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To: Buckhead
Mine ran CP/M, HDOS and UCSD Pascal P-System. It hosted a very nice C compiler from Software Toolworks. I wrote a device driver that allowed you to copy a text file and translate to Morse code on the front panel. You could tailor the speed and dot/dash ratio too. It was is a fine word processor. I still own two of them. One has the Trionyx 4 MHz Z80 CPU with triple layer backplane and 64K dynamic RAM board. A 4 port serial card and dual 8" floppy intelligent disk drive still work today. I even built a special graphics card for it that would rival the graphics of an Apple Lisa in 1981.

In 1982, I wired up the cassette data interface to a 2 meter ham rig to transmit data files to a friend a few miles away. I didn't have an internet connection until 1983.

8 posted on 10/10/2011 2:07:56 PM PDT by Myrddin
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To: Myrddin

You went way past us in the computer hacking skills department. We started with HDOS, switched to CP/M, went through several different floppy drives, had a dot matrix printer, and thought we were the cat’s pajamas. We bought and built the old version of their terminal, and got finished right when they released the Z-80 based version, which was 80 char per line, would do lower case and symbols, and they let us trade in for that. The maximum data rate to the display was 9600 baud, and it seemed really fast - and it was compared to 2400. We had every slot on the motherboard filled - Dad drilled out a doorknob sized hole in the side and installed a fan. He used it for a number of years, but that sucker is long gone now. The ham radio transmission stunt is pretty cool.


11 posted on 10/10/2011 2:34:48 PM PDT by Buckhead
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