26 Jul
1999
26 Jul
'99
8 a.m.
Someone wanted 80 pounds (about $125 US) for an
Amstrad NC200 laptop. Manual is
copyright 1992, CE mark on case dated 1993, so not quite a classic, but...
Rather a nice machine - screen looked like about 80*8
(I didn't count) or 80*10
characters, all pixels addressable. Processor probably Z80 (*) - the manual
wasn't very informative, and the owner wouldn't let me dismantle it :-(
Has a strange custom spreadsheet, a word processor, a
VT52 emulator and a port
of BBC BASIC in ROM, and 128K bytes of RAM.
Since the owner wouldn't take offers, I didn't
buy it - L80 is far too high; I
would have offered L50 absolute max - can anybody tell me what I've missed, and
what sort of market price it has (I'd guess thrift store $10, Ebay $100 but I
don't know)
(Owner's daughter pointed out that another
potential purchaser or two had looked
at it and said it was v. cheap. Since they lost interest as soon as I told them
it wasn't PC compatible, I didn't read too much into that. Heck, you can get a
386 laptop for L80 without difficulty...)
(*) I finally found that the port of BBC BASIC
includes a Z80 assembler instead
of the usual 6502. Thus my guess as to CPU. BASIC ran "FOR A=1 TO
10000:NEXT"
in 6.75 seconds as measured on the internal clock, so I'd guess at 4 MHz, but
that's just guesswork...
:)) It has - nice machine - I skiped one two weeks ago - the seller
asked for DM 70,- just way to much for the naked unit - maybe if
it would have been with all original stuff (and packing).
Servus
Hans
--
Traue keinem Menschen der 5 Tage blutet und immer noch nicht tod ist.