That's fantastic to hear some Poly88 systems are still around ! Yes, the
graphic capability of the Poly88 is what caught my attention. But I think
recall also reading that it wasn't quite "S-100" compatible? Maybe
that's
not quite accurate, or at least no worse than other "S-100" systems in
those very early days. Can't recall if the Poly's had a MicroSoft derived
BASIC.
Well, if you do make it to VCF MW - maybe some room might yet come
available, as some peoples plans change. Or I'll only be there Saturday,
can give up my half-table after that!
-Steve
On Wed, Aug 9, 2023 at 2:16 PM Marvin Johnston via cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
FWIW and as some of you might know, Polymorphic was
manufactured here in
Santa Barbara (also Lobo Drives/Systems, and Street Electronics.) After
Poly had gone out of business, a friend of mine ended up getting all (or
most) of the remaining Poly documentation and most of the remaining
hardware from the person who owned the Polymorphic remains. After he had
sold off some of that "stash", he gave the remaining stuff to me. I
spent a week or so taking the remaining original masters documentation
and putting it in a filing cabinet. That stuff included approximately
200 S-100 boards in various states of being built and maybe up to ten
thousand (WAG) 1/4" and 8" disks of stuff that was being worked on at
Poly when they shut down.
On my to-do list is to scan the remaining documentation (about a four
drawer filing cabinet) as well putting together the remaining Poly88s
(four- six) and other boards. I had planned on bringing some of that
"stuff" to VCFMW, but found out last night the exhibit area was filled.
So at this point, I don't know if I will be attending or not.
I am more concerned with getting the documentation scanned and archived
and will most likely end up buying a high speed double sided scanner. So
this is just a heads up that a lot (most?) of the original Polymorphic
documentation does still exist. Years ago, some highly uninformed
individual said this could not be original since there were no graphics
in the Circa early 1970 docs. He was wrong about this not being original
documentation!!! I also tried to keep any marked diskettes with the
docs. Those disks were primarily system disks. And those disks NEED to
be backed up before they degrade to the point they would be difficult to
read.
FWIW, I would have liked to get this stuff scanned, etc but at that
time, I didn't have enough money to pay attention let alone buy a
scanner to scan this stuff :).
Marvin