Evening all

[David Buttery]

(Or morning, or whatever...) A big "HUZZAH" to comp.sys.spec^H^H^H^Hsinclair for mentioning this place.

Some highly impressive collections here, I must say. Still, I have my own vast haul of, er, three machines...

First up is my beloved BBC Micro Model B Plus, which gets regular use. The B+ is really a fairly minor upgrade of the Model B, but they're useful advances - a built-in 1770 disc controller instead of the optional 8271 of the Model B; and paged Shadow RAM avoiding the Beeb's problem of graphics screens hogging up to 20K of Basic RAM. With this is a very nice Watford Electronics dual 5.25" drive, which is noisy and weighs slightly more than a small house, but works like a charm.

Then there's the Dragon 32, which for all you US readers is very similar to a Tandy CoCo, and can run some CoCo Basic software (save it in ASCII, that's the key). It's got a nasty hollow feel to the keyboard, though, and to be honest I don't use it much.

Finally, the Amstrad PCW8256 I inherited ages ago from my dad, which was the machine that got me interested in programming languages of a strange and obscure nature. At last count, I had Basic, C, Forth, Pascal, Logo, Lisp, Prolog, Modula-2, Xlisp and something called Stoic which I've never known anyone get to do anything! ;-)

If I were to get anything else, it might be an Amstrad NC200 notebook, which has a 720K drive so would be handy as a sort of poor man's laptop for doing text files - but I don't have the money right now. As usual...

[Erik]

Welcome to the VC Forum!

It sounds like you have some nice machines that you're having fun with. Thank you for sharing.

Enjoy the boards!

Erik

[CP/M User]

"David Buttery" wrote in message:

Hi David,

> Some highly impressive collections here, I
> must say. Still, I have my own vast haul
> of, er, three machines...

Well I don't think it's been easy getting to this
stage, but we're still going along! :-)

> First up is my beloved BBC Micro Model B Plus,
> which gets regular use. The B+ is really a fairly
> minor upgrade of the Model B, but they're useful
> advances - a built-in 1770 disc controller instead
> of the optional 8271 of the Model B; and paged
> Shadow RAM avoiding the Beeb's problem of
> graphics screens hogging up to 20K of Basic
> RAM. With this is a very nice Watford Electronics
> dual 5.25" drive, which is noisy and weighs slightly
> more than a small house, but works like a charm.

I know of someone (from the 'net) who I think has
an interest BBC computer (apart from myself).
You'll probably like me, becuase I got a couple of
UsBourne series of early computer books with
BASIC programs for the BBC. So, maybe we can help
one another out?! :-)

> Then there's the Dragon 32, which for all you US
> readers is very similar to a Tandy CoCo, and can
> run some CoCo Basic software (save it in ASCII,
> that's the key). It's got a nasty hollow feel to the
> keyboard, though, and to be honest I don't use
> it much.

I have a CoCo emulator, but it's weird becuase I
think it's using the ROM from a Dragon Machine! :-)

> Finally, the Amstrad PCW8256 I inherited ages
> ago from my dad, which was the machine that
> got me interested in programming languages
> of a strange and obscure nature. At last count,
> I had Basic, C, Forth, Pascal, Logo, Lisp, Prolog,
> Modula-2, Xlisp and something called Stoic which
> I've never known anyone get to do anything! ;-)

That's a nice list of languages! :-)

<snip!>

Cheers.

[kepla]

Hi David,
Bit of a coincidence, this - I've got some similar machines to your self:
First up is my beloved BBC Micro Model B Plus
I never managed to get hold of a B+, but I've got a couple of Bs with sideways memory boards. One day I'll have to upgarde a disk controller from 8271 to 1770 so I can run ADFS and connect up a hard drive.
Then there's the Dragon 32
Would you believe it ? I've got a couple of these as well ! No fancy disk interfaces yet, just the standard machines - but I really like the old 6809 processor & sometimes do a bit of assembler on it. Did you know they can be networked - together with Beebs !
Finally, the Amstrad PCW8256
Okay, this is getting uncanny ! I am on the verge of at last getting an 8128 as I want to explore the Amstrad CP/M plus some more.
I had Basic, C, Forth, Pascal, Logo, Lisp, Prolog, Modula-2
Yeah, I seem to wind up collecting languages on most of my machines. Try to avoid BASIC prefering C, Forth (reverse polish notation !) or Modula-2. Have been known to use Fortran and Cobol on (very) odd moments !
If I were to get anything else, it might be an Amstrad NC200
Guess what I've just got ? For only £7-50 off e-bay ! Not a bad little machine really - bigger screen than the NC100 or Cambridge Z88 and the disk drive is a definate 'plus'. However, it does use bigger and heavier batteries, and isn't as connectable as the Z88. Currently hoping to get an infra-red interface connected to these machines to use for mobile phone management - think I might have to write all the software myself, though ! Particularly interested in the fact that they can reputedly run the CP/M operating system as well. Lots of projects in the pipeline.
Enjoy your collection.

[CP/M User]

"kepla" wrote in message:

Hi Kevin,

>> Finally, the Amstrad PCW8256

> Okay, this is getting uncanny ! I am
> on the verge of at last getting an 8128
> as I want to explore the Amstrad CP/M
> plus some more.

I think that's an Amstrad CPC6128 you're
after! :-)

Of course you could explore CP/M Plus
pretty well on a PCW8256! :-)

Cheers.

[kepla]

I think that's an Amstrad CPC6128 you're after!
You are probably right, though I am hoping to be given (as a swap) a PCW soon as well.
Of course you could explore CP/M Plus pretty well on a PCW8256
When I get it I will do so.
I have also been wondering about the possibility of porting CP/M (plus ?) over to the Amstrad NC200 notepad. 16-line display, Z80 proc, 720 Kb 3.5" floppy. I would be very interested to know if anybody else has 'been there' with this one before I give it a try myself.

[CP/M User]

"kepla" wrote in message:

>> I think that's an Amstrad CPC6128 you're after!

> You are probably right, though I am hoping to be
> given (as a swap) a PCW soon as well.

Yes, the PCW machines started out with 256k of
memory, where's the CPC6128 has 128k (just
enough to run CP/M Plus).

>> Of course you could explore CP/M Plus pretty
>> well on a PCW8256

> When I get it I will do so.

If I correctly recall the PCW8256 was the machine
I've seen & played around with, in which once you
start the computer, it starts looking for the boot
disk (I wouldn't suggest powering up the computer
with a disk in the bootup drive).

> I have also been wondering about the possibility
> of porting CP/M (plus ?) over to the Amstrad
> NC200 notepad. 16-line display, Z80 proc,
> 720 Kb 3.5" floppy. I would be very interested to
> know if anybody else has 'been there' with this
> one before I give it a try myself.

It's really a matter of if the NC200 has at least the
128k of memory. This is what CP/M Plus needs to
run (regardless of the system). If not, then it's a
question of playing around modifying it for it to
work.

Just one last thing I've noticed. It's interesting to
see that even though Amstrad have kept up the
tradition with the 3" disk drive in the CPC & PCW
that they came out with a 3.5" disk drive for the
NC200 (which also has the Z80 processor!).
Might of even temped a few more PCW owners
to take their work while on the move! :-)

Cheers.

[kepla]

If I correctly recall the PCW8256 was the machine I've seen & played around with, in which once you start the computer, it starts looking for the boot disk (I wouldn't suggest powering up the computer with a disk in the bootup drive).
Interesting ! So are you suggesting that powering on with a boot disk in the drive will give the disk or the drive a problem ? Is this a strange quirk of those 3" drives ?
It's really a matter of if the NC200 has at least the 128k of memory. This is what CP/M Plus needs to run (regardless of the system). If not, then it's a question of playing around modifying it for it to work.
Okay, there's 'just enough' on that score. I guess the main task would be getting the machine to boot off the floppy and arranging the right boot loader code ?
It's interesting to see that even though Amstrad have kept up the
tradition with the 3" disk drive in the CPC & PCW that they came out with a 3.5" disk drive for the NC200 (which also has the Z80 processor!).

I guess that they saw the 3" drive as being outdated, and some sort of compatibility with the rest of the world as desirable. :-)

[CP/M User]

"kepla" wrote in message:

>> If I correctly recall the PCW8256 was the machine
>> I've seen & played around with, in which once you
>> start the computer, it starts looking for the boot
>> disk (I wouldn't suggest powering up the computer
>> with a disk in the bootup drive).

> Interesting ! So are you suggesting that powering on
> with a boot disk in the drive will give the disk or the
> drive a problem ?

It'll lead to problems such as corrupting the disk.

> Is this a strange quirk of those 3" drives ?

No. It's quite common amonst most computers.

>> It's really a matter of if the NC200 has at least the
>> 128k of memory. This is what CP/M Plus needs to
>> run (regardless of the system). If not, then it's a
>> question of playing around modifying it for it to
>> work.

> Okay, there's 'just enough' on that score. I guess
> the main task would be getting the machine to boot
> off the floppy and arranging the right boot loader code ?

If it's capable of doing this.

>> It's interesting to see that even though Amstrad
>> have kept up the tradition with the 3" disk drive in the
>> CPC & PCW that they came out with a 3.5" disk drive
>> for the NC200 (which also has the Z80 processor!).

> I guess that they saw the 3" drive as being outdated,
> and some sort of compatibility with the rest of the world
> as desirable. :-)

That kind of attitude reminds me of what IBM treated their
own OS OS/2. They had this great OS & decided that they
won't support it fully.

Naturally, I see that when the Amstrad PCW 16 came out
in 1994 it too also had a 3.5" disk drive (this was another
machine I didn't see released here). They should have
marketed something to the majority of people who might
of still had earlier PCWs (since they were very popular)!

This marketing ploy is generally refered to as supporting
your users!

But anyway, history is history now...

Cheers.

[kepla]

But anyway, history is history now...
- and alive and kicking in our collections ! :D

[CP/M User]

"kepla" wrote in message:

>> But anyway, history is history now...

> - and alive and kicking in our
> collections ! :D

Yes, that's the way we want it. :-)

Cheers.