. All part of the learning
experience. :)

> Why not XTs with serial ports?
>

This is being built with parts I have readily available. I have a
buttload of 486-33 CPUs, and several 486 motherboards and assorted
video cards, drive controllers, etc., due to my packrat nature. The
surprisingly few 8086, 286, and 386 boards are being saved for future
projects (systems to run classic video games and RPGs from the eras
when those particular systems were top of the line.) The 486 boards
are the most versatile workhorses, and easiest to accumulate at this
time.

> If you are THAT hung up on avoiding MS-DOS (I don't think that
> MICROS~1 really got truly evil until about 3.00), why not just write a
> trivial terminal emulation program and put it in the bootstrap?
>

I don't really have anything against MS-DOS. That and Windows for
Workgroups 3.11 are examples of Microsoft's better products (Windows
98 Lite - Internet Excreter eradicated from the system - is also an
excellent OS, and is the farthest I plan on going here at home in the
Windows realm.)

Biggest reason I don't want to use MS-DOS for this project is simply
due to a lack of login/password type security. This is the same
reason I have vetoed FreeDOS, and one of the reasons I decided
against CP/M-86. Additionally, I have plenty of systems running MS-
DOS and the MS-DOS/WfW 3.11 combo; and I am trying to gain experience
points with a variety of different and often obscure operating
systems.

-- Scarletdown
Received on Tue Oct 15 2002 - 01:31:01 BST

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