Hang on to it ... and I'll bung you a tin of biscuits when I call in!
Meanwhile, I'm also on the look-out for an Acorn A4 laptop circa 1992. This one was basically an Acorn A-5000 in an Olivetti laptop case. It had a grey-scale display, but also a filing system that didn't fragment. At all.
I've recently got hold of a Torch Z80 Disc Pack (a twin 5.25" floppy unit) that is even older than the one I bought new (but long gone now, unfortunately) back in 1984. For those who remember this excellent old kit, it typically ran off a BBC Micro with a special Z80 board (running at 4 MHz) installed. This board also holds the Torch MCP ROM, and 64 K of RAM. Essentially, the 2 MHz 6502 processor in the Beeb simply handled all the peripherals and I/O devices, leaving nearly 63 K (that's a lot, in BBC Micro terms, of course) available for running programs.
Those Torch guys were very clever people. Their CCCP (no, from Cambridge, England ... not the USSR) ROM sits in the Beeb. And Torch had their own clone of CP/M known as CPN! This enabled us to play with some of the "state of the art" software of that era.
So, imagine my joy when, going through some of the dusty old disks, I came across (and, more importantly, was able to run):-
Copyright (C) 1982 RSP Inc.
*** dBASE II Ver 2.4 1 April, 1983
... yes, dBASE II (and pre-dating Ashton-Tate, by the look of it). There never was a dBASE I, of course, but I've seen (and had a go with) all the others since dBASE 3. But never (until yesterday, that is) the original! All the basic dBASE commands are there, straight off the "dot" prompt, in much the same form as they continue to the present day. It always amazes me how "right" those early coders got things! Present day coders are simply "standing on the shoulders of giants", as the saying goes.
Pictures may follow at some stage!
By the way, WordStar 3.0 (from 1981) was on there too. But I must admit I was never a great fan of that one.
CCCP : Cambridge Console Command Processor! C/PM : Gary Kildall's famous operating system (on which many of the MS-DOS commands were based). Gary was a Genius Guy who died young. CPN : the "next one on" from CPM? That is, CPM+ in modern parlance? MCP : Master Control Program (of course).
... and, something else for the dBASE aficionado:- it seems that dBASE II used a .cmd extension to program files source files, rather than the more familiar .prg that came later ... in their millions! And there is no COMPILE command, of course (that didn't come along until nine years later when dBASE IV first saw the light of day).
A couple of days ago I had the pleasure of meeting a gentlemen with whom (as usual) I got around to reminiscing about early acquaintances with computers. He told me that in 1980, when the company he was with "computerized" (a bold step back then, remember), the hardware they went for was the NorthStar Horizon.
He reckons that (although it looked just like the illustration), the case was actually faux wood. Their machine had 64 KB of memory, two 5¼" floppy drives and ran NorthStar DOS on CP/M . At the time the quoted price for the computer plus a VDU and printer (NEC Spinwriter) was £ 5,500.
He then started to learn to program in NorthStar DOS and became quite proficient over a period of about ten years until the office moved on to MS-DOS when they "upgraded" to two Amstrad 1640 machines. The NorthStar supplier was able to convert all the software from CP/M to MS-DOS (using MegaBasic, apparently).
For those who may be interested, here is some more on NorthStar. Plus even more! And here is a MegaBasic manual .pdf.
More good stuff! OK, as I just know that there are many ex-TV trade guru's amongst the Brethren (not to mention a smattering of University trained electronics whizzes) ... can anybody get me excited about Genlocks?
With reference to the first .jpg, I found this board lurking inside a BBC Micro (second .jpg). That's the great thing about these old microcomputers ... they're like boxes of chocolates, in that you never know what you're going to get until you take off the lid!
After consulting with a good buddy on another forum, we have decided that the board is a Genlock. It must be said that there was a pretty strong clue, in that "GL 284 Issue 1" was printed on the back of the board!
I know that it's a bit of a long shot, but I don't suppose that anyone has come across this particular board in a BBC Micro before (and, if so, what was it used with, for, and why)?
Lastly, with reference to the second .jpg, can anyone spot the electrical safety violation? You see, there's something here for everyone!
Some departments have just moved out of our building and left some IT equipment behind. Including a dot matrix printer, a couple of Gateway2000 keyboards and a US Robotics Modem "Powerful enough to meet the needs of large corporations" So that explains our network speeds. How long since these have been used???
Robert
My spelling is not bad. I am typing this on a Medigenic keyboard and I blame that for all my typos.
