9 Oct
2005
9 Oct
'05
9:08 a.m.
At 08:23 PM 10/8/05 -0500, you wrote:
On Sat, 08 Oct 2005 18:10:59
"Joe R." <rigdonj at cfl.rr.com> wrote:
THREE of my friends bought 6300s. They were GREAT compared to the
Sanyos. They actually had ISA expansion slots instead of the ONE
propriatary connector that the Sanyo had. They would run true IBM PC DOS
and all the IBM PC software. I don't remember exactly what speed they ran
at (6MHz?) but I'm pretty sure that it was faster than the PC (plus it used
the 8086 processor). The Sanyo ran at 3.58MHz (8088) so that they could use
CHEAP color burst crsytals for the oscillator. The Sanyos also used part of
the main memory for the video memory instead of having video memory at a
fixed address ala the IBM PC so a LOT of the MS DOS software would not run
on it. The Sanyo had about a 30 Watt power supply, you literally could not
run an 8087 coprosessor and a 2nd floppy drive at the same time! The Sanyo
could not be expanded over 256k without serious hardware hacks, etc etc
etc. The **&*&) non-standard keyboard and keycodes, non-standard IO
connectors. I think everything was non-standard on it! The DOS for the
Sanyo was highly tailored for it and it was FULL of bugs and the manuals
were plain S**T! Like I said, I HAD a 555. It was THE worst compatible
computer ever made! No make that plain WORST computer ever made. I don't
believe any other computer had as many problems and as little support as
the Sanyos did! I had friends that had Columbias, AT&Ts, and just about any
other that you could name and none of them had a fraction of troubles that
I constantly had. I was a poor college student and could afford anything
else so I stuck with (or got stuck with!) a Sanyo for three years and I
used it A LOT. I DESPISE the things!
</rant>
Joe
I remember all the time
Yuck! I had a 555 and it's the worst
"clone" ever made IMO! Feed
it to
the landfill!
Joe
Machines like that have historical value. I remember the Sanyo PC
Clones, too. They wouldn't boot from anything except the specific Sanyo
version of MS-DOS. They were 'closed' without expandability. Still,
they were early enough systems to have some historical value, as a
'kinda clone' system. The Columbia Data Systems was a 'kinda' too, and
I remember frowning on them back in the day at swapmeets and junkshops,
and I would LOVE to have one now (one of the very first IBM 'clones'
from before Compaq's success).
There's a lot of historical worth in machines from that era that were
'stinkers.' In particular, people who have bad memories of them and
want them destroyed will ensure that they are more rare than usual
eventually.
I have similar bad memories of the AT&T 6300. wasted at work trying to get a high density floppy disk
to work (not my
time, but the engineers who futzed with it grew to hate the machine.)
And yet, there are people here who would be happy to have an AT&T 6300
now. There are probably still people who consider them 'superior' to
the IBM-PC because they used an 8086 and a 16-bit wide data path.
Machines like the Sanyo belong in somebody's collection. (no room here,
sadly)
At 04:01 PM 10/8/05 -0500, you wrote:
Sanyo
MBC-555 computer in perfect condition with both color and amber
monitors, all the old documentation/packing and several years worth of
SoftSector, a Sanyo MBC 55x enthusiast magazine. Is there anyone in
the world interested in this hardware/material or is it time to add to
the world's landfills? Hope you can be of help (and can have first
dibs, if interested).
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 23:57:02 -0400
From: Stuart Pomerantz <stuartpomerantz at gmail.com>
To: jfoust at threedee.com
Subject: questions about Sanyo MBC 55x collectors
Dear Mr. Foust,
I came across your website and your interest in old computers. I
have a
Sincerely,
Stuart Pomerantz