Least PC-Compatible MS-DOS machines?

Err, IBM PC? CP/M 86 was a supported OS. But actually, given that few users chose that, there may well ahve bene mroe of another CP/M 86 box out there... Not quite as strange as the Sirius character genretor, the Apricot has mcu hthe same idea. These machines had 2K*16 of video RAM, which stored, IRIC, 11 bit characters and 5 bits of atributes (intensified, underlines, inverse, etc). The 11 bits were fed as an address to part of the main DRAM array, the output of that went into the shfit registers, then to the CRT. So the character generator was actually part of the normal DRAM user memory. Note I said 11 bit chracters, There was a reason for that. The display was 80*24 or 80*25 (I forget which). In other words, <2^11 chracters on the screen. So you could actually have a different chracter displayed at every location Given that the character patters were in RAM, you could therefore have bitmapped graphics (load a differnet chracter into each lcoation of the 2**16 video RAM, then set/reset bits of the 'character generator) area). [FTS monitor] I manaaged to keep one going using bits of 2 different oens(flyback form one, horizotnal oscillatro from another, a somehat fatter output transisotr on a large heatsink... Didn't you end up with one of those Zentih montoros wtih the PSU that combines the efficiency of a linear wit hthe reliability of a switcher? I made an interface to get compositie video from the FTS. Of course at a strange scan rate. But amazingly my old TRS-870 Model 1 monitor could lock to it if you twidled the osicllaotr coil. The montioro didn't like it much, but it was enough for tesitng to prove the vidoe PCB was OK, etc. -tony