6 Jun
2023
6 Jun
'23
5:28 a.m.
Hi:
Doing some research for historical purposed – no litigation at all – trying to identify
the first “legal” PC-DOS compatible PC, “legal” in the sense that it’s BIOS was not a copy
of an IBM BIOS. Eagle gets the honor of being first MS-DOS compatible and getting sued
for copying IBM’s BIOS 😊
The Compaq Portable which shipped in November 1982 is generally credited with the first
legal MS-DOS compatible PC. AFAIK it could not run PC-DOS and those applications which
depended upon certain IBM BIOS commands would fail.
The first “legal” BIOS is generally considered to be from Phoenix which was announced in
May 1984 and so far I have been unable to determine its first system deployments. FWIW
Wikipedia points to HP, Tandy and AT&T as some time adopters of a Phoenix BIOS but my
research so far is that Tandy’s T1000 family announced in October and November of 1984 was
the first system to be PC-DOS compatible and it did not use a Phoenix BIOS! Such PC-DOS
compatible HP and AT&T systems were much later and the Tandy BIOS was written by
programmers of Tandon Corporation, the OEM supplier of the first Tandy T1000s.
Can anyone identify a PC-DOS compatible PC announced earlier than October 1984? Citations
would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Tom
6 Jun
6 Jun
6:03 a.m.
On 6/5/23 22:28, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote:
Can anyone identify a PC-DOS compatible PC announced
earlier than October 1984? Citations would be greatly appreciated.
That's a tricky one,I think. For example, if a single programmer read
the IBM PC BIOS listing (or even disassembled it) and then wrote a new
one from scratch, that derivative BIOS in the view of the IBM legal
beagles would not have been legal.
If, on the other hand, the same programmer never saw any of the code,
but read the API description and wrote a BIOS, that would be legal.
Both ERSO and Phoenix resorted to a "clean room" method where one team
read the PC BIOS and wrote a description, which served as a
specification for a derivative BIOS. I think that the descriptions were
cleaned up a bit and published as the Phoenix BIOS books.
But I think the first "clean room BIOS" was in the Columbia MPC-1600,
June 1982.
--Chuck
11:25 a.m.
There were a articles in the more technical journal-type mags 1981/82 that
discussed porting IBM DOS to non IBM 8088 systems that go into the
mechanics of it. DOS v 1.25 was the OEM version for the early ports.
*indirectly* from these you might find references to IBM BIOS porting and
who did it, there. I have only print copies no scans.
Bill
On Tue, Jun 6, 2023, 2:03 AM Chuck Guzis via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
On 6/5/23 22:28, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote:
Can anyone identify a PC-DOS compatible PC
announced earlier than
October 1984? Citations would be greatly appreciated.
That's a tricky one,I think. For example, if a single programmer read
the IBM PC BIOS listing (or even disassembled it) and then wrote a new
one from scratch, that derivative BIOS in the view of the IBM legal
beagles would not have been legal.
If, on the other hand, the same programmer never saw any of the code,
but read the API description and wrote a BIOS, that would be legal.
Both ERSO and Phoenix resorted to a "clean room" method where one team
read the PC BIOS and wrote a description, which served as a
specification for a derivative BIOS. I think that the descriptions were
cleaned up a bit and published as the Phoenix BIOS books.
But I think the first "clean room BIOS" was in the Columbia MPC-1600,
June 1982.
--Chuck
2:22 p.m.
On 6/6/23 04:25, Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote:
There were a articles in the more technical
journal-type mags 1981/82 that
discussed porting IBM DOS to non IBM 8088 systems that go into the
mechanics of it. DOS v 1.25 was the OEM version for the early ports.
*indirectly* from these you might find references to IBM BIOS porting and
who did it, there. I have only print copies no scans.
I was there, doing just that. Initially, we at Durango didn't think
that strict 5150 compatibility at the BIOS level was necessary for the
Poppy. In fact, as OEMs, DOS 1.25 was delivered with only a sample
IO.SYS meant as a "skeleton". MS-DOS text mode, like CP/M, was
considered to be good enough.
In fact, MSDOS was never intended to be the ultimate target, but rather
an interim goal as we waited for Intel to complete the kernel for Xenix
on the 80286. Right from the first unit, we had sockets for both the
80186 and the 80286. Console I/O was done via serial connection.
It's a shame that few know about the early 80286 systems.
--Chuck
3:08 p.m.
On 6/6/2023 10:22 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
On 6/6/23 04:25, Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote:
As much as these writings are appreciated, I often find myself
frustration by the assumption that the audience knows everything you're
talking about. Just what are you talking about? I searched this
entire thread for mentions of "Poppy" and "Durango" and these words
don't occur before. What is Poppy and Durango? Not everyone was
"there" and knows what you're talking about
There were a articles in the more technical
journal-type mags 1981/82 that
discussed porting IBM DOS to non IBM 8088 systems that go into the
mechanics of it. DOS v 1.25 was the OEM version for the early ports.
*indirectly* from these you might find references to IBM BIOS porting and
who did it, there. I have only print copies no scans.
I was there, doing just
that. Initially, we at Durango didn't think
that strict 5150 compatibility at the BIOS level was necessary for the
Poppy. In fact, as OEMs, DOS 1.25 was delivered with only a sample
IO.SYS meant as a "skeleton". MS-DOS text mode, like CP/M, was
considered to be good enough.
In fact, MSDOS was never intended to be the ultimate target, but rather
an interim goal as we waited for Intel to complete the kernel for Xenix
on the 80286. Right from the first unit, we had sockets for both the
80186 and the 80286. Console I/O was done via serial connection.
It's a shame that few know about the early 80286 systems.
--Chuck 
3:37 p.m.
Chuck mentioned he world at Durango and there was a Poppy computer. I
quick Google search turned up a mention here:
https://www.nytimes.com/1983/11/30/business/sperry-introduces-personal-comp…
"Still later, they designed a 80186/80286 based 16-bit system, the Durango
"Poppy"; MS-DOS was selected as the entry operating system."
It didn't take much to find that.
The Sperry PC or the Zenith H-150 might have been early Phoenix customers
if the first Phoenix BIOS was released in May 1984. That said, it is not
exactly the answer to the topic title as there were a few manufacturer's
like Dynalogic that had a decent amount of DOS compatibility already.
Santo
On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 11:08 AM js--- via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
On 6/6/2023 10:22 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
As much as these writings are appreciated, I often find myself
frustration by the assumption that the audience knows everything you're
talking about. Just what are you talking about? I searched this
entire thread for mentions of "Poppy" and "Durango" and these words
don't occur before. What is Poppy and Durango? Not everyone was
"there" and knows what you're talking about
On 6/6/23 04:25, Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote:
> There were a articles in the more technical journal-type mags 1981/82
that
> discussed porting IBM DOS to non IBM 8088
systems that go into the
> mechanics of it. DOS v 1.25 was the OEM version for the early ports.
> *indirectly* from these you might find references to IBM BIOS porting
and
who did
it, there. I have only print copies no scans.
I was there, doing just that. Initially, we at Durango didn't think
that strict 5150 compatibility at the BIOS level was necessary for the
Poppy. In fact, as OEMs, DOS 1.25 was delivered with only a sample
IO.SYS meant as a "skeleton". MS-DOS text mode, like CP/M, was
considered to be good enough.
In fact, MSDOS was never intended to be the ultimate target, but rather
an interim goal as we waited for Intel to complete the kernel for Xenix
on the 80286. Right from the first unit, we had sockets for both the
80186 and the 80286. Console I/O was done via serial connection.
It's a shame that few know about the early 80286 systems.
--Chuck
4:14 p.m.
On 6/6/23 08:08, js--- via cctalk wrote:
As
much as these writings are appreciated, I often find myself
frustration by the assumption that the audience knows everything you're
talking about. Just what are you talking about? I searched this
entire thread for mentions of "Poppy" and "Durango" and these words
don't occur before. What is Poppy and Durango? Not everyone was
"there" and knows what you're talking about
That's funny--I typed in "Durango Poppy Computer" into my Google search
bar and this was the first hit:
https://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/998/retro-scan-of-the-w…
--Chuck
5:12 p.m.
I remember running SCO Xenix on a generic 286 with 1MB main RAM and an
Intel Above Board with 4MB of RAM. The Above Board board cost $4000
with the 4MB of RAM on it at the time.
The Above Board was populated with 256K x 1 DRAMS so it had 128 chips on
it. 64 on the main board and 64 on a daughter board.
Now a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W has a lowly 512MB
On 6/6/2023 9:22 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
On 6/6/23 04:25, Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote:
There were a articles in the more technical
journal-type mags 1981/82 that
discussed porting IBM DOS to non IBM 8088 systems that go into the
mechanics of it. DOS v 1.25 was the OEM version for the early ports.
*indirectly* from these you might find references to IBM BIOS porting and
who did it, there. I have only print copies no scans.
I was there, doing just
that. Initially, we at Durango didn't think
that strict 5150 compatibility at the BIOS level was necessary for the
Poppy. In fact, as OEMs, DOS 1.25 was delivered with only a sample
IO.SYS meant as a "skeleton". MS-DOS text mode, like CP/M, was
considered to be good enough.
In fact, MSDOS was never intended to be the ultimate target, but rather
an interim goal as we waited for Intel to complete the kernel for Xenix
on the 80286. Right from the first unit, we had sockets for both the
80186 and the 80286. Console I/O was done via serial connection.
It's a shame that few know about the early 80286 systems.
--Chuck
7:35 p.m.
On Tue, Jun 06, 2023 at 07:22:21AM -0700, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
On 6/6/23 04:25, Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote:
Yep. Dynalogic expected the BIOS route to be the way it would go too. :-(
...
There were a articles in the more technical
journal-type mags 1981/82 that
discussed porting IBM DOS to non IBM 8088 systems that go into the
mechanics of it. DOS v 1.25 was the OEM version for the early ports.
*indirectly* from these you might find references to IBM BIOS porting and
who did it, there. I have only print copies no scans.
I was there, doing just that. Initially, we at Durango didn't think
that strict 5150 compatibility at the BIOS level was necessary for the
Poppy. In fact, as OEMs, DOS 1.25 was delivered with only a sample
IO.SYS meant as a "skeleton". MS-DOS text mode, like CP/M, was
considered to be good enough.
In fact, MSDOS was never intended to be the ultimate target, but rather
an interim goal as we waited for Intel to complete the kernel for Xenix
on the 80286. Right from the first unit, we had sockets for both the
80186 and the 80286. Console I/O was done via serial connection.
It's a shame that few know about the early 80286 systems.
I remember getting a ton of 286 manuals from Intel.
--Chuck
--
db(a)FreeBSD.org db(a)db.net http://www.db.net/~db https:/@Octodon.social/@Dianora
5:55 p.m.
Chuck: Thanks but AFAICT the Columbia MPC-1600 was not PC-DOS compatible
MS-DOS and PC-DOS
Because PC-DOS and MS-DOS share the same origins, the quest for a compatible operating
system isn’t formidable. To successfully emulate PC-DOS, we at Columbia Data Products
(CDP) provided a second BIOS and modified the MS-DOS source code. MS-DOS requires its own
BIOS to provide a well-defined interface between the operating system and the hardware and
peripherals. On the PC or a compatible, however, the PC MS-DOS BIOS uses the ROM BIOS and
its existing low-level drivers. Therefore, the machine independent part of MS-DOS resides
in RAM with the tailored MS-DOS BIOS. The resulting operating system behaves like PC-DOS.
Because the same level of documentation is not made available for the PC-DOS BIOS
Technical Aspects of IBM PC Compatibility
Byte November 1983
This article was written by staffers at Columbia Data Products Inc.
https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1983-11/1983_11_BYTE_08-11_Inside_…
Apparently Columbia like Compaq did independently develop their BIOS but with the
objective of MS-DOS compatibility and a I think a proprietary version thereof.
And the article referenced says they both did a very good job
This is also confirmed at History - Who were the first engineers to
<https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/5855/who-were-the-first-engineers-to-cleanroom-the-ibm-pc-bios>
"cleanroom" the IBM PC BIOS? - Retrocomputing Stack Exchange
I seem to recall the critical tests were some games that made extensive use of the IBM PC
video BIOS calls.
Still looks like Phoenix or Tandon as the first with a PC-DOS compatible BIOS
Tom
-----Original Message-----
From: Chuck Guzis <cclist(a)sydex.com>
Sent: Monday, June 05, 2023 11:03 PM
To: Tom Gardner via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Subject: [cctalk] Re: First non-IBM PC-DOS Compatible PC
On 6/5/23 22:28, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote:
Can anyone identify a PC-DOS compatible PC announced
earlier than October 1984? Citations would be greatly appreciated.
That's a tricky one,I think. For example, if a single programmer read the IBM PC BIOS
listing (or even disassembled it) and then wrote a new one from scratch, that derivative
BIOS in the view of the IBM legal beagles would not have been legal.
If, on the other hand, the same programmer never saw any of the code, but read the API
description and wrote a BIOS, that would be legal.
Both ERSO and Phoenix resorted to a "clean room" method where one team read the
PC BIOS and wrote a description, which served as a specification for a derivative BIOS. I
think that the descriptions were cleaned up a bit and published as the Phoenix BIOS
books.
But I think the first "clean room BIOS" was in the Columbia MPC-1600, June
1982.
--Chuck
12:58 p.m.
On Mon, Jun 05, 2023 at 10:28:26PM -0700, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote:
Hi:
Doing some research for historical purposed – no litigation at all – trying to identify
the first “legal” PC-DOS compatible PC, “legal” in the sense that it’s BIOS was not a copy
of an IBM BIOS. Eagle gets the honor of being first MS-DOS compatible and getting sued
for copying IBM’s BIOS 😊
The Compaq Portable which shipped in November 1982 is generally credited with the first
legal MS-DOS compatible PC. AFAIK it could not run PC-DOS and those applications which
depended upon certain IBM BIOS commands would fail.
The first “legal” BIOS is generally considered to be from Phoenix which was announced in
May 1984 and so far I have been unable to determine its first system deployments. FWIW
Wikipedia points to HP, Tandy and AT&T as some time adopters of a Phoenix BIOS but my
research so far is that Tandy’s T1000 family announced in October and November of 1984 was
the first system to be PC-DOS compatible and it did not use a Phoenix BIOS! Such PC-DOS
compatible HP and AT&T systems were much later and the Tandy BIOS was written by
programmers of Tandon Corporation, the OEM supplier of the first Tandy T1000s.
FWIW I worked at a company here in Ottawa. Dynalogic. We produced a
IBM look alike which had a BIOS not copied from the original IBM PC.
In fact we used different UARTs and graphics card.
Although I was not on the Bios team Don Bailey was.
http://www.sce.carleton.ca/faculty/bailey/bailey_bio.shtml
https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/collections/show/7
Can anyone identify a PC-DOS compatible PC announced earlier than October 1984?
Citations would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Tom
--
db(a)FreeBSD.org db(a)db.net http://www.db.net/~db https:/@Octodon.social/@Dianora
5:22 p.m.
Thanks but I'm pretty sure the Hyperion was not PC-DOS compatible.
Wikipedia says,
"However, incompatibility with the IBM PC was a concern for buyers, since many
programs of the time made direct calls to the system ROM, and the video display and serial
port used different integrated circuits than the IBM PC."
FWIW I remember as a PC clone user in the 1980s and into the 1990s acquiring machines that
only ran PC-DOS and only using PC-DOS up to and including at least version 5.
Tom
-----Original Message-----
From: db <db(a)db.net
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2023 5:58 AM
To: t.gardner(a)computer.org; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Cc: Tom Gardner <tom94022(a)comcast.net>
Subject: Re: [cctalk] First non-IBM PC-DOS Compatible PC
On Mon, Jun 05, 2023 at 10:28:26PM -0700, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote:
FWIW I worked at a company here in Ottawa. Dynalogic. We produced a IBM look alike which
had a BIOS not copied from the original IBM PC.
In fact we used different UARTs and graphics card.
Although I was not on the Bios team Don Bailey was.
<http://www.sce.carleton.ca/faculty/bailey/bailey_bio.shtml>
http://www.sce.carleton.ca/faculty/bailey/bailey_bio.shtml
<https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/collections/show/7>
https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/collections/show/7
--
<mailto:db@FreeBSD.org> db(a)FreeBSD.org <mailto:db@db.net> db(a)db.net
<http://www.db.net/~db> http://www.db.net/~db https:/@Octodon.social/@Dianora
Hi:
Doing some research for historical purposed no
litigation at all trying to identify the first legal PC-DOS compatible PC, legal in
the sense that it s BIOS was not a copy of an IBM BIOS. Eagle gets the honor of being
first MS-DOS compatible and getting sued for copying IBM s BIOS ??
The Compaq Portable which shipped in November 1982 is
generally credited with the first legal MS-DOS compatible PC. AFAIK it could not run
PC-DOS and those applications which depended upon certain IBM BIOS commands would fail.
The first legal BIOS is generally considered to be
from Phoenix which was announced in May 1984 and so far I have been unable to determine
its first system deployments. FWIW Wikipedia points to HP, Tandy and AT&T as some
time adopters of a Phoenix BIOS but my research so far is that Tandy s T1000 family
announced in October and November of 1984 was the first system to be PC-DOS compatible and
it did not use a Phoenix BIOS! Such PC-DOS compatible HP and AT&T systems were much
later and the Tandy BIOS was written by programmers of Tandon Corporation, the OEM
supplier of the first Tandy T1000s.
Can anyone identify a PC-DOS compatible PC announced
earlier than October 1984? Citations would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Tom
5:54 p.m.
On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 1:23 PM Tom Gardner via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
Thanks but I'm pretty sure the Hyperion was not
PC-DOS compatible.
I don't want to get off-topic here but the Dynalogic Hyperion is MS-DOS
compatible. I do have one or two of them.
I have run up to MS-DOS 5.0 on it as well as the Hyperion branded MS-DOS
2.11. There are some extra configuration commands in that particular
version. I have only tried PC-DOS 3.3 on this but not other versions and
it works okay. There are varying degrees of MS-DOS compatibility. It is
NOT one of the few early computers that ran a customized version of MS-DOS
1.25 and could only run that. Those had horrible compatibility. Without
those specific boot disks, the computer will not run. I have an STM
Personal computer that is like this and I don't have the correct MS-DOS
1.25 for it to boot. It's a paperweight without it, unfortunately.
Saying that, the Hyperion is not 100% MS-DOS compatible but it is
relatively high. Dynalogic used to have compatibility lists of
out-of-the-box MS-DOS software that would run without issues. You can see
an example here:
https://vintagecomputer.ca/files/Dynalogic%20Hyperion/compatibility/Hyperio…
Now, if you stated, "100% PC-DOS compatible", then you would be accurate.
Santo
FWIW I remember as a PC clone user in the 1980s and
into the 1990s
acquiring machines that only ran PC-DOS and only using PC-DOS up to and
including at least version 5.
Tom
-----Original Message-----
From: db <db(a)db.net>
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2023 5:58 AM
To: t.gardner(a)computer.org; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic
Posts <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Cc: Tom Gardner <tom94022(a)comcast.net>
Subject: Re: [cctalk] First non-IBM PC-DOS Compatible PC
On Mon, Jun 05, 2023 at 10:28:26PM -0700, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote:
FWIW I worked at a company here in Ottawa. Dynalogic. We produced a IBM
look alike which had a BIOS not copied from the original IBM PC.
In fact we used different UARTs and graphics card.
Although I was not on the Bios team Don Bailey was.
<http://www.sce.carleton.ca/faculty/bailey/bailey_bio.shtml>
http://www.sce.carleton.ca/faculty/bailey/bailey_bio.shtml
<https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/collections/show/7>
https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/collections/show/7
--
<mailto:db@FreeBSD.org> db(a)FreeBSD.org <mailto:db@db.net> db(a)db.net <
http://www.db.net/~db> http://www.db.net/~db
https:/@Octodon.social/@Dianora
Hi:
Doing some research for historical purposed no
litigation at all
trying to identify the first legal PC-DOS compatible PC, legal in the
sense that it s BIOS was not a copy of an IBM BIOS. Eagle gets the honor
of being first MS-DOS compatible and getting sued for copying IBM s BIOS ??
The Compaq Portable which shipped in November
1982 is generally credited
with the first legal MS-DOS compatible PC. AFAIK it could not run PC-DOS
and those applications which depended upon certain IBM BIOS commands would
fail.
The first legal BIOS is generally considered to
be from Phoenix which
was announced in May 1984 and so far I have been unable to determine its
first system deployments. FWIW Wikipedia points to HP, Tandy and AT&T as
some time adopters of a Phoenix BIOS but my research so far is that Tandy s
T1000 family announced in October and November of 1984 was the first system
to be PC-DOS compatible and it did not use a Phoenix BIOS! Such PC-DOS
compatible HP and AT&T systems were much later and the Tandy BIOS was
written by programmers of Tandon Corporation, the OEM supplier of the first
Tandy T1000s.
Can anyone identify a PC-DOS compatible PC
announced earlier than
October 1984? Citations would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Tom
6:33 p.m.
May I suggest compatibility is like pregnancy – you either are or you are not.
Hyperion never purported to be PC-DOS compatible and as noted it wasn’t even offered as
generic MS-DOS compatible. Just because it runs PC-DOS 3.3 and some applications doesn’t
establish that it was PC-DOS compatible – meaning 100% compatible 😊
Tom
From: Santo Nucifora <santo.nucifora(a)gmail.com
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2023 10:54 AM
To: t.gardner(a)computer.org; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: [cctalk] Re: First non-IBM PC-DOS Compatible PC
On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 1:23 PM Tom Gardner via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
<mailto:cctalk@classiccmp.org> > wrote:
Thanks but I'm pretty sure the Hyperion was not PC-DOS compatible.
I don't want to get off-topic here but the Dynalogic Hyperion is MS-DOS compatible. I
do have one or two of them.
I have run up to MS-DOS 5.0 on it as well as the Hyperion branded MS-DOS 2.11. There are
some extra configuration commands in that particular version. I have only tried PC-DOS
3.3 on this but not other versions and it works okay. There are varying degrees of MS-DOS
compatibility. It is NOT one of the few early computers that ran a customized version of
MS-DOS 1.25 and could only run that. Those had horrible compatibility. Without those
specific boot disks, the computer will not run. I have an STM Personal computer that is
like this and I don't have the correct MS-DOS 1.25 for it to boot. It's a
paperweight without it, unfortunately.
Saying that, the Hyperion is not 100% MS-DOS compatible but it is relatively high.
Dynalogic used to have compatibility lists of out-of-the-box MS-DOS software that would
run without issues. You can see an example here:
https://vintagecomputer.ca/files/Dynalogic%20Hyperion/compatibility/Hyperio…
Now, if you stated, "100% PC-DOS compatible", then you would be accurate.
Santo
FWIW I remember as a PC clone user in the 1980s and into the 1990s acquiring machines that
only ran PC-DOS and only using PC-DOS up to and including at least version 5.
Tom
-----Original Message-----
From: db <db(a)db.net <mailto:db@db.net>
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2023 5:58 AM
To: t.gardner(a)computer.org <mailto:t.gardner@computer.org> ; General Discussion:
On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
<mailto:cctalk@classiccmp.org> >
Cc: Tom Gardner <tom94022(a)comcast.net <mailto:tom94022@comcast.net> >
Subject: Re: [cctalk] First non-IBM PC-DOS Compatible PC
On Mon, Jun 05, 2023 at 10:28:26PM -0700, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote:
FWIW I worked at a company here in Ottawa. Dynalogic. We produced a IBM look alike which
had a BIOS not copied from the original IBM PC.
In fact we used different UARTs and graphics card.
Although I was not on the Bios team Don Bailey was.
<http://www.sce.carleton.ca/faculty/bailey/bailey_bio.shtml>
http://www.sce.carleton.ca/faculty/bailey/bailey_bio.shtml
<https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/collections/show/7>
https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/collections/show/7
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<mailto:db@FreeBSD.org> <mailto:db@db.net <mailto:db@db.net> >
db(a)db.net <mailto:db@db.net> <http://www.db.net/~db> http://www.db.net/~db
https:/@Octodon.social/@Dianora
Hi:
Doing some research for historical purposed no
litigation at all trying to identify the first legal PC-DOS compatible PC, legal in
the sense that it s BIOS was not a copy of an IBM BIOS. Eagle gets the honor of being
first MS-DOS compatible and getting sued for copying IBM s BIOS ??
The Compaq Portable which shipped in November 1982 is
generally credited with the first legal MS-DOS compatible PC. AFAIK it could not run
PC-DOS and those applications which depended upon certain IBM BIOS commands would fail.
The first legal BIOS is generally considered to be
from Phoenix which was announced in May 1984 and so far I have been unable to determine
its first system deployments. FWIW Wikipedia points to HP, Tandy and AT&T as some
time adopters of a Phoenix BIOS but my research so far is that Tandy s T1000 family
announced in October and November of 1984 was the first system to be PC-DOS compatible and
it did not use a Phoenix BIOS! Such PC-DOS compatible HP and AT&T systems were much
later and the Tandy BIOS was written by programmers of Tandon Corporation, the OEM
supplier of the first Tandy T1000s.
Can anyone identify a PC-DOS compatible PC announced
earlier than October 1984? Citations would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Tom
6:47 p.m.
On Jun 6, 2023, at 2:33 PM, Tom Gardner via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
May I suggest compatibility is like pregnancy – you either are or you are not.
I'm reminded of a comment about the PDP-11 family:
"A PDP-11/xx is compatible with a PDP-11/yy if and only if xx == yy".
:-)
paul
7 Jun
7 Jun
3:03 a.m.
On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 7:47 PM Paul Koning via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
I'm reminded of a comment about the PDP-11
family:
"A PDP-11/xx is compatible with a PDP-11/yy if and only if xx == yy".
That I suspect is actually false. The11/05 and 11/10 were the same
machine, ditto the11/35 and 11/40.
1:06 p.m.
On Jun 6, 2023, at 11:03 PM, Tony Duell
<ard.p850ug1(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 7:47 PM Paul Koning via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
True, but as a close enough to true bit of humor it serves quite well.
paul
I'm reminded of a comment about the PDP-11
family:
"A PDP-11/xx is compatible with a PDP-11/yy if and only if xx == yy".
That I suspect is actually false. The11/05 and 11/10 were the same
machine, ditto the11/35 and 11/40.
6 Jun
6 Jun
7:04 p.m.
On Tue, Jun 06, 2023 at 11:33:54AM -0700, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote:
May I suggest compatibility is like pregnancy – you
either are or you are not.
Hyperion never purported to be PC-DOS compatible and as noted it wasn’t even offered as
generic MS-DOS compatible. Just because it runs PC-DOS 3.3 and some applications doesn’t
establish that it was PC-DOS compatible – meaning 100% compatible 😊
As we were painfully made aware when people tried to run comm programs
and they didn't work because we used the Z8530 to get dual serial ports.
Also Basic programs which thought they had a lot more memory to use
because part of the Basic was in ROM suddenly ran into our RAM based gwbasic.
In fact I worked on the graphics routines in our gwbasic and moving of
the basic into higher memory.
You are absolutely right. The people who designed the original hardware
were sure the market would go the same way with BIOS routines and people
wouldn't poke around at the direct hardware. We were very wrong.
Just before the end (for me anyway) we did a newer h/w
revision starting from scratch keeping it 100% compatible but
of course by then it was too late. I had very little to do with this project
but I believe it was sold to Commodore.
This was a long time ago...
The irony is, I never ended up with a Hyperion to take keep and the share
options ended up being worthless. I always tell the kids to take the money
as it is a sure thing but the share options are usually a crap shoot.
Hope this interests someone.
Tom
From: Santo Nucifora <santo.nucifora(a)gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2023 10:54 AM
To: t.gardner(a)computer.org; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: [cctalk] Re: First non-IBM PC-DOS Compatible PC
On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 1:23 PM Tom Gardner via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
<mailto:cctalk@classiccmp.org> > wrote:
Thanks but I'm pretty sure the Hyperion was not PC-DOS compatible.
I don't want to get off-topic here but the Dynalogic Hyperion is MS-DOS compatible.
I do have one or two of them.
I have run up to MS-DOS 5.0 on it as well as the Hyperion branded MS-DOS 2.11. There are
some extra configuration commands in that particular version. I have only tried PC-DOS
3.3 on this but not other versions and it works okay. There are varying degrees of MS-DOS
compatibility. It is NOT one of the few early computers that ran a customized version of
MS-DOS 1.25 and could only run that. Those had horrible compatibility. Without those
specific boot disks, the computer will not run. I have an STM Personal computer that is
like this and I don't have the correct MS-DOS 1.25 for it to boot. It's a
paperweight without it, unfortunately.
Saying that, the Hyperion is not 100% MS-DOS compatible but it is relatively high.
Dynalogic used to have compatibility lists of out-of-the-box MS-DOS software that would
run without issues. You can see an example here:
https://vintagecomputer.ca/files/Dynalogic%20Hyperion/compatibility/Hyperio…
Now, if you stated, "100% PC-DOS compatible", then you would be accurate.
Santo
FWIW I remember as a PC clone user in the 1980s and into the 1990s acquiring machines
that only ran PC-DOS and only using PC-DOS up to and including at least version 5.
Tom
-----Original Message-----
From: db <db(a)db.net <mailto:db@db.net>
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2023 5:58 AM
To: t.gardner(a)computer.org <mailto:t.gardner@computer.org> ; General Discussion:
On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
<mailto:cctalk@classiccmp.org> >
Cc: Tom Gardner <tom94022(a)comcast.net <mailto:tom94022@comcast.net> >
Subject: Re: [cctalk] First non-IBM PC-DOS Compatible PC
On Mon, Jun 05, 2023 at 10:28:26PM -0700, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote:
FWIW I worked at a company here in Ottawa. Dynalogic. We produced a IBM look alike which
had a BIOS not copied from the original IBM PC.
In fact we used different UARTs and graphics card.
Although I was not on the Bios team Don Bailey was.
<http://www.sce.carleton.ca/faculty/bailey/bailey_bio.shtml>
http://www.sce.carleton.ca/faculty/bailey/bailey_bio.shtml
<https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/collections/show/7>
https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/collections/show/7
--
<mailto:db@FreeBSD.org <mailto:db@FreeBSD.org> > db(a)FreeBSD.org
<mailto:db@FreeBSD.org> <mailto:db@db.net <mailto:db@db.net> >
db(a)db.net <mailto:db@db.net> <http://www.db.net/~db> http://www.db.net/~db
https:/@Octodon.social/@Dianora
--
db(a)FreeBSD.org db(a)db.net http://www.db.net/~db https:/@Octodon.social/@Dianora
Hi:
Doing some research for historical purposed no
litigation at all trying to identify the first legal PC-DOS compatible PC, legal in
the sense that it s BIOS was not a copy of an IBM BIOS. Eagle gets the honor of being
first MS-DOS compatible and getting sued for copying IBM s BIOS ??
The Compaq Portable which shipped in November
1982 is generally credited with the first legal MS-DOS compatible PC. AFAIK it could not
run PC-DOS and those applications which depended upon certain IBM BIOS commands would
fail.
The first legal BIOS is generally considered to
be from Phoenix which was announced in May 1984 and so far I have been unable to determine
its first system deployments. FWIW Wikipedia points to HP, Tandy and AT&T as some
time adopters of a Phoenix BIOS but my research so far is that Tandy s T1000 family
announced in October and November of 1984 was the first system to be PC-DOS compatible and
it did not use a Phoenix BIOS! Such PC-DOS compatible HP and AT&T systems were much
later and the Tandy BIOS was written by programmers of Tandon Corporation, the OEM
supplier of the first Tandy T1000s.
Can anyone identify a PC-DOS compatible PC
announced earlier than October 1984? Citations would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Tom
7:39 p.m.
New subject: Commodore Hyperion was Re: First non-IBM PC-DOS Compatible PC
On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 3:04 PM db via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
Just before the end (for me anyway) we did a newer h/w
revision starting from scratch keeping it 100% compatible but
of course by then it was too late. I had very little to do with this
project
but I believe it was sold to Commodore.
This was a long time ago...
Tom,
That is very interesting. I've seen Commodore Hyperion's in the same case
but with the molded "Commodore" brand instead of "Hyperion" but
figured
they were just rebranded Hyperions. Would you happen to know if those were
the 100% compatible versions?
I know Commodore bought the rights but ended up making their own PCs that
turned into Commodore's PC line and the Hyperion design disappeared. I'm
wondering if they may have used the 100% compatible Hyperion internals for
their models?
Santo
7:53 p.m.
New subject: Commodore Hyperion was Re: First non-IBM PC-DOS Compatible PC
On Tue, Jun 06, 2023 at 03:39:05PM -0400, Santo Nucifora via cctalk wrote:
On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 3:04 PM db via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
Yes most likely but again this wasn't really my side. I was in the SW
side. My code ended up in places like IN:TOUCH, BASICA, ... etc.
The editor was written by Don Lindsay.
It would have had to been come to think of it. I know we were developing
for ourselves a 100% compatible but I was not privy to the sellout
the Commodore. Don Bailey, Chris Sullivan and one other guy I can't
remember his name were the HW folks.
Just before the end (for me anyway) we did a newer h/w
revision starting from scratch keeping it 100% compatible but
of course by then it was too late. I had very little to do with this
project
but I believe it was sold to Commodore.
This was a long time ago...
Tom,
That is very interesting. I've seen Commodore Hyperion's in the same case
but with the molded "Commodore" brand instead of "Hyperion" but
figured
they were just rebranded Hyperions. Would you happen to know if those were
the 100% compatible versions?
I know Commodore bought the rights but ended up making their own PCs that
turned into Commodore's PC line and the Hyperion design disappeared. I'm
wondering if they may have used the 100% compatible Hyperion internals for
their models?
Yes. They must have.
Santo
P.S. One more fun fact, I saw at least one Hyperion case here in Ottawa turned
upside down and used as a flower planter.
Diane
--
db(a)FreeBSD.org db(a)db.net http://www.db.net/~db https:/@Octodon.social/@Dianora
7:56 p.m.
New subject: Commodore Hyperion was Re: First non-IBM PC-DOS Compatible PC
On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 12:39 PM Santo Nucifora via cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 3:04 PM db via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
That is very interesting. I've seen Commodore Hyperion's in the same case
but with the molded "Commodore" brand instead of "Hyperion" but
figured
they were just rebranded Hyperions. Would you happen to know if those were
the 100% compatible versions?
I know Commodore bought the rights but ended up making their own PCs that
turned into Commodore's PC line and the Hyperion design disappeared. I'm
wondering if they may have used the 100% compatible Hyperion internals for
their models?
Are the Commodore Colts the line acquired from Hyperion or their own design?
I don't believe I've ever seen a Commodore-badged Hyperion.
Sellam
8:09 p.m.
New subject: Commodore Hyperion was Re: First non-IBM PC-DOS Compatible PC
Sellam,
Bo Zimmerman at Zimmers.net has a picture of one here:
http://www.zimmers.net/commie/canonical.php?UPTOP&cat=PC+Series&pro…
Here is one booting up on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFnPXH1Fy5w
The quality is not great for either of them and there are no internal
pictures, unfortunately. I don't know if it's the same one but it looks
like the front mold was changed so there must have been more than one.
The deal with Commodore/Hyperion was reported to be in 1984. The
Commodore Colt came out in 1984. From what I've read, Commodore was trying
to buy a PC before they started making their own. It would not be a leap
for them to use what they learned from the 100% DOS compatible Hyperion to
make the Colt because if they were working on the Colt, they wouldn't have
needed the Hyperion.
All speculation on my part as there is not a lot of information on this out
there.
Santo
On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 3:56 PM Sellam Abraham via cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 12:39 PM Santo Nucifora via
cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 3:04 PM db via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
That is very interesting. I've seen Commodore Hyperion's in the same
case
but with the molded "Commodore" brand
instead of "Hyperion" but figured
they were just rebranded Hyperions. Would you happen to know if those
were
the 100% compatible versions?
I know Commodore bought the rights but ended up making their own PCs that
turned into Commodore's PC line and the Hyperion design disappeared. I'm
wondering if they may have used the 100% compatible Hyperion internals
for
their models?
Are the Commodore Colts the line acquired from Hyperion or their own
design?
I don't believe I've ever seen a Commodore-badged Hyperion.
Sellam
8:12 p.m.
New subject: Commodore Hyperion was Re: First non-IBM PC-DOS Compatible PC
On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 1:09 PM Santo Nucifora via cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
Sellam,
Bo Zimmerman at Zimmers.net has a picture of one here:
http://www.zimmers.net/commie/canonical.php?UPTOP&cat=PC+Series&pro…
Here is one booting up on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFnPXH1Fy5w
The quality is not great for either of them and there are no internal
pictures, unfortunately. I don't know if it's the same one but it looks
like the front mold was changed so there must have been more than one.
The deal with Commodore/Hyperion was reported to be in 1984. The
Commodore Colt came out in 1984. From what I've read, Commodore was trying
to buy a PC before they started making their own. It would not be a leap
for them to use what they learned from the 100% DOS compatible Hyperion to
make the Colt because if they were working on the Colt, they wouldn't have
needed the Hyperion.
I missed that Commodore re-badged the Hyperion. I was confusing
"Dynalogic" (the company) with Hyperion (their portable computer model).
A Commodore re-badged Hyperion is definitely something I've never seen.
Pretty interesting.
Sellam
8:29 p.m.
New subject: Commodore Hyperion was Re: First non-IBM PC-DOS Compatible PC
On Tue, Jun 06, 2023 at 01:12:56PM -0700, Sellam Abraham via cctalk wrote:
We went through ... several .... rebadging of the company name.
Dynalogic was a small company before I joined it with a 6800
product already under their belts under Murray Bell.
I imagine after I joined the usual growth spurt really meant we
needed more money. We had Comterm buy a bit (Comterm a Montreal company)
then Bytec then Bytec-Comterm I think. I *might* still have some stashes
of the weekly new business cards downstairs.
I remember when they *fired* the founder, Murray Bell. *sigh*
It was a sad day.
York U has a short section I believe they have some of the documents
I donated on Dynalogic.
https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/exhibits/show/v_tour/item/53
On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 1:09 PM Santo Nucifora via
cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
> Sellam,
>
...
make the Colt
because if they were working on the Colt, they wouldn't have
needed the Hyperion.
I missed that Commodore re-badged the Hyperion. I was confusing
"Dynalogic" (the company) with Hyperion (their portable computer model).
A Commodore re-badged Hyperion is definitely something I've never seen.
Pretty interesting.
Judging from the drives shown in that photo, that would *not* have
been the 100% compatible.
Sellam
Diane
--
db(a)FreeBSD.org db(a)db.net http://www.db.net/~db https:/@Octodon.social/@Dianora
8:22 p.m.
New subject: Commodore Hyperion was Re: First non-IBM PC-DOS Compatible PC
On Tue, Jun 06, 2023 at 04:09:11PM -0400, Santo Nucifora via cctalk wrote:
Sellam,
Bo Zimmerman at Zimmers.net has a picture of one here:
http://www.zimmers.net/commie/canonical.php?UPTOP&cat=PC+Series&pro…
Wow! News to me too. It appears that has the "Lemex" drives.
(Our internal nickname for those, you know why.)
Here is one booting up on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFnPXH1Fy5w
The quality is not great for either of them and there are no internal
pictures, unfortunately. I don't know if it's the same one but it looks
like the front mold was changed so there must have been more than one.
Awesome!
Only the early models shipped with that drive and although it was a cool
design the spring used to break...
The deal with Commodore/Hyperion was reported to be in 1984. The
Commodore Colt came out in 1984. From what I've read, Commodore was trying
to buy a PC before they started making their own. It would not be a leap
for them to use what they learned from the 100% DOS compatible Hyperion to
make the Colt because if they were working on the Colt, they wouldn't have
needed the Hyperion.
As I remember it, Commodore simply didn't want it made public they had
bought our design...
All speculation on my part as there is not a lot of information on this out
there.
Santo
Indeed.
On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 3:56 PM Sellam Abraham via cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
--
db(a)FreeBSD.org db(a)db.net http://www.db.net/~db https:/@Octodon.social/@Dianora
On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 12:39 PM Santo Nucifora
via cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 3:04 PM db via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
That is very interesting. I've seen Commodore Hyperion's in the same
case
but with the molded "Commodore" brand
instead of "Hyperion" but figured
they were just rebranded Hyperions. Would you happen to know if those
were
the 100% compatible versions?
I know Commodore bought the rights but ended up making their own PCs that
turned into Commodore's PC line and the Hyperion design disappeared. I'm
wondering if they may have used the 100% compatible Hyperion internals
for
their models?
Are the Commodore Colts the line acquired from Hyperion or their own
design?
I don't believe I've ever seen a Commodore-badged Hyperion.
Sellam
7 Jun
7 Jun
8:59 p.m.
db says:
As we were painfully made aware when people tried to
run comm
programs and they didn't work because we used the Z8530 to get dual
serial ports.
Hyperion was not alone in having trouble with comm ports. Columbia University (my alma
mater) reported in January 1984 that unmodified Kermit ran on Compaq and Columbia PCs, but
Eagle and Seequa needed custom code.
I highly recommend the Kermit mailing list archives
<http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/ftp/e/info-kermit.txt>; it contains massive amounts
of information for anyone interested in classic computers.
--
geo:37.783333,-122.416667
9:14 p.m.
On Wed, Jun 7, 2023, 1:59 PM Yeechang Lee via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
db says:
The DEC Rainbow also hit these issues and needed its own custom version of
kermit...
Warner
--
As we were painfully made aware when people tried
to run comm
programs and they didn't work because we used the Z8530 to get dual
serial ports.
Hyperion was not alone in having trouble with comm ports. Columbia
University (my alma mater) reported in January 1984 that unmodified Kermit
ran on Compaq and Columbia PCs, but Eagle and Seequa needed custom code.
I highly recommend the Kermit mailing list archives <
http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/ftp/e/info-kermit.txt>gt;; it contains
massive amounts of information for anyone interested in classic computers.
geo:37.783333,-122.416667
9:33 p.m.
On 2023-06-07 17:14, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote:
On Wed, Jun 7, 2023, 1:59 PM Yeechang Lee via
cctalk<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
But IIRC the DEC Rainbow never claimed to be IBM-compatible. The very
lack of the 640mB limit and the video processor that enabled it which
let me run my company's spreadsheet without LIM memory proves that!
--
Nigel Johnson, MSc., MIEEE, MCSE VE3ID/G4AJQ/VA3MCU
Amateur Radio, the origin of the open-source concept!
Skype: TILBURY2591
db says:
The DEC Rainbow also hit these issues and needed its own custom version of
kermit...
Warner
As we were painfully made aware when people tried
to run comm
programs and they didn't work because we used the Z8530 to get dual
serial ports.
Hyperion was not alone in having trouble with comm ports. Columbia
University (my alma mater) reported in January 1984 that unmodified Kermit
ran on Compaq and Columbia PCs, but Eagle and Seequa needed custom code.
I highly recommend the Kermit mailing list archives<
http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/ftp/e/info-kermit.txt>gt;; it contains
massive amounts of information for anyone interested in classic computers.
8 Jun
8 Jun
5:32 a.m.
On Wed, Jun 7, 2023 at 11:18 PM Yeechang Lee via cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
Warner Losh says:
True. It was some years later that we got code blue on the Rainbow to run
IBM stuff.... Except
even that wasn't completely there...
And Yes, it was one reason I got it: it could have more memory than the PC,
and that came
in handy for some of the stuff I wound up doing with mine...
Warner
The DEC Rainbow also hit these issues and needed
its own custom
version of kermit...
Yes, but DEC did not claim that Rainbow is fully PC compatible. Eagle and
Seequa did.
7 Jun
7 Jun
11:40 p.m.
On Wed, 7 Jun 2023, Yeechang Lee via cctalk wrote:
Hyperion was not alone in having trouble with comm
ports. Columbia
University (my alma mater) reported in January 1984 that unmodified
Kermit ran on Compaq and Columbia PCs, but Eagle and Seequa needed
custom code.
This is the first that I'v seen anybody with Seequa!
The "Seequa Chameleon 325" was the only commercial PC to have 3.25" disk
drives! (the format that Dysan bet the company on and went under)
I haven't heard how many, if any, of the 325 models were ever built or
sold.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com
8 Jun
8 Jun
2:19 a.m.
On Wed, Jun 7, 2023 at 4:41 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
On Wed, 7 Jun 2023, Yeechang Lee via cctalk wrote:
I can't remember if I ever added a Seequa Chameleon to my collection.
Definitely more rare than the Otrona Attache.
Didn't the Gavilan also use 3.25" disks?
I'm pretty sure I still have a Gavilan...somewhere.
Sellam
Hyperion was not alone in having trouble with
comm ports. Columbia
University (my alma mater) reported in January 1984 that unmodified
Kermit ran on Compaq and Columbia PCs, but Eagle and Seequa needed
custom code.
This is the first that I'v seen anybody with Seequa!
The "Seequa Chameleon 325" was the only commercial PC to have 3.25" disk
drives! (the format that Dysan bet the company on and went under)
I haven't heard how many, if any, of the 325 models were ever built or
sold.
2:52 a.m.
New subject: Gavilan (Was: First non-IBM PC-DOS Compatible PC
>> Hyperion was not alone in having trouble with
comm ports. Columbia
>> University (my alma mater) reported in January 1984 that unmodified
>> Kermit ran on Compaq and Columbia PCs, but Eagle and Seequa needed
>> custom code.
> This is the first that I'v seen anybody with Seequa!
> The "Seequa Chameleon 325" was the only commercial PC to have 3.25"
disk
> drives! (the format that Dysan bet the company on and went under)
> I haven't heard how many, if any, of the 325 models were ever built or
> sold.
On Wed, 7 Jun 2023, Sellam Abraham via cctalk wrote:
I can't remember if I ever added a Seequa
Chameleon to my collection.
Definitely more rare than the Otrona Attache.
Didn't the Gavilan also use 3.25" disks?
I'm pretty sure I still have a Gavilan...somewhere.
No 3.25" for Gavilan.
The Gavilan started out with 320K 3" disks; I don't remember what brand of
drive (there weren't many), nor the details of the format that they used.
They then switched to single sided 3.5", using a Shugart SA300 drive, but
with Gavilan's custom curved faceplate on it. I was able to mount a
double sided drive of a different brand in it, without faceplate.
But, once I got hold of some Shugart SA350 double sided drives, I could
switch the Gavilan faceplate onto those.
Towards the end (Gavilan went under), they started to support double sided
3.5", with MS-DOS 2.11J? but their disk format was not the same format as
the 720K that IBM came up with for DOS 3.20 .
(A few companies used 3.5" drives, with customization of MS-DOS 2.11
The first version of MS-DOS or PC-DOS to have built in support of 3.5"
720K was 3.20)
After Gavilan went under the Gavilan MS-DOS 2.11K and 2.11L were leaked
out, and supported the IBM 720K format.
The external 5.25" drive was 360K.
The printer was thermal and ink, so it could use plain paper, or thermal
paper, such as that for the Silent 700. Thermal plus ink gave good
quality.
The bubble memory cartridges never caught on.
The early Gavilans, as introduced at NCC 1983, were 8 line by 80 LCD
screen, then they switched to 16 line. Both had an RCA for composite external monitor.
Uncle Roger got several totes of my Gavilan stuff.
A friend used a Gavilan, with external monitor for years as a
"compatible". There is a possibility that she might still have it.
I still have never heard of a machine other than the Seequa Chameleon 325
that came with 3.25" drives, although a number of people hooked those
drives to PC. After MicroPro gave up on any Dysan distribution of
WordStar, I got some of their drives, alignment disks (many of which they
had ended up using as scratch disks!), etc.
I doubt that anybody here needs/wants a repeat of the saga of the battle
of shirt pocket disks, and how Dysan bet the company and lost.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com
3:03 a.m.
Dimmemory Selliam... that computer would run pm.or msdos on saMe box. Or 8band 16bit...
bal in 80s eone how ended up with one.. Only one I ever saw...ED#
SMECC
Sent from AOL on Android
On Wed, Jun 7, 2023 at 7:19 PM, Sellam Abraham via cctalk<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote: On Wed, Jun 7, 2023 at 4:41 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
On Wed, 7 Jun 2023, Yeechang Lee via cctalk wrote:
I can't remember if I ever added a Seequa Chameleon to my collection.
Definitely more rare than the Otrona Attache.
Didn't the Gavilan also use 3.25" disks?
I'm pretty sure I still have a Gavilan...somewhere.
Sellam
Hyperion was not alone in having trouble with
comm ports. Columbia
University (my alma mater) reported in January 1984 that unmodified
Kermit ran on Compaq and Columbia PCs, but Eagle and Seequa needed
custom code.
This is the first that I'v seen anybody with Seequa!
The "Seequa Chameleon 325" was the only commercial PC to have 3.25" disk
drives! (the format that Dysan bet the company on and went under)
I haven't heard how many, if any, of the 325 models were ever built or
sold.
7 Jun
7 Jun
8:47 p.m.
Tom Gardner says:
May I suggest compatibility is like pregnancy – you
either are or
you are not.
Agreed. This is why every non-highly compatible MS-DOS computer, like the Tandy 2000 and
TI Professional, failed versus IBM. Even if a buyer only intended to use Lotus—widely
ported to various MS-DOS non-compatibles—he would always have in the back of his mind
"What if I want to run something else? What if I need to give a disk with data to
someone with IBM?"
Hyperion never purported to be PC-DOS compatible and
as noted it
wasn’t even offered as generic MS-DOS compatible.
I was amazed to not see on Santo's February 1984 list of Hyperion-certified compatible
software Lotus or Flight Simulator. The latter, I can understand. The former made Hyperion
dead on arrival.
--
geo:37.783333,-122.416667
11:37 p.m.
> May I suggest compatibility is like pregnancy –
you either are or
> you are not.
On Wed, 7 Jun 2023, Yeechang Lee via cctalk wrote:
Agreed. This is why every non-highly compatible MS-DOS
computer, like
the Tandy 2000 and TI Professional, failed versus IBM. Even if a buyer
only intended to use Lotus—widely ported to various MS-DOS
non-compatibles—he would always have in the back of his mind "What if
I want to run something else? What if I need to give a disk with data to
someone with IBM?"
Agreed.
I ended up with a couple of Toshiba T300? machines. 80 track drives, and
it could read 360K disks, but not RE-write sectors properly, and its
native 80 track format was unreadble on PC without additional software.
It had CGA video, but with the CGA video memory at segment B000h, instead
of the usual B800h. Commercial software would not do MONO direct video,
bacause it saw that it was CGA, so it would try to write to segment B800h.
I easily configured PC-WRITE for the non-standard video address, and used
them for a few years as dedicated word-processing logging machines.
Then, Toshib NMRI in Silicon Valley needed to be able to handle Toshiba 80
track format disks for communication with home office, so I gave the T300s
to them.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com
8 Jun
8 Jun
6:20 p.m.
Fred Cisin says:
Then, Toshib NMRI in Silicon Valley needed to be able
to handle
Toshiba 80 track format disks for communication with home office, so
I gave the T300s to them.
So a Toshiba office did not have computer equipment compatible with what its headquarters
used?
--
geo:37.783333,-122.416667
7:29 p.m.
> Then, Toshib NMRI in Silicon Valley needed to be
able to handle
> Toshiba 80 track format disks for communication with home office, so
> I gave the T300s to them.
On Thu, 8 Jun 2023, Yeechang Lee via cctalk wrote:
So a Toshiba office did not have computer equipment
compatible with what its headquarters used?
Yes
The USA NMRI group had assumed that their Japanese counterparts would be
using PC formats, and apparently that was often/usually the case. They
could have asked the home office to send them machine(s), but I had some
handy. A friend was doing some engineering consulting for them, and was
thus able to solve the [very minor] problem immediately. I think that it
was intended to be a short-term loan while getting machine(s) shipped,
but I told them to keep them.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com
8:15 p.m.
Then, Toshib
NMRI in Silicon Valley needed to be able to handle
Toshiba 80 track format disks for communication with home office, so
I gave the T300s to them.
So a Toshiba office did not have computer equipment
compatible with what its headquarters used?
Instead, they could have bought a copy of 22Disk, XenoCopy, or Uniform.
But the two T300s were cheaper.
6 Jun
6 Jun
7:26 p.m.
On Tue, Jun 06, 2023 at 01:54:00PM -0400, Santo Nucifora via cctalk wrote:
--
db(a)FreeBSD.org db(a)db.net http://www.db.net/~db https:/@Octodon.social/@Dianora
On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 1:23 PM Tom Gardner via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
I don't have one and I worked for them. ;)
Thanks but I'm pretty sure the Hyperion was
not PC-DOS compatible.
I don't want to get off-topic here but the Dynalogic Hyperion is MS-DOS
compatible. I do have one or two of them.
I have run up to MS-DOS 5.0 on it as well as the Hyperion branded MS-DOS
2.11. There are some extra configuration commands in that particular
Sure the problem is on the early models when you wanted to try poking
at the 8250 serial port which we did not have. We had a Z8530.
I can't even remember what the graphics card was (I wasn't one of the
H/W designers) but I remember Chris Sullivan worked hard on it. The graphics
card emulated an IBM CGA and mono with double memory mapping.
If you don't poke at the HW it's fine.
version. I have only tried PC-DOS 3.3 on this but not
other versions and
it works okay. There are varying degrees of MS-DOS compatibility. It is
NOT one of the few early computers that ran a customized version of MS-DOS
1.25 and could only run that. Those had horrible compatibility. Without
those specific boot disks, the computer will not run. I have an STM
Personal computer that is like this and I don't have the correct MS-DOS
1.25 for it to boot. It's a paperweight without it, unfortunately.
Saying that, the Hyperion is not 100% MS-DOS compatible but it is
relatively high. Dynalogic used to have compatibility lists of
out-of-the-box MS-DOS software that would run without issues. You can see
an example here:
https://vintagecomputer.ca/files/Dynalogic%20Hyperion/compatibility/Hyperio…
Yes because people were poking at the raw hardware! There was no way
around it eg. if you wanted a comm program since the BIOS did not support async
interrupts with buffering etc. so one had to write their own and take
over the serial port. *sigh*
Now, if you stated, "100% PC-DOS compatible", then you would be accurate.
Santo
> FWIW I remember as a PC clone user in the 1980s and into the 1990s
> acquiring machines that only ran PC-DOS and only using PC-DOS up to and
> including at least version 5.
I remember looking at the original source code. It... was pretty
awful as I remember it. It was still labelled as QDOS in the source
I saw.
Tom
-----Original Message-----
From: db <db(a)db.net>
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2023 5:58 AM
To: t.gardner(a)computer.org; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic
Posts <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Cc: Tom Gardner <tom94022(a)comcast.net>
Subject: Re: [cctalk] First non-IBM PC-DOS Compatible PC
On Mon, Jun 05, 2023 at 10:28:26PM -0700, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote:
FWIW I worked at a company here in Ottawa. Dynalogic. We produced a IBM
look alike which had a BIOS not copied from the original IBM PC.
In fact we used different UARTs and graphics card.
Although I was not on the Bios team Don Bailey was.
<http://www.sce.carleton.ca/faculty/bailey/bailey_bio.shtml>
http://www.sce.carleton.ca/faculty/bailey/bailey_bio.shtml
<https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/collections/show/7>
https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/collections/show/7
--
<mailto:db@FreeBSD.org> db(a)FreeBSD.org <mailto:db@db.net> db(a)db.net <
http://www.db.net/~db> http://www.db.net/~db
https:/@Octodon.social/@Dianora
Hi:
Doing some research for historical purposed no
litigation at all
trying to identify the first legal PC-DOS compatible PC,
legal in the
sense that it s BIOS was not a copy of an IBM BIOS. Eagle gets the honor
of being first MS-DOS compatible and getting sued for copying IBM s BIOS ??
The Compaq Portable which shipped in November
1982 is generally credited
with the first legal MS-DOS compatible PC. AFAIK it
could not run PC-DOS
and those applications which depended upon certain IBM BIOS commands would
fail.
The first legal BIOS is generally considered to
be from Phoenix which
was announced in May 1984 and so far I have been unable to
determine its
first system deployments. FWIW Wikipedia points to HP, Tandy and AT&T as
some time adopters of a Phoenix BIOS but my research so far is that Tandy s
T1000 family announced in October and November of 1984 was the first system
to be PC-DOS compatible and it did not use a Phoenix BIOS! Such PC-DOS
compatible HP and AT&T systems were much later and the Tandy BIOS was
written by programmers of Tandon Corporation, the OEM supplier of the first
Tandy T1000s.
Can anyone identify a PC-DOS compatible PC
announced earlier than
October 1984? Citations would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Tom
5:59 p.m.
On 6/6/23 10:22, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote:
Thanks but I'm pretty sure the Hyperion was not
PC-DOS compatible.
We have to be careful when tossing around the term "PC-DOS compatible".
In particular, I'm reminded of a dodge used by Bill Godbout and his
Compupro S-100 8086 and 8088 products. Early on, users wanted to be
able to run MS-DOS programs. Microsoft, however, wanted an arm and a
leg for the MS-DOS 1.x OEM kit--IIRC, around $50K. At the time, one
could buy the pink-binder PC-DOS for about $40.
So Compupro users wanting to run MS/PC-DOS were instructed to purchase
the IBM-branded PC-DOS and Compupro supplied a substitute IBMBIO.COM
file with instructions on how to create the hybrid.
I don't know if this ever made it to 2.0, but it worked back then.
Bottom-line, I'd rephrase that as "IBM 5150-compatible".
--Chuck
7:34 p.m.
On Mon, 5 Jun 2023, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote:
Hi:
Doing some research for historical purposed – no litigation at all –
trying to identify the first “legal” PC-DOS compatible PC,
“legal” in the sense that it’s BIOS was not a copy of an IBM BIOS.
Eagle gets the honor of being first MS-DOS compatible and getting sued
for copying IBM’s BIOS 😊
The Compaq Portable which shipped in November 1982 is generally credited
with the first legal MS-DOS compatible PC. AFAIK it could not run
PC-DOS and those applications which depended upon certain IBM BIOS
commands would fail.
Although Compaq was formed as a company in 1982, the Compaq luggable was
not released until March 1983. In summer of 1983, I used one for a week,
and used PC-DOS, in addition to the Compaq MS-DOS 1.25 (equivalent to
PC-DOS 1.10)
In talking about the PC ROM, much of the discussion is conflating the BIOS
with the BASI*C ROMs.
The 5150, as released in August 1981, had SIX ROM sockets. It had one 8K
ROM for the BIOS, four 8K ROMs totaling 32K for BASIC, and one empty
socket, which usually stayed empty. A company calling itself MBI sold an
accessory ROM for that socket thatr added some trivial features.
In 1981, IBM immediately released the "PC Technical Reference Manual"
which included schematics, and source code for the BIOS ROM. The
Wikipedia article on the Columbia incorrectly states that IBM released the
specification, but not the code; NO, the manual had the full source code
for the BIOS.
Source code for the BASIC was not released.
If you look at the source code, each "section" documenting the BIOS
interrupts started with a block of comments detailing the documentation
for using that interrupt. Those comments, in the beginning of each
interrupt source code were plenty to serve as specification for writing a
BIOS that PC-DOS would run on.
But, that wasn't always good enough. Instead of calling DOS with
MOV AH, 2
MOV DL, 42h
INT 21h ; call DOS output
to put a 'B' on the screen, you could
MOV AH, 0fh ; ?was that the right function?
MOV AL, 42h
INT 10h ; call BIOS video
which was faster.
Or you could do a far call to the memory location of INT10h, instead of
using the Interrupt Vector Table. That would require that not only INT
10h had to be compatible, but it would also have to be at the same memory
location, which is asking for more compatabilty.
Or, you could call the memory location of funtion 0Fh of Int10h, instead
of the memory location of Int10h, instead of using the interrupt vector
table, which is asking for more compatability.
Or, you could ignore DOS and BIOS, and poke the character into video
memory (Segment B000h for monochrome, segment B800h for CGA)
DOS calls, calling BIOS calls was considered too slow for commercial
software, if you were going to write the whole screen, so virtually all
commercial software did direct memory access, and often bypassing DOS and
BIOS for other actions, as well. THAT was where major incompatability
occured.
PC-DOS required that the BIOS functions exist, and that the Interrupt
Vector Table point to them. Some commercial software products expected
the BIOS functions to be at the same physical address (not just pointed to
by the IVT), and therefore required that the BIOS be a closer copy than
just compatible.
When I released XenoCopy in 1983, I contracted with a publisher. They
wanted to try to peddle licensing to IBM itself. For that, they insisted
that I make a version of XenoCopy that would not run on anythying other
than the real genuine IBM 5150 PC. I did that by accessing a location in
the BASIC ROM. Once they found that they could not peddle it directly to
IBM, all subsequent versions of XenoCopy that I wrote were compatible with
almost anything that claimed compatability. When my royalties started to
become later and later, I had to involve lawyers, and shut down the
publisher, and then publish and market it myself.
MS-DOS 1.25 differed from PC-DOS in that IBMBIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM were
named IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS. PC-DOS had small programs BASIC.COM and
BASICA.COM that added disk IO and a few other items to the ROM [Cassette]
BASIC. BASICA.COM ("Advanced BASIC") was the full set, "BASIC.COM"
was
the minimal form for machines with inadequate RAM, with abbreviated error
messages, etc. MS-DOS had GWBASIC.COM which was the equivalent of the
full BASICA, but not requiring the ROM BASIC.
Microsoft now refuses to remember what GW stood for in GWBASIC! At the
time, they said that it was "GEE WIZ", but later said that it was "Greg
Whitten"; and also said that the "MZ" at the beginning of the .EXE file
header stood for "Mark Zbikowski". BTW, DOS will look for an internal
command first; failing that, it will look for .EXE or .COM but if it finds
one, it will ignore the extension! and process it as memory image of EXE
file structure based on presence or absence of "MZ"!; then it will check
for a .BAT file.
Compaq RENAMED "GWBASIC.COM" to "BASICA.COM" (although it was a much
larger file containing the entire BASIC, not just adding disk
enhancements), so that batch files that mentioned "BASICA" would call it
and still run.
In 1983 or 1984?, PC-World magazine ran an article comparing compatability
of the clones. They "tested" based on which software would run, such as
"Flight Simulator". They used version 1.00 of XenoCopy, which
deliberately would only run on real genuine IBM 5150 PC, although the
versions of XenoCopy being sold by that time would run on ANYTHING
that had compatability with INT13h, Int1Eh, Int10h, and had the text
screen memory at B000h or B800h. They referred to XenoCopy as "the acid
test of compatability"
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com
XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com
7:46 p.m.
On Tue, Jun 06, 2023 at 12:34:58PM -0700, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
On Mon, 5 Jun 2023, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote:
> Hi:
> Doing some research for historical purposed – no litigation at all –
...
In talking about the PC ROM, much of the discussion is conflating the BIOS
with the BASI*C ROMs.
The 5150, as released in August 1981, had SIX ROM sockets. It had one 8K
ROM for the BIOS, four 8K ROMs totaling 32K for BASIC, and one empty
socket, which usually stayed empty. A company calling itself MBI sold an
accessory ROM for that socket thatr added some trivial features.
We did not have the extra ROM sockets for the BASIC
In 1981, IBM immediately released the "PC Technical Reference Manual"
which included schematics, and source code for the BIOS ROM. The
Wikipedia article on the Columbia incorrectly states that IBM released the
specification, but not the code; NO, the manual had the full source code
for the BIOS.
I gave my copy of that to someone on this list in Toronto a few years ago.
Source code for the BASIC was not released.
If you look at the source code, each "section" documenting the BIOS
interrupts started with a block of comments detailing the documentation
for using that interrupt. Those comments, in the beginning of each
interrupt source code were plenty to serve as specification for writing a
BIOS that PC-DOS would run on.
Yep.
But, that wasn't always good enough. Instead of calling DOS with
MOV AH, 2
MOV DL, 42h
INT 21h ; call DOS output
to put a 'B' on the screen, you could
MOV AH, 0fh ; ?was that the right function?
MOV AL, 42h
INT 10h ; call BIOS video
which was faster.
Or you could do a far call to the memory location of INT10h, instead of
using the Interrupt Vector Table. That would require that not only INT
10h had to be compatible, but it would also have to be at the same memory
location, which is asking for more compatabilty.
Or, you could call the memory location of funtion 0Fh of Int10h, instead
of the memory location of Int10h, instead of using the interrupt vector
table, which is asking for more compatability.
Or, you could ignore DOS and BIOS, and poke the character into video
memory (Segment B000h for monochrome, segment B800h for CGA)
DOS calls, calling BIOS calls was considered too slow for commercial
software, if you were going to write the whole screen, so virtually all
commercial software did direct memory access, and often bypassing DOS and
BIOS for other actions, as well. THAT was where major incompatability
occured.
Yep! The problem was, yes you could do dot per dot graphics using the INT calls
but that was very slow. ;) SO of course developers went for the bare metal.
I wrote a tiny function for the first compiler we could get which
was small model only, that stuffed the DS onto the stack and took
a segment argument. A co-worker then wrote some graphics routines by
passing the graphics segment, doing some graphics, then in the return
the original DS was restored as part of the function.
Of course, when the newer compilers came out it was obsolete. ;)
PC-DOS required that the BIOS functions exist, and that the Interrupt
Vector Table point to them. Some commercial software products expected
the BIOS functions to be at the same physical address (not just pointed to
by the IVT), and therefore required that the BIOS be a closer copy than
just compatible.
Yep.
When I released XenoCopy in 1983, I contracted with a publisher. They
wanted to try to peddle licensing to IBM itself. For that, they insisted
that I make a version of XenoCopy that would not run on anythying other
than the real genuine IBM 5150 PC. I did that by accessing a location in
the BASIC ROM. Once they found that they could not peddle it directly to
IBM, all subsequent versions of XenoCopy that I wrote were compatible with
almost anything that claimed compatability. When my royalties started to
become later and later, I had to involve lawyers, and shut down the
publisher, and then publish and market it myself.
Yikes!
MS-DOS 1.25 differed from PC-DOS in that IBMBIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM were
named IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS. PC-DOS had small programs BASIC.COM and
BASICA.COM that added disk IO and a few other items to the ROM [Cassette]
BASIC. BASICA.COM ("Advanced BASIC") was the full set, "BASIC.COM"
was
the minimal form for machines with inadequate RAM, with abbreviated error
messages, etc. MS-DOS had GWBASIC.COM which was the equivalent of the
full BASICA, but not requiring the ROM BASIC.
Yep I worked a bit with GWBASIC and in the end I had our graphics routines
out-pacing the COMPAQ ones. ;)
Compaq RENAMED "GWBASIC.COM" to "BASICA.COM" (although it was a much
larger file containing the entire BASIC, not just adding disk
enhancements), so that batch files that mentioned "BASICA" would call it
and still run.
Yes we did that too.
In 1983 or 1984?, PC-World magazine ran an article comparing compatability
of the clones. They "tested" based on which software would run, such as
"Flight Simulator". They used version 1.00 of XenoCopy, which
deliberately would only run on real genuine IBM 5150 PC, although the
versions of XenoCopy being sold by that time would run on ANYTHING
that had compatability with INT13h, Int1Eh, Int10h, and had the text
screen memory at B000h or B800h. They referred to XenoCopy as "the acid
test of compatability"
- Diane
--
db(a)FreeBSD.org db(a)db.net http://www.db.net/~db https:/@Octodon.social/@Dianora
7 Jun
7 Jun
1:05 a.m.
In 1981, IBM
immediately released the "PC Technical Reference Manual"
which included schematics, and source code for the BIOS ROM. The
I gave my copy of that to someone on this list in Toronto a few years ago. 
6 Jun
6 Jun
8:02 p.m.
The 5150, as released in August 1981, had SIX ROM
sockets. It had one
8K
ROM for the BIOS, four 8K ROMs totaling 32K for BASIC, and one empty
socket, which usually stayed empty. A company calling itself MBI sold
an
accessory ROM for that socket thatr added some trivial features.
I always wondered if anyone made use of the extra BIOS sockets. Do you by any chance
recall what functions were added?
-Ali
8:21 p.m.
The 5150, as
released in August 1981, had SIX ROM sockets. It had one
8K ROM for the BIOS, four 8K ROMs totaling 32K for BASIC, and one empty
socket, which usually stayed empty. A company calling itself MBI sold
an accessory ROM for that socket thatr added some trivial features.
I always wondered if anyone made use of the extra BIOS
sockets. Do you
by any chance recall what functions were added?
I don't recall ever seeing any other than that MBI one. It's almost
certainly still sitting in the socket of my first 5150.
I never got around to using any of those functions.
I don't remember the details, but I think that it might have added some
print-screen functionality and some modes of the IBM printer (Epson MX80
with different ROM). Nothing that I ended up having need of.
If/when I dig it out, how much should I ask for it? (Berkeley California)
NO, Ed, I won't give it away AND pay shipping.
EARLY 5150, but with trivial modifications, such as additional holes in
brackets for 4 half-height drives, and probably has a different video
board and disk controller than the IBM ones that I originally bought with
it. At one time, I had a Plantronics 640x400 CGA-sorta-like video, and
I used 8 inch drives with a Vista disk controller, a Maynard, and maybe
one or two others (but only one disk controller at a time; I only did
multiple controllers with 5160 and 5170)
It had a D hole in the back panel, I might have punched an additional
D hole, . . .
I recall it having an unusual black power supply with a white switch (Did
IBM run short of inventory supply?), but I might have replaced that at
some point.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com
7 Jun
7 Jun
12:16 a.m.
On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 1:21 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
If/when I dig it out, how much should I ask for it?
(Berkeley California)
NO, Ed, I won't give it away AND pay shipping.
:D
EARLY 5150, but with trivial modifications, such as
additional holes in
brackets for 4 half-height drives, and probably has a different video
board and disk controller than the IBM ones that I originally bought with
it. At one time, I had a Plantronics 640x400 CGA-sorta-like video, and
I used 8 inch drives with a Vista disk controller, a Maynard, and maybe
one or two others (but only one disk controller at a time; I only did
multiple controllers with 5160 and 5170)
It had a D hole in the back panel, I might have punched an additional
D hole, . . .
I recall it having an unusual black power supply with a white switch (Did
IBM run short of inventory supply?), but I might have replaced that at
some point.
The primary distinguishing features of the very first run of 5150's are:
1) No "B" inside a circle stamped on the back panel
2) Only two case screws on lower right and left of back panel (none on top)
3) Black power supply
Here's a photo that shows this ==>
https://www.minuszerodegrees.net/5150/early/5150_early_case_rear.jpg
Bill Degnan (from whom I learned all this) knows more about this.
Sellam
12:29 a.m.
On Tue, 6 Jun 2023, Sellam Abraham via cctalk wrote:
The primary distinguishing features of the very first
run of 5150's are:
1) No "B" inside a circle stamped on the back panel
2) Only two case screws on lower right and left of back panel (none on top)
3) Black power supply
Here's a photo that shows this ==>
https://www.minuszerodegrees.net/5150/early/5150_early_case_rear.jpg
Bill Degnan (from whom I learned all this) knows more about this.
I will have to check for the 'B', but there are a few cubic meters of
stuff to move to get to it.
2 case screws
power supply was not only black, but had a white switch, instead of the
red paddle.
in addition to the round plugged hole, it might also have originally had a
"D hole" for a DB25. When I mentioned such to my department chairman (an
unusually competent fellow), he used department money to buy a Greenlee
chassis punch, so we added those DB25 mounts to a few others as needed,
instead of tying up a slot just for a bracket.
12:49 a.m.
If/when I dig it out, how much should I ask for it?
(Berkeley
California)
The 5150 or the ROM? :) I don't know about either but prices have been
getting ludicrous lately. I would be interested in playing around with the
ROM so if you ever dig it up and dump the contents..... Or I can always take
it off your hands at the next VCF West :D
The black power supply might be an indication it is one of the early 64KB
5150s making it worth more...
-Ali
1:04 a.m.
> If/when I dig it out, how much should I ask for
it? (Berkeley
> California)
On Tue, 6 Jun 2023, Ali wrote:
The 5150 or the ROM? :) I don't know about either
but prices have been
getting ludicrous lately. I would be interested in playing around with the
ROM so if you ever dig it up and dump the contents..... Or I can always take
it off your hands at the next VCF West :D
The 5150.
But, I don't think that it would have any effect on the pricing if I were
to remove that after-market ROM.
The black power supply might be an indication it is
one of the early 64KB
5150s making it worth more...
It is certainly nowhere near "THE first", nor even the first locally, but
it is an early one. On August 12, 1981, I started checking out getting
one. I bought it, the "Technical Reference Manual", a CGA board and FDC.
I already had plenty of RAM, floppy drives, and CCTV monitors. I put 27
TRS80 RAM chips in, and a pair of floppy drives. Then, I bought a 192K ECC
memory board (Boulder Creek Systems?) Then a "multi-function" card to get
RS232 for modem, and to connect to my DTC300 serial HiType 1 daisy wheel
printer.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com
6 Jun
6 Jun
8:35 p.m.
In 1983 or 1984?, PC-World magazine ran an article
comparing compatability of
the clones. They "tested" based on which software would run, such as
"Flight
Simulator". They used version 1.00 of XenoCopy, which deliberately would
only run on real genuine IBM 5150 PC, although the versions of XenoCopy being
sold by that time would run on ANYTHING that had compatability with INT13h,
Int1Eh, Int10h, and had the text screen memory at B000h or B800h. They
referred to XenoCopy as "the acid test of compatability"
After that, and because of that, I wrote, but never bothered completing
debugging nor finished sufficiently for retail release, a program
intended to quantify compatability, called
"XenoPhobe : The Acid Test"
It started by identifying the processor. I could only do that by side
effects of obscure code, such as checking the size of the pre-fetch
buffer, the multi-segment over-ride issue, etc.
At one point, an article in MicroCornucopia discussed processor
identification, and mentioned "official Intel company internal methods".
I eventually found somebody at Intel who understood what I meant. He asked
that if I ever did find them, to send him a copy.
It did an attempt at speed test, and did some direct to memory video.
It checked Interrupt Vector Table for whether the BIOS interrupts pointed
to the same locations as IBM had, and checked some other location and ROM
specific items, such as the BASIC floating point accumulator.
It looked for IBM text strings in the ROMs, etc.
It was a fun diversion, but I did not think that it had any retail
potential. Certainly not enough to devote massive work towards doing it
right.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com
10:13 p.m.
"The only possible way to have 100% compatability is copyright
infringement. But, you can certainly come up with something that is
similar enough to do what you need."
11:30 p.m.
On Jun 6, 2023, at 6:13 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
"The only possible way to have 100% compatability is copyright infringement. But,
you can certainly come up with something that is similar enough to do what you need."
That's not always true. Another way to get it is to implement from sufficiently high
quality specifications. The DIX Ethernet spec, and the DECnet specs, are examples where
if you do what they say you will have an interoperable implementation.
Unfortunately that level of quality is not common, but it can and has been done.
paul
7 Jun
7 Jun
12:01 a.m.
> "The only possible way to have 100%
compatability is copyright infringement. But, you can certainly come up with something
that is similar enough to do what you need."
On Tue, 6 Jun 2023, Paul Koning wrote:
That's not always true. Another way to get it is
to implement from sufficiently high quality specifications. The DIX Ethernet spec, and
the DECnet specs, are examples where if you do what they say you will have an
interoperable implementation.
Unfortunately that level of quality is not common, but it can and has been done.
Well, our discussion will be hindered by variations in the definitions of
compatability.
And, we are discussing it in the context of IBM 5150!
A perfect implementation of the specification is certainly one definition,
and should certainly give you something similar enough to do what you
need. In MOST cases.
But, what if the specification itself is not perfect?
If we, instead, define "100% compatability" as always behaving exactly the
same as the original, we might have problems.
With something like the IBM PC, you might still run up against a
situation where somebody has exploited a bug, and the perfect
implementation is therefore not completely the same as the real world
example.
We have to agree first about whether 100% compatability means a perfect
mplementation of the specification, or whether 100% compatability means
"bug for bug compatability".
MY definition of 100% includes "bug for bug compatability".
"Do you want it completely compatible, or do you want it to work RIGHT?"
I can't off the top of my head come up with any GOOD examples, such as why
you might WANT to do any of the specific floating point divisions that
show that bug in certain early Pentiums, but should we call it completely
compatible with THAT model if it fails to give that particular wrong
result?
but...
In the screen capture section of XenoFont, the full 4000 bytes of text mode
video memory could not be done fast enough (unless I did it in sections
and synchronized when it happened) without a clash that produced a
mometary sparkle of "static". I declared that to be a FEATURE, and said
that that was "the flash going off" to tell you when the image got
captured. :-) And, believe it or not, some users LIKED that! A machine
that is enough faster than a 5150 to NOT get that "interference" might be
BETTER, but not behaving exactly the same.
One of my students once was asking about the "freeze" of 5150 BASIC during
"garbage collection" and wondered about using that to get random
unexpected pauses and breaks for users doing long intensive tasks!
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com
12:05 a.m.
On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 8:01 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
I thought the goal back then was not 100% hardware compatibility, it was
MS/IBM DOS compatibility. To be able to load/run/copy files from one PC to
another, dBASE, Lotus, Wordstar, etc. I don't think most manufacturers
cared as long as the software worked and you could make a printout using a
standard printer of the day like an Epson or whatever.
Bill
> "The
only possible way to have 100% compatability is copyright
infringement. But, you can certainly come up with something that is
similar enough to do what you need."
On Tue, 6 Jun 2023, Paul Koning wrote:
That's not always true. Another way to get
it is to implement from
sufficiently high quality specifications. The DIX Ethernet spec, and the
DECnet specs, are examples where if you do what they say you will have an
interoperable implementation.
Unfortunately that level of quality is not
common, but it can and has
been done.
Well, our discussion will be hindered by variations in the definitions of
compatability.
And, we are discussing it in the context of IBM 5150!
A perfect implementation of the specification is certainly one definition,
and should certainly give you something similar enough to do what you
need. In MOST cases.
12:20 a.m.
On Tue, 6 Jun 2023, Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote:
I thought the goal back then was not 100% hardware
compatibility, it was
MS/IBM DOS compatibility. To be able to load/run/copy files from one PC to
another, dBASE, Lotus, Wordstar, etc. I don't think most manufacturers
cared as long as the software worked and you could make a printout using a
standard printer of the day like an Epson or whatever.
Most people, even those who explicitly stated that it was, were not
intereste in 100% compatability, they just wanted something that would not
give them unexpected incompatabilities.
I tested all of my software on real IBM hardware. If it worked on the
real hardware, but failed on a customer's "compatible", it would be a
drag, but not the disaster that it would be if it had worked on my
"compatible", but failed on the real thing.
People who tested software on "compatible" machines sometimes got
surprised.
Trivial example: if the attribute of a text character is both reverse
video AND bright, the PC CGA handled that differently than the Columbia
CGA.
F'rinstance, one of my early versions worked on 5150, but failed on a
customer's AT&T 80186? machine. That was when I learned about the change
in the size of the prefetch buffer. The fact that it had worked on 5150
helped the customer to understand that it wasn't "BAD software", but that
it needed some tweaks to work with his "non-standard" machine. And
fortunately easily remedied (an otherwise unnecessary JMP to flush the
buffer) before the 5170 came out.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com
533
days inactive
535
days old
55 comments
17 participants
participants (17)
-
Ali -
Bill Degnan -
Chuck Guzis -
db -
ED SHARPE -
Fred Cisin -
js＠cimmeri.com -
Mike Katz -
Nigel Johnson Ham -
Paul Koning -
Santo Nucifora -
Sellam Abraham -
Tom Gardner -
Tony Duell -
Warner Losh -
Yeechang Lee -
Yeechang Lee