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From: gtoye@hp835.mitek.com (Gene Toye)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,comp.sys
Subject: Re: Sirius 1 pc.
Summary: Victor Technologies Sirius 1
Keywords: Victor, Sirius 1
Message-ID: <1991Apr19.142216.16145@mips.mitek.com>
Date: 19 Apr 91 14:22:16 GMT
References: <1991Apr17.203351.23757@cs.nott.ac.uk>
Sender: gtoye@hp835.mitek.com
Organization: OpenConnect Systems, Carrollton, Texas
Lines: 54

In article <1991Apr17.203351.23757@cs.nott.ac.uk> cczdvh@clan.nott.ac.uk (David Valentine-Hagart) writes:
>I have just aquired (gratis) an old & venerable piece of pc technology
>namely a  Sirius 1 micro. ...
>
I remember that system fondly.  It was the first MS-DOS system I used.  In
the US it was called the Victor 1000.  Although MSDOS, it is NOT IBM PC
compatable.  There were special versions of programs for it.  It had
many advantages over the PC in that the character set was soft
and could be changed with a included utility.  Same for the keyboard
key mapping.  You could (and some applications did) have custom keyboard 
and character set mappings for each application you ran.  It also had
logical hard disk volumes long before IBM thought of anything more than
C:.

>1. What is the disk format/size... a DS/DD 48tpi floppy formatted ok
>   on this machine but could not be read on a modern 360K MS-DOS drive
>   (oh woe).

As memory serves, they used a variable speed drive to get more
storage from DD medium (a la Macintosh).  Not a PC compatable format.
Have you noticed that the tone made by the drive changes as it 
steps through the tracks?

>2. Assuming I can surmount problem 1. can anyone provide/point me in
>   the direction of an upgrade to the OS, Dos 2.xx f'rinstance & any
>   runnable software.

I seem to remember that they made it to 2.11 and then the line was
discontinued due to Victor going bankrupt (driven out by lack of
PC compatability I think).  I wish I could help you more but the
company I worked for at that time is out of business as well.  

>
>But seriously folks.. any help would be *seriously* appreciated .
>
>David Valentine-Hagart   aka. rest home for retired pc's .
>                         Email me on cczdvh@uk.ac.nott.vme
>                                                       ^^^
>ps. The address of the manufacturer Victor Technologies, Scotts Valley 
>    Calif. ...whither they now ???
>                eMail....cczdvh@uk.ac.nott.ccc.vme....

They went bankrupt,  then came back selling PC clone hardware, and I
think they may have gone bankrupt again.  Haven't seen any of their
stuff around in a long time.

Good luck finding stuff for your machine.  


-- 
Gene Toye, Software Engineer                               gtoye@hp835.mitek.com
OpenConnect Systems, 2033 Chennault Drive, Carrollton, TX 75006
214/308-0454
DISCLAIMER: My employer had no idea I was going to say that.