timing or, Right C wasn't 1976 then again I never said it was. The assertion was that in 1976 you could do better. Could you? I asserted that using the 1976 design for many years later I did run C, pascal, Cbasic, Mbasic, multiplan and even dbase. This still runs counter to the idea that that the NS design could not do useful work. It's not me hacking the design, others did it with minimal effort on stock hardware. It makes little difference that those may not have existed in 1976 (very little did) it's the idea that the design did work and a 56k TPA was easily done. In November 1976, $599, Mastercharge Card, LI Computer in Manhassett Li. For that I got a MDS-A controller, 1 SA400 and their DOS and BASIC. At that time another SA400 was about 400$ and 8" drive was $699 plus the then typical 8" drive required a bigger more complex power supply. The NS Horizon machine (complete S100 crate) was later. I did over the years run every thing under the CP/M sun on it. Not news to me. TPA 56K BDOS have to The FDC resides at 0xE800!!!!! Faulty math! 64k minus the 4k (f000h) is 60k and then minus 2k (e800 to efff) is 58k. Single density bios of 2k is was no big deal. so with 8k in use or unavailable your down to 56k... or is 64-8 not 56k? cost about they I know I'm right, I was there buying it. I had 56k of seals and PT static (2102) 8kx8 ram cards in the crate. My first 64k dynamic card was 1980 paid $199 for the board sans ram (I had a source). The 76 timeline is the design date of the FDC. The point to repeat it was can you using 1976 technology do better than 600$ for a minifloppy SYSTEM with dos and basic? No it was I was doing by 1978 based on my 1976 hardware. First significant quantities were september 1977. The date is not important as I ran it later on the same hardware. Your trying to weasel your way to a different place. You have asserted that NS MDS-A system was a dog. I assert your full of faulty data and that by 1976 hardware standards it was it was a good design that would held up well for many years. By then NS* had replaced it with a double density version that interoperated with older version well yet extended the useable storage. I'd also assert that the ICOM FDOS system I have (same timeframe) using the venerable 1771 was a true dog as it was slow, with rom at B800 and even less software (barely a dos). It was also only good for 71kb of storage on a SA400. The NS MDS-A did much better at 82k of space on the same drive. Anyhow I still have he ICOM junker in the collection to remind me of a real dog. Mostly useless as they were loose parts and not a board or kit. I can pull down catalogs, Byte, Interface age and all for prices. S100 cards complete, of reliable design were not $100 for 64k until the sell out days of the mid to late 80s. applications. Unimportant. At the time it represented a non CP/M system and a real HLL for peanuts that did run on small hardware. At the time that was pretty radical. Also there was a version of Psystem that ram using CP/M (not NS*). rom Nope that was nonstandard then. Standard was E800h I've never seen one even nonstandard that low most of the custom roms version were F000 or F800. I'd attribute that to error or bad memory. Well certainly your opinion. Like I said earlier I ran them when they became available on that old useless, as you say, hardware with a real 56k TPA I ram them. I STILL RUN IT, I ahve the docs, I dont have to rely on memory Again your opinion. For many those did represent useful tools for building business apps. to Save for in 1976 there was very little software at the applications level. so many apps were home grown. What year was Visicalc introduced? billing, of I know, it's how I make a living. I was using my altair to run a daprtment payroll and all back then. It's where my appreciation for reliable hardware came from. believe I not of $350, They were of no interest as they were bare. Without a controller to make it work it was not an attraction. However NS*, ICOM, and a few others were by were by fall of 1976 selling product FDC and Drives. Then again finding a 8" drive in 1976 for $350 would ahve been a windfall and non of my Bytes or old catalogs support it. Simple, it doesnt. It's standard address, E800h. handicap. Yes it was. The parts used were not mask parts, they are AIM and fuse link low density stuff. The most complex part on the board was a 256x4 (74S287) prom. The address was set by a one 74S287 prom as an address decoder. timeline. I bought the MDS-A and SA400 in 76!, NS* Z80 board in march 1977. I used it in the flaky Altair till the NS* Horizon chassis was available to me '78. Your trying to duck out of the issue. 1/2 and I gave one of those away. The AC motors of the SA801s tend to be loud too. on in What I did with the 1976 reference was to say this... could you do a better fdc design using 1976 technology then they did. After that you adotped the date to justify anything that doesnt suit your assertion of facts that have no support. I have the hardware multiple examples plus original docs and my notebooks to fall on. Oh yes, I'm hardcore engineer. That translates too if you didn't write it down it never existed. So as a result even my hobby hacking is documented in scores of quad ruled notbooks. What I was doing in 1978 was using 1976 hardware, it is the point. Your trying to find a way to justify your arguement that something was not good at the time because you didn't understand it or didn't bother to. Your comment that in the early 80s the Boy Scouts couldnt use them runs counter to my comment that in that exact same time frame I did {as did others} run them with loads of heavy apps. configuration are fixed MID 70s is 1975, Altair (introduction was january 1975 Pop tronics) was still very new and disks were limited to the PDP-8 and PDP-11 folks that were paying lots more than Altair prices. As to 56k not being enough in the 70s... even the average PDP-11 then was huge at 128k. Most people I know were quite happy to have 56k in the late 70s on any hardware. What was truely important to business users was adaquate relaible mass storage and floppies were barely it. Serious users wanted and paid dearly for hard disks. Now if you wanted to be pandantic in 1976 you likely paid $295 (that would be mid year) per 8k of ram, 56k represented ~$2100!!! late 70s, say 1978-79 was when the microcomputer folks were discovering disks and trying to make them work for a living. Floppies were seen as important tot his but any business user will tellyou that a real hard disk was the killer hardware. Just like Visicalc was a killer app. Allison