Floppy drive for Zenith 100

From: Merle K. Peirce <at258_at_osfn.org>
Date: Thu Feb 27 12:19:00 2003

Many 820-II's and 820-I's were field upgraded to 16/8's. The external
5-1/4's were sucky. The DEM-II expansion case was nice, but the big
8 inch drives ruled. 980K each. I always thought one of the 8inch 16/8's
would be interesting, but in the end, they'd still only be DOS. The
820's with the big 8inch Shugart rigid drive nice.

On Wed, 26 Feb 2003 Innfogra_at_aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 2/26/03 7:21:26 AM Pacific Standard Time,
> rigdonj_at_cfl.rr.com writes:
>
>
> > Correct, XEROX made a model 8/16 that had two CPUs, one 8 bit and 16 bit. I
> > THINK one was a Z-80 and the other was a 8086 but I'm not sure any more. I
> > used to have the docs for an 8/16 and I've been looking for one but haven't
> > managed to find one yet.
> >
> >
>
> Xerox made a couple of 8/16s. I have one of the 8086 second CPU boards for my
> Xerox 820-II. I was going to install it till a house fire melted the 820.
>
> The original 820 came with dual 8" floppies or an 8" floppy and an 8"
> harddrive and ran CPM. It was a spendy little computer for its time. Then
> they fit Dual 5 1/4" floppies in an external case, came out with a low
> profile keyboard and the add on 8086 Board. They called it the Xerox
> 820II-8/16.
>
> IIRC the design was taken from the Z80 Big Board which was a popular kit at
> the time. It was mounted flat, underneath the CRT and looked much like a
> terminal.
>
> At the time the IBM PC came out the Xerox design was hopelessly outdated.
> They redesigned the case to a rectangular shape with a separate monitor ala
> the IBM PC. They used dual 5 1/2" half height floppies oriented horizontally.
> I never saw an actual one but IIRC they used the same Big Board coupled with
> the 8086 board that was in the 820 and sold it as the Xerox 8/16.
>
> It ran CPM, CPM-86 and MS-DOS ( IIRC to 2.11). However it was not IBM
> Compatible, and did not have IBM graphics.
>
> By the time it was ready the bottom had fallen out of the crossover market. I
> don't think Xerox sold any commercially. A liquidation company sold the
> remainder for about three years. I doubt they sold many, I bet most were
> scrapped for the drives.
>
> The Xerox 820 II was my second computer system and still one of my favorites.
> (The first was State Surplus Litton 1251 that I bought for $25.00) I have had
> almost all of the various models of the 820 go through my hands over the
> years. Besides my original melted one I still have another packed away with
> all it's SW. Someday it will run again.
>
> Paxton
> Astoria, OR
>

M. K. Peirce

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

"Casta est quam nemo rogavit."
              
              - Ovid
Received on Thu Feb 27 2003 - 12:19:00 GMT