20 Dec
2007
20 Dec
'07
12:15 p.m.
On Thu, 20 Dec 2007 13:26:24 -0200 "Alexandre Souza" said:
> I think this project is excellent and a kick-ass
way to use spare old
> hardware lying around (which is more likely to have a working 25-pin
> serial port than any modern machine). I love this project.
Although there are cheap CF cards today, it would
be a hit if it could
be ROMable and put in place of BIOS chip :o)
If you can still find them, ancient XT motherboards ought to be just right for
this type of service. Just get an old video board (will it work with a CGA
board?) and a serial I/O card and plug in the "extra" bios chips for the
emulator. Of course, several options could be added:
1) Support for a character based printer (both serial and parallel)
2) Some sort of scrolling (got to use that 640k of memory somehow!)
3) Color support (if you got a CGA card, use it!).
4) Provisions for 40 column mode (so you can use the RS-170 output to a TV
set)
5) Add a network card for a telnet client (probably a bother since there are
so many network cards)
The best part is that when you turn the machine on, you get instant terminal.
None of this silly operating system stuff.
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