[cctalk] Re: 5150 cassette (Was: DLOAD BASIC command for Color Comp

On Mon, 30 Jan 2023, Jim Brain via cctalk wrote: The 5150 had a cassette port! Diagnostics were supplied on cassette tape. It was immediately adjacent to the keyboard port, and used the same 5 pin DIN connector, for the added convenience of being able to plug in to the wrong one. THAT mimiced the TRS80 model one, which had Power, video, and cassette in a group of three 5 pin DIN identical connectors. THAT, and the keyboards of the Jr and Coco, were to show that IBM was so big that it didn't have to learn from the misteaks of others. Since the 5150 cassette connector was the same 5 pin DIN as the TRS80, the source of cable for 5150 cassette was Radio Shack TRS80 cassette cable. There was an outfit that marketed a sorta network using the 5150 cassette port, for classroom distribution, etc. Adding 160K (and/or 180K,320K,360K with DOS 1.10 and 2.00) required the floppy disk controller board for about $300, DOS, and standard SA400 interface drives (such as borrowing from your TRS80); power connectors were already built in. So, few ever used the cassette port. It was months before after-market "multi-function" boards were available, so a 5150 consisted of main unit (~$1250), FDC (~$300), video board (~$300), monitor (CGA had compoosite output, so could connect to cheap CCTV, etc. monitors, and CGA even had a dedicated 4 pin Berg for the SupRMod RF adapter), and maybe serial, and/or parallel. The 5160 no longer had the cassette port. The 5150 cassette sorta network immediately disappeared from the market. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com