Floppy drive for Zenith 100

From: Don Maslin <donm_at_cts.com>
Date: Thu Feb 27 19:13:01 2003

On Thu, 27 Feb 2003, Merle K. Peirce wrote:

> Many 820-II's and 820-I's were field upgraded to 16/8's. The external

A field upgrade of an 820-I would amount to a motherboard
replacement, I'd think.

> 5-1/4's were sucky. The DEM-II expansion case was nice, but the big

Boy, were they ever!

> 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.

Yep! Bulletproof and pretty adequate amount of storage.

                                                - don

> 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 At the time the IBM PC came out the Xerox design was hopelessly outdated.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 - 19:13:01 GMT