James,
Thanks for all the great background, well if anyone is interested in the
board, please make me an offer, I already have an ATR8000 and an ATR8500 to
run CP/M and some DOS programs on my Atari and I have a custom 8" drive
controller for the Atari, so I would rather not see this board sit and not
be used.
Curt
----- Original Message -----
From: "James M. Walker" <chejmw_at_acsu.buffalo.edu>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Monday, October 06, 2003 8:58 AM
Subject: Re: Whats the big deal with the Bigboard II ???
> The Big Board was a "clone" of the Xerox 820 system! In fact it could be
set
> up to run
> exactly like it and use all the software for the system. There were even
> boards designed
> later to allow use with Shugart Hard drives. There was at the time of its'
> high popularity
> a large following of users, and also a users group and news letter, and
> Bulletin Board
> setup to call into and download programs and leave questions and get
> answers. Quite
> popular actually. The boards were used in a LOT of Amateur Radio related
> projects
> as well! ASCII to anything conversions, there is even a "Modem" program
> specifically for
> the Big Board, with speeds up to 19200 Baud. How do I know, I have two and
> they
> still run, are in use in Radio Apps. The Xerox 820 was another board that
> was highly
> used for various purposes, including terminal node controllers (TNCs) for
> vhf and uhf
> two-way radio systems. These programs also ran on the Big Board system
> requiring only
> a removal of the Eproms and installing the new ones made it a "dedicated"
> controller.
>
> It is a 4 Mhz Z-80 with 2 SIO, 1 PIO and a driver onboard to run most of
the
> "VDTs"
> of the era! Software was abundant and easy to install, making it a Plug
and
> Play type
> microcontroller system with floppy devices, 5.25 and 8 inch for storage. I
> ran CP/M
> and a few other systems.
> Jim
> WB2FCN
> http://eshop1.chem.buffalo.edu
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Curt vendel" <curt_at_atarimuseum.com>
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
> <cctalk_at_classiccmp.org>
> Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2003 10:59 PM
> Subject: Whats the big deal with the Bigboard II ???
>
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > Can someone fill me in on all the interest? I just recently won an
> > auction on Ebay, primarily I wanted just the cabinet with its 8" disk
> drives
> > and power supply so I could install an 8" controller inside of it that
> > allows Atari 8bits using the SIO bus to use 8" disk drives.
> >
> > Well as a bonus the auction came with the Big Board II inside of the
> > cabinet, I couldn't tell from the photo and figured yeah it was some
kind
> of
> > single board computer, but since winning the auction I've received 5
> emails
> > inquiring and wanting to buy it from me, so tell me what the story is
> behind
> > this board please.
> >
> >
> >
> > Curt
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
Received on Mon Oct 06 2003 - 10:42:33 BST