Xref: utzoo comp.sys.dec:1054 comp.sys.dec.micro:572 comp.sys.ibm.pc:25164
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!agate!bionet!ames!ucsd!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!esosun!seismo!uunet!steinmetz!davidsen
From: davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec,comp.sys.dec.micro,comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: DEC Rainbow
Keywords: Digital, personal computer
Message-ID: <13238@steinmetz.ge.com>
Date: 23 Feb 89 19:18:36 GMT
References: <4028@ingr.com>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 28

In article <4028@ingr.com> jeff@ingr.com (Jeff Kilpatrick) writes:
| 
|   I just read an article in Digital Review where DEC has slashed prices on 
| their Rainbows, model PC100, and Professional 350.  I understand the latter
| machine runs RSX11M+ and the previous runs DOS.  Anyone know if these machines
| have expansion slots?  

  Totally non-compatible with PC. The Rainbow has a Z80 and 8088, and
can run CP/M-80, CP/M-86, CCPM and MS-DOS thru 2.1. There is one
expansion connector, not compatible with anything else. If you want a
really neat machine to hack and as a controller, get a Rainbow and
CP/M-86. The Z80 runs the disk and the 8088 runs the serial port, and
you can do some real learning about parallel processing and real time
using one of these boxes. They are also a vt-100 terminal, which makes
them worth about $200. I learned a lot from these, and I almost hacked
PC/ix (SysIII for 8088) to run on it.

  The Pro-350 is an LSI-11, or 11/23, or some such. It does run RSX11M+,
and I'm told that you can get (could get?) UNIX for it, either V7 or
SysIII. Another nice box to hack with!

  I wouldn't consider either of these for anything other than hacking,
but the Rainbow running CP/M-86 is a great place to learn about
assembler and debugging. For hacking I highly recommend it!
-- 
	bill davidsen		(wedu@ge-crd.arpa)
  {uunet | philabs}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me