27 Feb
2003
27 Feb
'03
4:19 a.m.
Many 820-II's and 820-I's were field upgraded to 16/8's. The external
5-1/4's were sucky. The DEM-II expansion case was nice, but the big
8 inch drives ruled. 980K each. I always thought one of the 8inch 16/8's
would be interesting, but in the end, they'd still only be DOS. The
820's with the big 8inch Shugart rigid drive nice.
On Wed, 26 Feb 2003 Innfogra(a)aol.com wrote:
In a message dated 2/26/03 7:21:26 AM Pacific Standard
Time,
rigdonj(a)cfl.rr.com writes:
M. K. Peirce
Rhode Island Computer Museum, Inc.
Shady Lea, Rhode Island
"Casta est quam nemo rogavit."
- Ovid
Correct, XEROX made a model 8/16 that had two
CPUs, one 8 bit and 16 bit. I
THINK one was a Z-80 and the other was a 8086 but I'm not sure any more. I
used to have the docs for an 8/16 and I've been looking for one but haven't
managed to find one yet.
Xerox made a couple of 8/16s. I have one of the 8086 second CPU boards for my
Xerox 820-II. I was going to install it till a house fire melted the 820.
The original 820 came with dual 8" floppies or an 8" floppy and an 8"
harddrive and ran CPM. It was a spendy little computer for its time. Then
they fit Dual 5 1/4" floppies in an external case, came out with a low
profile keyboard and the add on 8086 Board. They called it the Xerox
820II-8/16.
IIRC the design was taken from the Z80 Big Board which was a popular kit at
the time. It was mounted flat, underneath the CRT and looked much like a
terminal.
At the time the IBM PC came out the Xerox design was hopelessly outdated.
They redesigned the case to a rectangular shape with a separate monitor ala
the IBM PC. They used dual 5 1/2" half height floppies oriented horizontally.
I never saw an actual one but IIRC they used the same Big Board coupled with
the 8086 board that was in the 820 and sold it as the Xerox 8/16.
It ran CPM, CPM-86 and MS-DOS ( IIRC to 2.11). However it was not IBM
Compatible, and did not have IBM graphics.
By the time it was ready the bottom had fallen out of the crossover market. I
don't think Xerox sold any commercially. A liquidation company sold the
remainder for about three years. I doubt they sold many, I bet most were
scrapped for the drives.
The Xerox 820 II was my second computer system and still one of my favorites.
(The first was State Surplus Litton 1251 that I bought for $25.00) I have had
almost all of the various models of the 820 go through my hands over the
years. Besides my original melted one I still have another packed away with
all it's SW. Someday it will run again.
Paxton
Astoria, OR