31 Jul
2013
31 Jul
'13
10:43 a.m.
On 07/31/2013 09:34 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
I guess it would be possible to have some kind of
terminal emulator
for the PC in 16K, one which talked directly to the NIC, but if so,
how would they have loaded it? From cassette? That seems implausible
to me but then I was not using PC tech in 1981. I was 13 and saving up
for my Sinclair Spectrum 48K. :?)
Yes, you'd load it from cassette--remember the built-in BASIC made
things quite a bit easier. In fact, the cassette-CGA card 16K machine
is shown in one of the (reddish-cover) manuals that came with the PC.
I upgraded my machine to 256K by purchasing a third-party kit that
consisted of a small board that plugged into the 48K of empty sockets
(the first 16K was soldered in) and a bunch of wires and instructions
for cutting and jumpering. It was, as I recall, offered by an outfit
called "Purple Computing"--I still have the instruction manual.
Later I added a Quadram Quadboard that got me 384K additional memory, a
real-time-clock and serial and parallel ports. I used that system for
quite some time, even adding my own Shugart SA1000 external disk drive
until I moved to a Faraday 5170 clone.
--Chuck