14 May
2001
14 May
'01
10:53 a.m.
Sellam,
Stay of execution on this Diablo 3200.....
We have bought a bit of time as my wife has convinced them not to hack it
up until I get to see this critter.
Obviously we have no software for the machine and I'm assuming you don't
either.
The computer recycler has agreed not to remove the original components
until it can be determined if the box is usuable in some rudimentry
function as is. (They were going to gut the original components and
replace the guts with something more modern).
Now the challenge is to find software that might boot the machine up.
slightly hopeful...
George Rachor
=========================================================
George L. Rachor Jr. george(a)rachors.com
Hillsboro, Oregon http://rachors.com
United States of America Amateur Radio : KD7DCX
On Mon, 14 May 2001, Sellam Ismail wrote:
On Mon, 14 May 2001, George Leo Rachor Jr. wrote:
I've been told that a local computer scrap
warehouse has run across
something called a Diablo 3200 apparantly built into a custom Desk.
I'm afraid the guts will be removed as trash so the unit is probably
history but it got me to wondering what this machine was all about.
I had worked for Diablo during the Daisy wheel days and had heard
references to other equipment made by Diablo prior to being bought by
Xerox but didn't know specifics.
I just picked one up within the last month. I don't have a picture of it
but I can get one today.
It's an 8080-based machine that was marketed as an office data processing
system. I company I pulled it out of used it to do payroll and stuff up
until a few years ago. The machine was sold in the late 1970s. I think
it first went on the market in 1977.
The computer part is stuffed underneath the desk on the right-hand side.
The disk drives (mine has four 8" floppies) are on the left. The terminal
is built into the desktop. It also came with a separate daisy-wheel
printer.
It reminds me very much of the IBM 3741 Display Station that I picked up
about a month prior to this. In fact, I'm speculating that the 3200 was
Diablo's attempt to better the 3741 and compete against IBM in the small-
to medium-sized business realm. The 3741 has a small terminal built into
the desktop (very small, only like 4" across) and two 8" floppies mounted
vertically on the surface of the desk. It also came with a separate dot
matrix printer. The 3741 was sold as a data entry terminal, but it
actually had a BASIC interpreter and most likely other languages could be
gotten for it (mine came with BASIC).
Anyone have an idea what OS might have used. Was
it CP/M or something
less universal?
The Diablo 3200 ran CP/M.
It would be a shame to let this beast go to its death. I've never seen a
Diablo 3200 before or after the one I got, in fact I'd never even heard of
it, and I'm a bit surprised to see mention of another. My guess is that
they are extremely rare. You should do what you can to rescue it,
although it is a bit sizeable and would take up a little space in your
garage or what not.
Diablo was a San Francisco Bay Area company that was more than likely
named after Mount Diablo, a rather large mountain east of the hills
separating the Oakland east bay area from the inland east bay area
(locally known as the Tri-Valley area :) Up until I found the 3200, I
didn't know they made anything other than disk drives and printers.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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