Rebirth of IMSAI - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

28 Mar 1999

Speaking of the rebirth of IMSAI . . .

Has anyone seen anything new on their web page?  I've been following a few
of the items and have seen no changes since the 20th or so.

I'm not sure of the market for a hot pentium system packaged behind an Imsai
trademark and front panel.  I'd much rather see them pick up the support
thread for the already existing Imsai-branded hardware and publish the
existing doc's on their web site.  I'm sure there is a market for between 50
and 500 of each of several boards, and, if he already has the rights and the
artwork, reproducing the originals.  If he ( Todd Fischer ) made them,
perhaps to order, and perhaps with a dry-film solder mask and high-quality
bright-white silk screened legends, with some jumper definitions as are on
many no-longer-current PC ISA add-ons, to distinguish between the old boards
and the new as well as to minimize the support requirements, I don't think
he'd lose his shirt.

I've been after the original spec's for the IMSAI pre-1977 bus timing, etc,
in case anyone has that data in shareable form.

I've found the schematic for my IMSAI PIO-6 board but only half the manual,
fortunately with the schematic, of the PIO-4.  I don't seem to have any bus
timing informtion, though.

Any help with this would be appreciated.

Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Duell &lt;ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk&gt;
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
&lt;classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu&gt;
Date: Sunday, March 28, 1999 2:25 PM
Subject: Re: Rebirth of IMSAI

...
 > As the purchaser of mostly Thrift-Store Classics
(i.e. incomplete, dirty,
> sometimes broken machines for $10 and less) I really don't know what was
> being displayed in the showroom.  I remember the cool 3D wireframe stuff
> on the Northstar Advantage, the Juggler and Boing! demos on the Amiga, the
...
   aforementioned
Christmas Demo, and that's about it. 

There was a (tape) program for the TRS-80 model 1 called (IIRC) Micro
Marquee. It let you type in a message and it would display it on large
characters built from the graphics blocks (something like about 12
characters/line, 3 lines/screen), scrolling up the screen.

There was a default built-in message which seemed to be advertising for
the machine. Something like 'Hello, I'm the new TRS-80 computer that
you've heard so much about...' I've always assumed that was a shop demo
program.

There was a demo program for the PERQ. It showed some very fast graphics
(windows moving over the screen, lines being drawn, etc). AFAIK, they
_were_ being created in real-time - it wasn't just a set of full-screen
bitmaps. Don't think you could call it a 'store demo', though.

-tony