Altos 686

From: Scott Stevens <sastevens_at_earthlink.net>
Date: Fri May 14 19:40:53 2004

On Tue, 11 May 2004 13:15:56 -0600
"Bill Machacek" <bmachacek_at_pcisys.net> wrote:

> I just noticed I have an Altos 686 (without a cover) PC in my stack of 'old computer stuff'. It's s model 25A with one 5 1/4 inch floppy drive and a Seagate ST225 hard drive. Is this one of Altos computers that people are interested in or something that needs to be scrapped? Thanks for any help you can give me.
> Bill Machacek
>

I once had an Altos 586. It was called that because it used an 8086 processor and had five serial console ports. Mine ran Microsoft Xenix (from before SCO) in 512K of RAM. I passed it on to someone in Florida who wanted it more. I imaged the OS installation floppies as best I could at the time, but have no idea if they were even 'legit' images.

My 586 ran _Microsoft_ Xenix as indicated all through the binaries. It was a pretty impressive box, with support for five users on dumb terminals, with an 8086 processor and only 512K of RAM. Sometimes I wish I had held onto it just as concrete evidence that _Microsoft_ produced an authentic Unix port. So many people try to hand credit off to SCO. (deep hatred of Microsoft can lead to that kind of thing)

Does your machine have a bunch of DB25 jacks on it for multiple terminals?

I also once had an Altos 580, which was in a case identical in some respects to the 586, except it was an 8080 machine with similar terminal ports, and ran CP/M.
Received on Fri May 14 2004 - 19:40:53 BST