Intellec-mds 800

From: Steven N. Hirsch <shirsch_at_adelphia.net>
Date: Sat Sep 4 14:49:59 2004

On Sat, 4 Sep 2004, Dave Mabry wrote:

> Somehow I missed the original message in this thread, but maybe I can clear up
> a bit of Andy's confusion.
>
> The Intellec MDS 800 is the development system that Intel sold to create
> products on their 8080 and later processors. It was itself based on what
> later became known as the "Multibus" architecture. It ran a 2MHz 8080 cpu and
> was standard with 16K bytes of RAM. You could add more, up to 64K that the
> main cpu (the 8080) could address.
>
> Intel sold a disk-drive subsystem that consisted of two Shugart 801 8" floppy
> drives. They could work as single density or double density depending on
> whether you had the 201 or 202 controller board set. Yes, it was a set of TWO
> multibus board to control those two floppy drives.
>
> Gary Kildall wrote the CP/M operating system for that computer and Intel also
> sold their own called ISIS-II (there might have been an ISIS without the II,
> but I never knew of it).
>
> The system that Steve mentions here with an integrated CRT and keyboard has to
> be the follow-on product from Intel called the MDS Series II, a different, but
> compatible, system from the MDS-800. The 800 needed an external terminal.

Thanks for filling that in. I don't know a lot about this unit. It came
from the local university surplus outlet, and was accompanied by reams of
documentation, diskettes and EPROM burner modules. It has the dual drive
subsystem, but I have not gone into it to see what the controllers are.

It keeps my HP64000 company. Picked one of them up at the same time,
along with probably every bit of documentation, pods and software ever
made for it. Hard to find anyone who's even heard of them (besides you,
Dave <g>).
Received on Sat Sep 04 2004 - 14:49:59 BST