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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!eagle!mhuxi!houxm!ihnp4!ihnss!knudsen
From: knudsen@ihnss.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro.6809
Subject: Re: Super Coco/FLEX-OS9 "Osborne"
Message-ID: <1715@ihnss.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 3-Oct-83 13:46:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihnss.1715
Posted: Mon Oct  3 13:46:54 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 4-Oct-83 01:11:40 EDT
Organization: BTL Naperville, Il.
Lines: 30

I too had thought of the possible market value of a compact 6809
machine, oriented towards "serious" (ie, business & SW development)
uses.  In short, do for the 6809, FLEX, and 0S9 what Osborne did
for Z80 and CP/M (& stay in business a little longer?)
Two flavors:
(1) Essentially a Coco (64K and no memory mgmt), with a 6845 text-video
chip (80x24 chars) instead of 6847, one or more real UARTs and full
RS-232 handshakes, full ASCII keyboard, and replace one of those 6821s
with a 6522 to get Hardware Timers.
No ROM except a little disk bootup for FLEX or OS9 (that saves at least
$200 in chips and Microsoft royalties w.r.t. the Coco).

This box could be mass-produced to sell for $400 less disk and monitor.
With monitor and 2 5.25" disks, should be priced in the Morrow/Kaypro
range, ie, bare-bones Apple or $1500.  If FLEX or OS9 were as popular
as CP/M, we'd already be knee-deep in these boxes.

(2) Add memory management, 256K DRAMs (next year?), bury a 10-20 Mbyte
winchester insside, just one floppy for entry & backup.
Optional extra RS-232 ports to support multiple users on LEVEL 2 OS9.
Optional synchronous lines for networking.
With the Winnie we're talking at least $3000, but it would still
give GIMIX et al a hell of a scare.  Of course, you can say that with all
that supporting hardware, why not go to a 68000?  Because most business
applications (esp word proc) don't need more than an 8-bit bus.

Does anyone make a video chip that supports both 80-col chars AND
color graphics?  Would be nice if verssion (1) could be poked into
"Coco-look-alike" mode.
	mike k