Northstar Horizon - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

2 Nov 1999

Yes, there were several ways in which the N* could be modified to work
better and meet the target of providing a full 64K TPA and handling CP/M
standard diskettes.

The easiest way, however, was to use hardware from other MFG's, which didn't
require modification.  It happens that hardware from other MFG's was less
costly as well.

Dick

-----Original Message-----
From: allisonp(a)world.std.com &lt;allisonp(a)world.std.com&gt;
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
&lt;classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu&gt;
Date: Tuesday, November 02, 1999 6:22 AM
Subject: Re: Northstar Horizon

...
 > The same thing was "wrong" (meaning that
it irritated me and offended my
> sense of how things should be) as with the N*, in that they used memory
> space I wanted to use.  Consequently, I never seriously used, nor did I ever
...
   promote them. 
It was no big deal, but at the time I thought that it was. 
My solution was far more reasonable. Map it <VDM1> at 4000h and set a bit
to enable it (small hack).  That way it used no TPA space and was still
faster than using a TTY.  I later set up one of the NS* controllers that
way for a full 64k space.  Of course I had to write my own drivers but it
was pretty trivial.

Allison