Altos 686

From: Dave Dunfield <dave04a_at_dunfield.com>
Date: Fri May 14 20:08:58 2004

>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.

I had several Nabu 1200's, a Canadian built machine which was also an 8086 with 512K
of RAM - 4 serial ports. Also ran Microsoft XENIX. Actually, you could run CP/M 86,
QNX (a Canadian nix-alike) or Xenix - Xenix was the only one of the three which
required an optional external (to the CPU) memory management unit board.

I still have 1/2 of a Nabu - the machine consisted of two parts, a DISK unit which
held the hard drive, WD controller and an 80-track floppy drive, and the CPU unit
which sat on top. I got one of my CPU units back, however the disk unit is remaining
elusive. If you are interested, you can view the CPU unit (inside and out) at my web
page (see sig).

Regards,
Dave--
dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Vintage computing equipment collector.
                http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html
Received on Fri May 14 2004 - 20:08:58 BST

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