Richard wrote:
See ebay item # 360132413754
That listing just includes the base unit, but thankfully has closeup
pictures of the connectors on the back.
It looks like it takes AUI ethernet or RS-232 and outputs RGB video.
Anyone familiar with these puppies? I've not seen one before.
Heck, that's interesting. I'll dig in my notes in a bit in case they shed any
light, but some speculation follows...
That case style remarkably like my XD88, only cut down in height. I wondered
at first if it was indeed a complete UTek-capable UNIX box but intended to run
an external disk (most of the XD88's case height is due to the full-height
drives inside) - but the lack of a obvious disk port (it'd logically have a
Centronics SCSI port where the "computer" label is) suggests that isn't the
case.
It could, I suppose, be designed to boot and run solely from an OS image on a
remote system via the Ethernet port. It might also contain a HH hard drive
inside; if the XD88 had HH drives the guts could probably just be squeezed
into a case that size.
The fact that it has a local floppy drive and RS232 ports suggests to me that
it's more than a mere X term anyway (but then Tek did do some pretty
complicated terminals back in the day) - plus my XD88 is circa 1988 and very
soon after that slimline X terminals existed in abundance, so I'm not sure
what this particular critter would have to offer if it's just a big X term
with local floppy storage.
Shame it's so far away or I think I'd be putting in my first ever EBay bid :-)
I'd love to see an inside pic of it.
cheers
Jules