Xerox 820 lives!

From: Merle K. Peirce <at258_at_osfn.org>
Date: Tue Sep 24 08:19:01 2002

The 820, is, I think, my favourite CP/M machine. They can be twitchy
though, often stemming from dirty contacts on various cards.
The floppy drive is a Shugart. So, as a matter of fact is the hard
drive. The little 5-1/4's suck, they cripple the machine.

I might have some Xerox manuals somewhere. They might be buried deep,
though. Want me to look? WordStar runs very nicely on the 820. I used
it for a number of years. Most common printer I've seen with it is the
diablo 620.


On Mon, 23 Sep 2002, Glen Goodwin wrote:

> 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
>
>

M. K. Peirce

Rhode Island Computer Museum, Inc.
Shady Lea, Rhode Island

"Casta est quam nemo rogavit."
              
              - Ovid
Received on Tue Sep 24 2002 - 08:19:01 BST