7 May
2005
7 May
'05
3:09 p.m.
In other words, it 'shipped' with Cassette
Basic, but minus the cassette
interface. All IBM XTs will boot to the Cassette Basic prompt, if no
Correct (as for that matter, did the PC/AT)
disk controller is found, or no diskette is found in
the A drive. You
can type in BASIC programs and run them, even writing to drives and
whatnot if I'm not mistaken. My IBM PC Convertable will do the same
No, there's no support for the disks at all. Loading and saving uses the
appropriate INT call (INT 15???) which was used for the cassette
interface on the 5150. It's a NOP on the 5160
I've hald-considered making a paper tape punch/reader interface with a
BIOS extension ROM that takes over that INT. Then the ROM basic would use
paper tape for I/O on the XT and AT...
thing, it's from the same generation of IBM 8088
machine as the PC-XT.
-tony