14 Dec
2005
14 Dec
'05
5:29 a.m.
On 12/13/2005 at 11:29 PM Barry Watzman wrote:
Well, the Heathkit / Zenith Z-100 ran MS-DOS (called
Z-DOS -- it was not
PC
compatible at the hardware level) and also supported
8" floppy drives (in
fact a very nice accessory external dual-drive 8" floppy was offered).
Also, again not PC compatible, but the CompuPro (Godbout) systems had 8"
drives and in some configurations ran MS-DOS. Also, the Seattle Computer
Products systems. And there were 8" controllers for early PCs.
I seem to remember that the first version of DOS 1.x for the Compupro (did
it run on the 85-88 board?:) used a legit retail version of PC-DOS, with
the IBMBIO files replaced by Godbout-specific I/O drivers. Does anyone
remember this? I think it was because MS didn't want to talk small-volume
sales for a specific architecture.
I checked my files and the NEC PC-8801-16 used MS-DOS 1.25 in 8" media.
Packed with it is an 8" DOS copy of Wordstar/Mailmerge. And, for whatever
reason, a 5.25" copy of DOS 1.25.
Cheers,
Chuck