8-bitters and multi-whatever

On 12/09/2007, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote: I am sitting here quietly boggling at the ingenuity displayed in these posts. I had multiple systems in the mid/late 1980s. By and large, I retyped everything, tho' by the end, DOS-format 720K 3.5" disks were a /lingua franca/ that almost everything spoke. But there were other cheapo serial networks back then: Sinclair bundled networking in the ZX Interface 1 for the Spectrum, which was, I think, compatible with the networking of the later Sinclair QL. Also there was Acorn's Econet, of course. I think Econet saw a *lot* of use tho' I've never seen a system outside of a show stand. I don't think enough Sinclairs got used in schools to make the Sinclair network worthwhile. The problem is, they were all more or less proprietary. It's a shame some kind of standardised serial-port system wasn't adopted; even really low-end kit like a Speccy with I/F 1 had a serial port. Just before Ethernet took over, I built a couple of LANs based on SAGE's MainLAN, a serial-type system, and I used a lot of Mac-to-Mac LocalTalk LANs - although actually in the '80s, Farallon PhoneNet took over quickly. Same computer-side electronics & connectors, so 100% compatible, but used telephone cables (so was cheaper) and carried a lot further. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508