29 Nov
2000
29 Nov
'00
3:31 p.m.
On Wed, 29 Nov 2000, Tony Duell wrote:
There's also a thing called a Sage II. It's a
68000-based single-board
computer + 2 disk drives + PSU in a small-ish metal case. I seem to
remember the standard OS for that is the P-system (although the machine
would also run CP/M-68K). I don't know how common the machine is, though.
I've only ever seen one in my days and I passed it up because the price
was too high :(
And of course there's the PERQ. It's not
strictly a UCSD p-machine -- the
instruction set is called 'Q-codes' and is an enhanced version of the
P-code (with graphics operations, etc). It's a very similar instruction
set, though. However the user interface to the OS is totally different
(the P-system has a menu displayed across the top of the CRT and you
type the first letter of a command to select it; the PERQ has a proper
command line and/or pop-up menus with a mouse).
I scanned the Apple P-Code documentation and converted it to ASCII text,
and it can be found here:
http://www.siconic.com/crap/pascal
It includes a memory map for the Apple ][ as well as the P-Code opcodes,
so it's a particular juicy document to have if you're a P-Code hacker.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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