Recent addition : Lobo MAX-80

From: Fred Cisin <cisin_at_xenosoft.com>
Date: Tue Nov 18 12:48:07 2003

On Tue, 18 Nov 2003, steven wrote:
> Just added two Lobo MAX-80 systems to the collection!
> http://oldcomputers.net/lobomax80.html
> Don't have any real Lobo drives, will try a TRS-80
> drive to see if I can get them working.

It is a TRS80 clone.

The Lobo company started off peddling cheap refurb SA400s
for use on TRS80. First bare drives, then with case and power supply.
Then they decided to make their own TRS80 expansion interface,
and eventually entire computer.

When they built their expansion interface, they provided for
use of 8" drives, and also for "double density". But they
failed to realize that the WD 179x FDC that they used in order
to have double density was incapable of writing certain address
marks that RS had used with the 1771 FDC in the TRS80. Thus,
their machine was incapable of writing disks readable by a stock
TRS80 running TRS-DOS. That is why the Percom Doubler had a spare
socket to plug in the 1771 to have BOTH FDCs present.

So, they had to come up with their own system software.
They bought out VTOS, which was Randy Cook's TRSDOS 3.0 and 4.0.
Randy Cook had written TRS-DOS, but never finished getting it
working; Radio Shack kicked him out and finished it as TRS-DOS 2.3.
Then Randy wrote TRS-DOS 3.0 (never finished) and tried to market
it as VTOS 3.0; he never finished it, and his publisher refused to pay
him. Then Randy wrote VTOS 4.0 , published by Adventure International
Scott Adams; he never finished it, and Adams refused to pay him.

Lobo hired almost every TRS80 assembly language programmer, such as
Roy Soltoff, and put them to work to finish the OS and write a manual.
They got rid of Randy, because he could never finish ANY project.

When done, they had Lobo-DOS 5.0. They started up a separate
company ("Logical Systems, Inc.") to market it, and it became "LDOS 5.0".

Later, after RS made the same mistake (model III), RS bought rights to
sell LDOS, and it became TRS-DOS 6.0. And Randy Cook finally began to
get royalties!


> I think it will load my Osborne CP/M disk? Will see...
NO F WAY. IT is a TRS80 clone
But, ...
if you write a file system handler (most of the disk portion of an OS),
the single density Osborne has the same number of bytes per sector as
Model 1 TRS-DOS, so sectors are easy to read. (We used to repair damaged
Osborne diskettes using Superzap). And the Lobo HARDWARE, if you write
the code, is certainly capable of reading the DD Osborne.


Run LDOS on it.

--
Fred Cisin                      cisin_at_xenosoft.com
XenoSoft                        http://www.xenosoft.com
Received on Tue Nov 18 2003 - 12:48:07 GMT

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