Now just a minute, there! As a founding member (along with John Dvorak when he sold N* software out of his home in his "Software Review" newsletter) of the International NorthStar User's Association (INSUA) I take issue! The NorthStar's "limitations" (so-called) were there because they were one of the pioneers with an early 4 MHz Z-80 powered S-100 box without the switches and blinkin' lights so beloved by members of this group (myself included, as an IMSAI owner w/ N* drives!)- this was prior to CP/M, when 32k was a mammoth amount of memory. With its sleek, brushed aluminum front panel and walnut cabinet it could fit into the office environment of those professionals / pioneers who wanted a micro to do useful office work. N*'s BCD arithmetic gave exact answers even before MBASIC users began to complain about "rounding" errors. And for serious number crunching, add N*'s hardware FP board, and top it off with Allen Ashley's N* BASIC compiler (under N* DOS or CP/M) and you had a very fast system. A 56k CP/M system was considered more than adequate for most programs. What programs in particular couldn't you run? Of course we all wanted a bigger TPA, and there were ways to achieve this. The most elegant, IMHO, was to replace the N* controller with one from Morrow which could handle N*'s native hard-sectored format, as well as soft-sectored 5" and 8" formats. You could also move N*'s boot PROM from E800 to F800 without too much difficulty, and add an 8" controller as well. Curiosity, indeed! Bob Stek bobstek(a)ix.netcom.com Saver of Lost SOLs (and expanding Horizons!) -----Original Message----- From: CLASSICCMP-owner(a)u.washington.edu [mailto:CLASSICCMP-owner@u.washington.edu]On Behalf Of Richard Erlacher Sent: Sunday, October 31, 1999 12:01 PM To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers Subject: Re: Northstar Horizon I am not, nor have I been, trying to get a Horizon, or any other model of N* going. I recently arranged to give away my last bit of N* hardware, a Z80A CPU card. I have had lots of trouble finding people who would take it. The problem, of course, isn't that they don't work, because they do, and very well, too, but rather that the N* environment is so limited, particularly in the Horizon with its 8K ROM space, that many compiled programs won't work because the TPA is too small. What's more, the FDC isn't capable using of CP/M-standard (IBM-3740, SSSD 8") diskettes. They're OK as a curiosity, but back in the lat '70's and early '80's, they were not well received because of the TPA and FDC issues mentioned above, and I warn everyone off them due to their resulting limitations. regards, Dick -----Original Message----- From: JusmeSJ(a)aol.com <JusmeSJ(a)aol.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Saturday, October 30, 1999 10:30 PM Subject: Northstar Horizon i/o,