26 Oct
2005
26 Oct
'05
7:12 p.m.
On Wed, 26 Oct 2005, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Not AFAIK. It was very difficult to buy the
"bare" PC retail, what with
demand being as strong as it was. Most units were sold with at least one
160K floppy.
prob'ly mostly because they were charging about $500 for a Tandon TM100-1!
(and a few hundred $ for each row of 16K RAMs)
In fall 1981, I was able to buy a bare 5150, plus FDC and CGA.
I had plenty of RAM and floppies in stock for TRS-80s.
I wasn't able to get another bare one until summer 1982.
By 1983, the college where I teach was buying that configuration a dozen
at a time.
I can recall trying the interface out and saying
"yes, it works", but the
most useful aspect of it was the motor control relay.
Yep!
I used it just long enough to confirm that it would not be a good way to
distribute software.