5 Sep
2007
5 Sep
'07
3:33 a.m.
Today I received an email from a gentleman in possession of an AT&T
PC6300, wanting to know if I wanted it for the cost of shipping. I'm
not interested in collecting PCs, so I said I'd pass it on to the list.
Here is his description of the machine:
(start of quote)
As the original purchaser, I am seeking a new home for a pristine 1985
Personal Computer with peripherals, software, and original
documentation. All were functioning perfectly in February 1998, when
replaced and stored.
All items are in their original boxes:
AT&T PC6300 with 256KB RAM and two 5-1/4" floppy drives, Color Monitor,
Keyboard, Mouse, and Citizen MSP-15 dot matrix printer with 8-1/2x11 and
11x15 tractor feed paper.
As you know, this PC was the state of the art technology in 1985 and the
best and fastest of the pre-"Windows" operating system platforms. It is
an excellent representation depicting the end of the Dot Matrix and DOS
eras.
(end of quote)
If you are interested, please mail me off-list at frustum at pacbell.net.
I'll forward his contact information to you (I'd put it here, but some
people reasonably don't like having their personal information stuck in
a public forum archive).
Thanks.
5 Sep
5 Sep
6:27 p.m.
--- Jim Battle <frustum at pacbell.net> wrote:
Today I received an email from a gentleman in
possession of an AT&T
PC6300, wanting to know if I wanted it for the cost
of shipping. I'm
not interested in collecting PCs, so I said I'd pass
it on to the list.
Here is his description of the machine:
(start of quote)
As the original purchaser, I am seeking a new home
for a pristine 1985
Personal Computer with peripherals, software, and
original
documentation. All were functioning perfectly in
February 1998, when
replaced and stored.
All items are in their original boxes:
AT&T PC6300 with 256KB RAM and two 5-1/4" floppy
drives, Color Monitor,
Keyboard, Mouse, and Citizen MSP-15 dot matrix
printer with 8-1/2x11 and
11x15 tractor feed paper.
Being that *presumably* it has color graphics
capability, someone should grab it. They're not that
easy to come by.
As you know, this PC was the state of the art
technology in 1985 and the
best and fastest of the pre-"Windows" operating
system platforms. It is
an excellent representation depicting the end of the
Dot Matrix and DOS
eras.
I'm not so sure about SOTA, but an interesting
machine IMHO. May take a number of peecee style
expansion cards (but DON'T quote me on that). Uses an
8086 instead of the typical 8088. Uses a
passive-backplane motherboard. A fun machine to tinker
around w/if you ask me. Oh, you didn't ask me...well
then BUZZ OFF! LOL LOL
Keep up the good work Jimbo ;)
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7:09 p.m.
On 5 Sep 2007 at 10:27, Chris M wrote:
I'm not so sure about SOTA, but an interesting
machine IMHO. May take a number of peecee style
expansion cards (but DON'T quote me on that). Uses an
8086 instead of the typical 8088.
When Sears had a chain of computer stores, they really flogged the
6300s. I don't know if I'd call the 6300 "state of the art" though.
Wasn't it an Olivetti machine under the skin?
There were other 8086-based PeeCee-type machines. The Stearns is one
that comes to mind. Made somewhere in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis-
St. Paul) area, IIRC.
Cheers,
Chuck
7:17 p.m.
--- Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
Wasn't it an Olivetti machine under the skin?
Yes. Made by Olivetti. It did appear under their name
in some incarnations, and also Xerox. The Xerox
version came with a b $ w monitor. Damn their so hard
to find.
There were other 8086-based PeeCee-type machines.
The Stearns is one
that comes to mind. Made somewhere in the Twin
Cities (Minneapolis-
St. Paul) area, IIRC.
NEC APC, APC III off the top of my head. There's
others:
ACT Apricot F1
ACT Apricot F10
ACT Apricot F2
ACT Apricot PC
ACT Apricot Portable
ACT Apricot Xi
Altos 586
Amstrad PC20
Datavue 25
Fujitzu Micro 16s
Grid Case
Grid Compass
Hewlett-Packard HP-110
Morrow Pivot
Olivetti M21
Olivetti M24
Olympia People
Osborne Encore
Osborne Vaden
Panafacom Limited Duet-16
Sinclair PC200
there are a few missing...
found this:
http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/16bit/gcc/
"very much experimental". There has been a bit of buzz
about this same topic on the Linux-86 mailing list.
Alan Cox regularly chimes in there.
found this too:
http://www.redsofts.com/soft/119/18329/
NGASM_80868088_Assembler.html
____________________________________________________________________________________
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7:31 p.m.
On 5 Sep 2007 at 11:17, Chris M wrote:
NEC APC, APC III off the top of my head. There's
others: <snip>
I meant systems that would load and run PC-DOS right out of the box,
i.e. "PC compatible" systems. The Grid would fall under that
heading, but not many of the others--and certainly not the NEC APC.
The 8086 was attractive for the Grid because it came in a low-power
CMOS version--the 80c88 came along a bit later.
Cheers,
Chuck
6 Sep
6 Sep
6:49 a.m.
On Wednesday 05 September 2007 14:31, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 5 Sep 2007 at 11:17, Chris M wrote:
I'm vaguely remembering an Epson machine -- Equity III? Something like that,
I found out it had an 8086 in there when I went to stick a v20 in it, one
client had a bunch of machines and had me do that to a number of them for
him...
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
NEC APC, APC III off the top of my head.
There's
others: <snip>
I meant systems that would load and run PC-DOS right out of the box,
i.e. "PC compatible" systems. The Grid would fall under that
heading, but not many of the others--and certainly not the NEC APC.
The 8086 was attractive for the Grid because it came in a low-power
CMOS version--the 80c88 came along a bit later. 
8:07 p.m.
On Sep 5, 2007, at 2:09 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Yes, it was built by Olivetti. They sure are nice machines. I've
been in touch with the guy in Texas and am going to try to grab the
machine...I've wanted one for a long time; I used to sell and service
those machines at an after-school job when I was a teenager.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007
I'm not
so sure about SOTA, but an interesting
machine IMHO. May take a number of peecee style
expansion cards (but DON'T quote me on that). Uses an
8086 instead of the typical 8088.
When Sears had a chain of computer stores, they really flogged the
6300s. I don't know if I'd call the 6300 "state of the art" though.
Wasn't it an Olivetti machine under the skin?
10:18 p.m.
On Sep 5, 2007, at 1:27 PM, Chris M wrote:
Being that *presumably* it has color graphics
capability, someone should grab it. They're not that
easy to come by.
Yup. And they do 640x400, which was kinda unusual at the time.
I'm not so sure about SOTA, but an interesting
machine IMHO. May take a number of peecee style
expansion cards (but DON'T quote me on that). Uses an
8086 instead of the typical 8088.
8086 at 8MHz in fact.
Uses a passive-backplane motherboard.
It does use a passive backplane for the ISA slots, but the logic
board itself isn't a card in that backplane. The logic board is on
the bottom of the machine (chips facing down, if memory serves) and
that contains nearly all of the system logic.
A fun machine to tinker
around w/if you ask me. Oh, you didn't ask me...well
then BUZZ OFF! LOL LOL
I spent quite a bit of time working on those machines. They are
really, really nice. The monitors are crisp and sharp, the keyboards
are *fantastic*, and the chassis are built like tanks.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007
11:23 p.m.
--- Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
On Sep 5, 2007, at 1:27 PM, Chris M wrote:
Not so much unusual, just not so use-ual. Tandy 2000,
NEC APC, APC III, a number of pre-EGA graphics boards.
I really really wanted an IBM 5150 (a real peecee, not
that *Taiwanese junk*, which in reality was just as
good), with a Sigma 400 video card, and a Princeton
PG-12 (I may have screwed the model designation up).
~2500$ in 1986 dollars. A little too pricey for a 19
year old making 3.40$/hour. So I settled on a Tandy
1000. Kept it for about 2 weeks LOL.
The following year I bought a T2K when it went on
sale. The rest is history. In fact all of it is
history. And now so is this here message...
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Being that *presumably* it has color graphics
capability, someone should grab it. They're not
that
easy to come by.
Yup. And they do 640x400, which was kinda
unusual at the time. 
6 Sep
6 Sep
5:23 a.m.
Dave McGuire wrote:
Yes, and unfortunately the floppy interface was down there too, so you
had to route a cable through Hoboken and back just to hook up the floppy
drives.
The machine was a rebranded Olivetti M24. And the first x86 machine I
ever personally owned, so of course I know it inside and out.
8086 at 8MHz in fact.
7.16MHz, actually. (Nice even division of the base clock)
Uses a
passive-backplane motherboard.
It does use a passive backplane for the ISA slots, but the logic board
itself isn't a card in that backplane. The logic board is on the bottom
of the machine (chips facing down, if memory serves) and that contains
nearly all of the system logic. I spent quite a bit of time working on those
machines. They are
really, really nice. The monitors are crisp and sharp, the keyboards
are *fantastic*, and the chassis are built like tanks.
Not sure I agree about the keyboard and chassis, but the monitors were
to die for. Incredibly crisp.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
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