Xerox 820 lives!

From: Glen Goodwin <acme_ent_at_bellsouth.net>
Date: Mon Sep 23 17:43:00 2002

Greetings to all --

About a year ago, Joe Rigdon very kindly gave me a number of old machines
(thanks, Joe!), among them a Xerox 820. At the time he gave it to me, the
unit didn't power up, but today I finally found the time to give it a
second look. After I reconnected a loose lead inside the box it came to
life! This is my only machine with 8" disk drives, so I'm interested in
finding a good use for it.

I could use some help from the list members, though. I found *no*
technical data via Google, and have *no* real docs for this beast. After
poking at the 820 for a bit, here's where I'm at:

--> The "B" drive is faulty. Disk initialization fails, and it will not
consistently read disks created on the "A" drive. Any pointers on
replacement drives? Even if a thorough cleaning revives this drive, I'd
like to obtain a spare.

--> Assuming I can't revive the "B" drive or find a replacement, how can I
duplicate diskettes? The CP/M utilities all seem to want two drives in
order to do their job.

--> Two of the boot diskettes which I have boot up a pretty normal looking
version of CP/M 2.2, with a normal "A>" prompt, but another diskette
displays the following upon boot:

"Good Day! ZCPR 2.04 SYSTEM READY"

and the prompt is "A0>" (obviously user group 0). What is this "ZCPR"?

--> Some of the utilities on the boot diskettes (FMT, for example) refer to
hard disk drives. What's involved in attaching a hard drive to this
system?

--> The flimsy "User Manual" which I have states that the RS232 port may be
configured to attach to a terminal or to a modem. How?

--> Lastly, does anyone have any documentation on this thing? If you can
part with it, I'd be glad to pay a fair price.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. Although this system
doesn't appear to be special or unique, it does seem to be a sort of nice,
friendly critter, and I'd like to put it into use.

Later --

Glen
0/0

If I am not for myself, then who will be for me?
And if not now, when?
-- Pirkei Avot
Received on Mon Sep 23 2002 - 17:43:00 BST