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From: res@ihlpe.ATT.COM (Rich Strebendt, AT&T-DSG @ Indian Hill West)
Newsgroups: comp.misc,comp.arch
Subject: Re: History of PCs
Summary: Yet Another Pioneering Machine -- now forgotten
Keywords: history, pc, workstation
Message-ID: <3230@ihlpe.ATT.COM>
Date: 1 Aug 88 14:30:38 GMT
References: <5946@venera.isi.edu> <5458@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> <1876@looking.UUCP> <584@etive.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
Lines: 30

In article <584@etive.ed.ac.uk>, nick@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Nick Rothwell) writes:
> In article <17589@glacier.STANFORD.EDU> jbn@glacier.UUCP (John B. Nagle) writes:
> >In article <1876@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes:
> >>and a bit before the TRS-80.  It was really the first serious
> >>all in one box personal computer, that you could plug in, turn on and use.
> >	Various machines based on the DEC LSI-11 chipset appeared in the late
> >	1970s, including the Terak, a nicely packaged machine with 64K of RAM.
> Yup! And my Terak's still running reliably. It's a real monster though - the
> box is the size of a small microwave, and contains the 8" floppy drive and
> 4 or 5 cards for the processor, the 56K RAM and 8K ROM.

Another machine from this era that was a real workhorse, but has never
been given the acclaim that I feel it deserves is the Radio Shack 
Model 2.  This machine used a Z80A microprocessor running at a stunning
4MHz, had 64K of RAM (expandable in increments of 64K, useful with bank
switching), used 8" floppies with about 400K capacity, and proved to be
a very reliable, decently performing box.  I am retiring my own Model 2
now, after 8 years of serious use, simply because my needs have outgrown
its capabilities.  Incidently, it was a very well designed machine from
the standpoint of growability.  It eventually could be upgraded with a
640x240 pixel graphics board, and a 68000 micro with a couple of
Megabytes of RAM.  In that configuration the Z80A was used as an IOP,
sharing a 32K segment of memory with the 68000 for buffer space.
All-in-all, a very well designed machine that has never been given its
due as a pioneer, first as a Z80A-based desk-top business computer,
then as one of the first (if not the first) 16-bit micros (with the
68000 add-on).

				Rich Strebendt
				...!att![iwsl6|ihlpe|ihaxa]!res