Path: utzoo!yunexus!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Why IBM went for the 8088 -- The Untold Story (Seattle Comp.)
Keywords: S100 IEEE-696 SC-DOS Seattle MS-DOS IBM_PC
Message-ID: <2262@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 29 May 90 14:00:05 GMT
Article-I.D.: crdos1.2262
References: <1WWjqN#0SBCWN5sLFYH9X6tz009zLSK=eric@snark.uu.net> <1990May23.154706.16476@sq.sq.com> <451@isgtec.UUCP> <774@bilver.UUCP>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY
Lines: 21

In article <774@bilver.UUCP> bill@bilver.UUCP (Bill Vermillion) writes:
| In article <451@isgtec.UUCP> bmw@isgtec.UUCP (Bruce Walker) writes:
| ...
| >Also, to this day, one of the magic cookie disk-type values (0xf8 thru 0xff,
| >found in the boot block) means eight-inch floppy -- ever see an 8" floppy on
| >any MSDOS machine? The Seattle Computing machine had them!
| 
| Yup! I did.  Put a pair of 8" drives on an original PC (the one with the tape
| connector) to go along with the 5" drives.  8"s were SO MUCH faster.

  Yes, this morning. I have an S100 system with 8" drive and MS-DOS
sitting in the same rack as the S100 68000 and the 486 running V.4 (I
have an eclectic computer room).

  And as long as people are willing to pay me $10/disk to copy stuff
to/from CP/M and 8" MS-DOS formats, I'll keep the system, and keep it
running. With bank switching disk cache the floppies are nicely fast,
thanks. 
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
            "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me