> Subject: Re: [OM] iPhone et al
>
> On 11/1/2010 6:37 AM, Bill Pearce wrote:
>> A friend was an electronics engineer of some talent, ad was in fact involved
>> in the development of the Heathkit computer.
>
> The PCXT clone? I built one of those and still have it in my basement next to
> the Apple II+.
Don't know which Bill's friend worked on, but the PCXT clone was their second
generation.
I built the original H-89, which had a Z80 processor and ran their own HDOS
operating system, which was arguably a significant improvement over the
dominant CP/M operating system of the day. But I later switched to CP/M when
Heath dropped support for HDOS.
I think it came with 4kB of RAM, which was pretty inadequate for almost
anything. I built a 16kB memory card for it from scratch, on perf-board, when
the chips were by far the most significant cost, but later maxed it out at 64kB
with commercial memory cards when the price came down.
I also added a hard disk, after being frustrated with stacks and stacks of
400kB floppies. It had a single 8" platter, an average seek time of a hundred
milliseconds or so, and held an amazing FOUR MEGABYTES! I think it set me back
$1,800.
----------------
Administration: An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to receive the
kicks and cuffs due to the premier or president. -- Ambrose Bierce
:::: Jan Steinman, EcoReality Co-op ::::
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