3 Dec
2009
3 Dec
'09
12:08 p.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
I've got one of those somewhere. From what I rememeber it'll boot normal
PC MS-DOS, byt video output is done by having the approriate BIOS
interrrupt send stuff back to the Beeb over the 1MHz bus. So PC software
that does direct writes to video memory doesn't run on it.
I think this is the machine that uses a curious feature of the BBC micro
that if NMI (?) is asseted after a hard reset, the Beeb executes a
routing in the 1MHz us address space. Meaning the Graduate doesn't need
any special ROMs in the BBC micro, the boot ROM is built-in and accessed
over the 1MHz bus.
Very nice. I have a couple of 8-bit and 16-bit
Bridgecards, but never
ran across a Sidecar (and couldn't afford one when they were new, but
didn't really need one then, anyway).
Interesting! I've got a Torch Graduate, which is an almost identical concept So, were there "external box" PC-a-likes for
other vintage systems? I know
there were some internal boards for various machines...
HP did a 286-based DIO card for the 9000/200 series. I assume it ran
MS-DOS, but probaly not a PC-compatible version (this is a DIO card I've
never seen and would like...).
Wasn't there a thing cammed MacCharlie? A box that sat alongside a
classic Mac and connected to the serial port (?). It had a 5.25" drive
built in and would run PC software using the Mac keyaord and display.
-tony