22 May
2006
22 May
'06
1:58 a.m.
At 18:16 02/05/2006, Chris M wrote:
Just how much use was made of IBMs ROM BASIC (or
BASICs for that matter - they were included in all the
PS/2s, and probably even later models. Yeah, schools
and stuph made use of built in BASICs, and even
utilized cassettes for storage (I learned, though I
use the term loosely, BASIC programming on the Atari
400, which sported a membrane keyboard...ugh). But I'm
not aware of too many early IBM branded PCs made their
way into schools (more so possibly by the PS/2
period). But who the heck made any serious use of ROM
based BASIC in the *pseudo* 16 bit era and beyond?
An early PC clone over here was made by Ferranti - complete with ROM
based Basic and cassette interface, in the base model. It was sold
by WH Smith (local high-street stationary store) alongside ZX
Spectrums and other home micros. There seemed to be some big
hoo-hah at one point, though, as I was working for Ferranti at the
time (in an unrelated division) and we suddenly got lots and lots of
EPROMs to erase and re-program after there was some issue with the
BIOS and copyright ....
I /might/ have a lead on some early Ferranti PCs if anybody wants
one; bloke I picked a Dragon 32 up off works for what's left of them
and said they had loads of old stuff still about. (I'm not
interested enough in them myself..)
Rob