24 Apr
2008
24 Apr
'08
12:50 p.m.
Roy J. Tellason wrote:
On Thursday 24 April 2008 14:45, Jules Richardson
wrote:
Well, it goes beyond that - what's the point of having the video circuitry
there at all if your access to the system is always via serial, network, or
some other 'remote' means. The problem was that the PC was designed as a
single-user workstation, and no thought was ever given to server mentality (no
fault of IBM at the PC's launch - it's just a shame that every modern machine
I've tried still needs a video card installed and running, even if I don't
actually use it)
But yes, fair point about the expansion boards. I
expect it was unusual to
see a 5150 without floppy drives, and I don't think the things would even
boot without a display adapter (something that's plagued server PCs ever
since!)
Heh. I have one machine (the firewall/router) that's built around a 486 board
that although it does indeed have a monitor attached it's almost never turned
on. I can see the utility of some boxes here that wouldn't even have a
monitor attached at all, too.
(Snip)
I have actually a bunch of those old boards around _and_ docs for them, if
somebody needs some help with that, either in terms of taknig some of that
old hardware off my hands or getting something working.
I'd actually quite like to get hold of a 5160 on this side of the pond
sometime, whether it was stuffed with IBM boards or not (actually, I think I
still have a few boxed IBM memory and display boards in storage back in the UK
- just nothing to put them in :-)
Shipping such a beastie even within the US would be a nightmare though, plus
I'd be reluctant to leave a ST506/412 drive at the mercy of a shipping company
(I'm really not looking forward to getting the ones I do have in machines back
in the UK across the pond).
Maybe I should publish a wish list sometime and see what I can line up to buy
The
company I worked for at the time bought a PC on the day of release
(August 12, 1981), specifically to develop third-party peripherals and
software. The company was one of the first to market with a "combo
card", but was never as successful with it as AST, Quadram, etc.
I wonder how
many such vendors there were? Every (IBM) PC I've ever looked
in seems to have a different multi-function board from a different vendor
in :) (and of course the documentation on how to set it up is long gone) from people at one of the VCFs :-)
cheers
Jules