27 May
1997
27 May
'97
5:04 a.m.
Almost forgot - I also picked up an Apricot F2. For those in the US,
this is one bizarre machine. It's only about 7" wide, 4" tall and 16"
deep. It has a wireless infrared keyboard and wireless hand-held
trackball!
I never knew these were sold in the United States. It's marked 60Hz so
it's not an import. About all I know about it is from a couple of web
references -- 1985, 8086 CPU, 512K RAM, dual 720K drives, ran a modified
OEM version of MS-DOS.
Any additional information -- and pointers to a boot disk --
appreciated!
thanks
Kai
----------
From: Kai Kaltenbach
Reply To: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 1997 9:40 AM
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
Subject: Another weekend haul story
Well, thanks to a mobile GPS, I managed to visit 30 thrifts in one day
this weekend, and ended up with:
- Atari 400
- IBM Portable PC 5155
- Two more Osborne 1's (for trade)
- An Indus GT floppy drive for Atari 8bit (this is the best Atari 8bit
drive ever made!)
- Apple Disk II new in box
- Another TRS-80 Model I (system unit only)
- Atari 1040ST and SC124 mono monitor (floppy wasn't working but I
fixed
it--I think)
- Another Mac 128 (with bad floppy, I have the parts to fix)
- Pile of diskettes for the TRS-80 Model 4/4P, including original
TRSDOS, SCRIPSIT, ZORK I, etc.
- Manuals for my TRS-80 Model 4P
- Some shrink wrapped games for the Apple II, Atari 8bit, and C64
- TI 99/4A "P-Code Module", whatever the heck that is (goes in the
expansion bay)
- Atari 65XE game computer
- Atari 7800 ProSystem with PS, RF adapter and 3 joysticks
- Colecovision driving expansion module
Kai
27 May
27 May
7:54 a.m.
New subject: Forgot one more! UK folks pls comment (RE: Another weekend haul story)
In article <51194C00BD39CF11839000805F385DB204F788BB@RED-65-
MSG.dns.microsoft.com>, Kai Kaltenbach <kaikal(a)MICROSOFT.com> writes
Almost forgot - I also picked up an Apricot F2. For
those in the US,
this is one bizarre machine. It's only about 7" wide, 4" tall and 16"
deep. It has a wireless infrared keyboard and wireless hand-held
trackball!
I never knew these were sold in the United States. It's marked 60Hz so
it's not an import. About all I know about it is from a couple of web
references -- 1985, 8086 CPU, 512K RAM, dual 720K drives, ran a modified
OEM version of MS-DOS.
Any additional information -- and pointers to a boot disk --
appreciated!
thanks
Kai
Yes, they were sold in the UK. I can remember seeing lots of
them around second-hand so I don't think they were very popular. They
weren't a proper IBM compatible because of their modified MSDOS so maybe
once their owners found this out they dumped 'em, but I think they came
with a standard suite of programs. I can also remember that or a similar
model having a microphone for note-taking.
Sorry, I can't give you a contact for booting.
--
Martin Evans
11:20 a.m.
New subject: Forgot one more! UK folks pls comment (RE: Another weekend haul
Almost forgot - I also picked up an Apricot F2. For those in the US,
this is one bizarre machine. It's only about 7" wide, 4" tall and
16"
deep. It has a wireless infrared keyboard and wireless hand-held
trackball!
I've never heard of an F2, but I have the original Apricot PC (wired
keyboard with a little LCD display on it), with schematics, and also the
TechRef for the F1, which sounds a little like your machine. That TechRef
is available from Mauritron for about \pounds 20.00, and is pretty useful
if you want to get amongst the machine.
I never knew these were sold in the United States.
It's marked 60Hz so
it's not an import. About all I know about it is from a couple of web
references -- 1985, 8086 CPU, 512K RAM, dual 720K drives, ran a modified
OEM version of MS-DOS.
The original Apricot drives were 360K - _single sided_ 80 track. I guess
later machines had double-sided ones.
The original Apricot PC had an 8089 I/O coprocessor (a very fancy DMA
engine) in it, next to the 8086. I think this was dropped in the F1 (which
had no DMA at all), Dunno about the F2.
There was a TI sound chip, and standard-ish (not PC-standard, but
useable!) serial and printer ports. The video system was nothing short of
_strange_, though. There were also video cards that fitted into the
expansion slots that may have been more normal (I have no info on these).
The disk controller was Western Digital (some flavour of 279x I think),
and in many ways nicer than the Intel/NEC one used in PCs.
As to expansion cards, I've seen :
Internal Modem (300/300 and 1200/75 I think, using AM7910)
Colour Video (CGA-like?)
HiRes mono video (No idea)
Winchester (ST506, of course)
External Floppy (2 more 3.5" drives)
Network (No idea, but not Ethernet. Corvus something-or-other?)
I've also seen an ISA card (16 bit AT thing) that accepted an Apricot card
as a daughterboard and let you use the Apricot cards in a normal PC.
Kai
> - IBM Portable PC 5155
That's an XT + CGA in a portable case, as you doubtless know. I can
provide info on that if you need it (I have one, and the TechRefs)
--
-tony
ard12(a)eng.cam.ac.uk
The gates in my computer are AND,OR and NOT, not Bill
10071
days inactive
10071
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