7 Mar
1999
7 Mar
'99
1:09 a.m.
For so long on this list, I have been reading about peoples "good days",
"lucky days" and so on. Now at last, I can talk about my "real beaut"
day!
A local collector, not known previously to me, put a post on one of the
"aus.forsale" newsgroups saying he wanted to thin out his collection, and he
preferred a person take the "off-load" as one lot. Thanks to a
"heads-up"
from Andrew Davie, I got in first (as it turns out, no
one else offered to
take the lot) and the previous owner even volunteered to bring
it all around
in his van. The delivery consisted of:
EACA Genie III, an all-in-one 2x5.25" and monitor (TRS-80 compatible and
CP/M)
CPT 8525, an all-in-one 2x8" drive and page-view monitor
Spectravideo 328 with 605 Expander containing 2x5.25" drives and 80 column
card
Hitachi MB6890K ("Peach") with Hitachi MP-3550 dual floppy and Hitachi
monitor
Hitachi MB6890K (another) with 3rd party dual floppy unit and two other
expansion cards
IBM 5150, made in the Wangaratta plant in Australia that IBM ran for a few
years, with a 64K-256K board and cassette connector
IBM DisplayWriter (Model 6580) with 2 x 2 x 8" drive units (ie 2 lots of
double 8" drive modules)
Digital Professional 350 but without its hard drive (but a double floppy)
and 2 x VR201 monitors
TRS-80 MC-10 with 16K expansion
TRS-80 Model III 16K with no drives
TRS-80 Model III 48K with 2x5.25" drives
TRS-80 Model 4 64K with 2x5.25" drives
TRS-80 Color Computer 1
TRS-80 Color Computer 2 with NEC PC-8032B dual 5.25" disc unit and TRS-80
Line Printer VIII
VIC-20
Dick Smith System 80 cassette system
Microbee Series 2 Colour
Microbee Series 3 128K with Microbee Disc System (5.25" in large shoebox)
And all the previous owner wanted ... a swap for my Apple ][+ which he
needed for a project he was working on now. Thanks Chris, if you are reading
this, much appreciated and valued. Shouldn't be too hard to find
another ][+.
Of these computers, the CPT is the least known (to me). I can find only one
mention of it on the Web and that guy didn't even have a boot disk for it.
At least I have some 8" disks (don't know if it works yet, still got to do
the preliminary check-out before applying power). One of the floppies says
"Tandon CPT" on it (hand-written) and a sticker somewhere suggests it was
built in Ireland. I'd appreciate some more info on it.
Hardly anything on the net about this chunky IBM Display Writer either, its
not even on the Comprehensive Computer Catalog as far as I can see ...
Anyone got a spare monitor cable for the Hitachi Peach's? (Luckily, they
also have B&W monochrome output so I can see that this system works).
Now, I've got plenty to do for a while ...
Phil Guerney
in Brisbane, Australia
7 Mar
7 Mar
1:09 a.m.
Of these computers, the CPT is the least known (to
me). I can find only one
mention of it on the Web and that guy didn't even have a boot disk for it.
At least I have some 8" disks (don't know if it works yet, still got to do
the preliminary check-out before applying power). One of the floppies says
"Tandon CPT" on it (hand-written) and a sticker somewhere suggests it was
built in Ireland. I'd appreciate some more info on it.
Hardly anything on the net about this chunky IBM Display Writer either, its
not even on the Comprehensive Computer Catalog as far as I can see ...
I'm not an expert on CPT, but I did have one of their dedicated word
processors for a while. (It may have used a Z-80, I forget. It had 3.5"
drives.) Do you know if your model was designed as a general-purpose
computer or as a turnkey word processor?
As for the DisplayWriter, the situation is pretty similar. I think you need
IBM's software to get it to work. I don't know how much reverse engineering
has been done (thus, how easy it is to run other programs).
-- Derek
7:33 a.m.
Phil Guerney wrote:
Of these computers, the CPT is the least known (to me). I can find only one
mention of it on the Web and that guy didn't even have a boot disk for it.
At least I have some 8" disks (don't know if it works yet, still got to do
the preliminary check-out before applying power). One of the floppies says
"Tandon CPT" on it (hand-written) and a sticker somewhere suggests it was
built in Ireland. I'd appreciate some more info on it.
CPT was a dedicated word processor. I think I still have some old boards for
one of their models and the floppy drives from when I decided it wasn't
working and I needed the room (about 6 or so years ago.)
8:03 a.m.
CPT 8525, an all-in-one 2x8" drive and page-view monitor
Of these computers, the CPT is the least known (to me). I can find only one
mention of it on the Web and that guy didn't even have a boot disk for it.
At least I have some 8" disks (don't know if it works yet, still got to do
the preliminary check-out before applying power). One of the floppies says
"Tandon CPT" on it (hand-written) and a sticker somewhere suggests it was
built in Ireland. I'd appreciate some more info on it.
I have quite a few CPT 8" floppy disks, WORD Processing Format (or so
every floppy disk says). I knew that 99.99+ % of these were filled with
worthless junk (these came from the office secretaries for the Uof Minnesota
Geography department about 10 years ago). Most disks are clearly labeled
as having various papers that the office staff were responsible for typing.
However, I decided to get all those disks out and search for any unusual
floppies. And what do you know, I actually found something. I have some
original CPT disks from 82/83. They are labeled: "8500 series utilities",
"8500 series disk sort", "program Disk; Standard Word
Processing;8515/25".
I also have a non-original disk that has this title typed by someone:
"CPT Asyncronous Code Sets and Control Page".
I also found a pair of disks for a Quadritek 1200. Does anyone know
what this is? One is QUAD BASIC, th other is a user-made disk that is
labeled: TOS 5.03, and later it says TOS 6.03 3/2/82. Also I-Sets 1.04,
and Font Width Library.
-Lawrence LeMay
3:14 p.m.
On Sun, 7 Mar 1999, Phil Guerney wrote:
CPT 8525, an all-in-one 2x8" drive and page-view
monitor
Of these computers, the CPT is the least known (to
me). I can find only one
mention of it on the Web and that guy didn't even have a boot disk for it.
At least I have some 8" disks (don't know if it works yet, still got to do
the preliminary check-out before applying power). One of the floppies says
"Tandon CPT" on it (hand-written) and a sticker somewhere suggests it was
built in Ireland. I'd appreciate some more info on it.
That would be me that has one without a boot disk. It came out of a (wet)
Dumpster and I had to really dig to find the keyboard. I too would like
more info; I had one guy e-mail me to offer the program disk for free
if I could fix his 8525 and convert some files "to Pentium II format" in
one week. I tried convincing him to let me give it a try but he didn't
respond.
Richard Schauer
rws(a)ais.net
3:43 p.m.
Richard,
I will mail you a copy of the system disks once I work out how to make
copies. Give me your details.
This CPT 8525 came with CP/M and CBasic disks as well as some utility
disks, so although it might be a Wordprocessing machine mostly, it must
have been more generally capable.
Phil
On Sun, 7 Mar 1999, Richard W. Schauer
wrote: > On Sun, 7 Mar 1999, Phil Guerney wrote:
CPT 8525, an all-in-one 2x8" drive and
page-view monitor
Of these computers, the CPT is the least known
(to me). I can find only one
mention of it on the Web and that guy didn't even have a boot disk for it.
At least I have some 8" disks (don't know if it works yet, still got to do
the preliminary check-out before applying power). One of the floppies says
"Tandon CPT" on it (hand-written) and a sticker somewhere suggests it was
built in Ireland. I'd appreciate some more info on it.
That would be me that has one without a boot disk. It came out of a (wet)
Dumpster and I had to really dig to find the keyboard. I too would like
more info; I had one guy e-mail me to offer the program disk for free
if I could fix his 8525 and convert some files "to Pentium II format" in
one week. I tried convincing him to let me give it a try but he didn't
respond.
Richard Schauer
rws(a)ais.net
9264
days inactive
9264
days old
5 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
-
dpeschel＠u.washington.edu -
guerney＠uq.net.au -
lemay＠cs.umn.edu -
marvin＠rain.org -
rws＠ais.net