15 Feb
2002
15 Feb
'02
3:45 a.m.
The 100+ cost $5475 new with the specs you list. The base 100B was a
stripped-down 100+. The HD was optional. Base 100B price was $2750--about
the same as the original 100. My wording was misleading--sorry.
You are correct that all 100s could read IBM disks, but only with the
operating system kit that was introduced as an option with the 100+.
Standard 100s could not read IBM PC format disks. I should have been more
clear here, too, but was too lazy to check my source material (DEC presskits
and catalog plus BYTE articles).
--Mike
Michael Nadeau
Editor/Publisher
Classic Tech, the Vintage Computing Resource
www.classictechpub.com
603-893-2379
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Pechter" <pechter(a)bg-tc-ppp747.monmouth.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2002 9:02 AM
Subject: Re: DEC Rainbows ... prior info is wrong
[Charset iso-8859-1 unsupported, filtering to
ASCII...]
>
>
> The 100A could read only disks that used its own proprietary format. The
> 100+ could read, but not write to, PC-format disks. The 100B was a
> lower-priced version of the 100+. I'm sure there are other differences,
but
these are the
key ones.
--Mike
Michael Nadeau
Editor/Publisher
Classic Tech, the Vintage Computing Resource
www.classictechpub.com
603-893-2379
Nope... the 100+ and 100B were (IIRC) the same thing. The B rev could
handle more memory than the 100 (the B was a motherboard rev IIRC).
The B went to 896k of memory... the 100 was less. The B or + also
had a larger power supply to handle the hard disk and more memory.
I don't remember any cost/price reduction at that time but I was mostly
a PDP11/VAX guy back then.
All Rainbows (with the correct software) could read IBM MS-DOS 40trk
160/320/180/360 floppies.
No standard Rainbows could handle the 1.2mb AT disks which came later.
Bill