6 Sep
2007
6 Sep
'07
5:23 a.m.
Dave McGuire wrote:
Yes, and unfortunately the floppy interface was down there too, so you
had to route a cable through Hoboken and back just to hook up the floppy
drives.
The machine was a rebranded Olivetti M24. And the first x86 machine I
ever personally owned, so of course I know it inside and out.
8086 at 8MHz in fact.
7.16MHz, actually. (Nice even division of the base clock)
Uses a
passive-backplane motherboard.
It does use a passive backplane for the ISA slots, but the logic board
itself isn't a card in that backplane. The logic board is on the bottom
of the machine (chips facing down, if memory serves) and that contains
nearly all of the system logic. I spent quite a bit of time working on those
machines. They are
really, really nice. The monitors are crisp and sharp, the keyboards
are *fantastic*, and the chassis are built like tanks.
Not sure I agree about the keyboard and chassis, but the monitors were
to die for. Incredibly crisp.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/