Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

[Liam Proven]

On Tue, 26 May 2020 at 18:25, Tony Duell <ard.p850ug1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Err, the Acorn Atom could do colour at least in some graphics modes.
> It used the 6847 video chip that turned up in the Tandy Color
> Computer/Dragon. Maybe the base machine was monochrome video only, but
> there was a PAL encoder board available (offically from Acorn) that
> fitted inside.

OK, I defer. I never even heard about the machine at the time -- the
first Acorn products I ever saw, or heard of, were the Beebs.
>
> FWIW, 'Shack' is a commonly used in the UK in the amateur radio sense.
> When I was at university (late 1980s) the amateur radio club had a
> litteral wooden shed on a nearby farm containing the transmitters and
> receivers. It was always called the 'shack'

Aha. I never was into amateur radio. To this day I have 1 friend who
just assumes that because I have geeky interests, this must be one of
them. It isn't.

I was in the Signals section of the CCF at school, so I know how to
use one, too. I just didn't find it very interesting, that's all.

> Yes we did!. The only TRS-80 that I know not to have been officially
> sold in the UK was the Color Computer 3
[...]

As I said -- I saw them in the shops. I know they were sold. I just
never even heard of a single person who *bought* one. :-)

> Was OS-9 ever officially sold for the Dragon? It was for the Color
> Computer range (and was sold in the UK in Tandy shops, along with
> BASIC-09, Pascal, C compiler, etc)

I think I saw in the magazines, so I will venture "yes"...

> Hitachi certainly made 3" drives (I have some), they may well have
> been the originators of that disk. I don't think the Amstrad drives
> were Hitachi though, the ones I saw were nowhere near as well made as
> the Hitachi drives I have

IIRC -- very possibly erroneously -- Amstrad bought in the early
units, then realised that there was a good margin on the media and
took over making its own, around the time that the OEM discontinued
them because 3.5" had won in the market.

-- 
Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
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