09-02-13 13:04 mark lewis wrote to Ed Vance about Backup software

 ml> {at}MSGID: 
 ml>  On Fri, 30 Aug 2013, Ed Vance wrote to mark lewis:

 EV> I then remarked, does XT stand for eXpired Technology?, he never
 EV> thought of that before, but he would tell that to all of his
 EV> friends who were still running XTs.     

 ml> hahaha... XT was eXtended Technology IIRC... it was a step up
 ml> from the plain original PC... the addition of the HD and the
 ml> necessary BIOS modification to boot from it were one of the
 ml> main extensions... also there were more slots (8) on the XT but
 ml> they were spaced closer together than in the PC... the XT also
 ml> allowed for more memory on the motherboard (256k) than the PC
 ml> (64k)... the PC was limited to a maximum of 256k memory whereas
 ml> the XT could handle up to 1M but only 640k of that was usable
 ml> by the user... the BIOS, adapter ROM/RAM and video RAM filled
 ml> the inaccessible 384k of that 1M space...

Mark,

I remember seeing the advertisements of those HUGE PC Boards that
plugged into the slots.

You could add RAM (if you had the $$$$$$), and even have a BATTERY
POWERED CLOCK! on those early PC's.

The Motherboards (mb) were HUGH too!, when I saw the "Tiny" (to me)
Shuttle HOT 409 mb the guy put in the 486DX33 he built for me,
it made my eyes pop out.

The computer Case was made for the earlier mb's, so I don't think
I have any cooling problems in that box, there's pleanty of room
for air to move around in it.

Now if I could figure out a way to reduce all the HOT AIR coming
from ME, things would be better off around here.

 EV> That AT of his must had been a 286, I guess.

 ml> yes, ATs were introduced with 6mhz 80286 CPUs in them... they
                             Typo  ^  16?????     B4 I got a 486 in 1994, I learned from reading messages on BBSes,
 EV> and later on, on a ITT XT at work by typing in the Example Programs
 EV> from the Manuals that came with the XT.

 ml> i started off on a TRS-80 and their BASIC... then later i was
 ml> downloading BASIC programs from a system up in michigan when i

A friend got a TRS-80 but I never got interested in them after
reading that they switched a couple of leads around to make
the TRS-80 EXCLUSIVE to TRS-80 Hardware (That's right isn't it?).

 ml> was in oklohoma... i already knew some BASIC so i set about

The guy that built the 486 for me had worked for a place called
OKLA Data Systems back in Oklahoma and he covered the area where
the LED (Speed) numbers on the case with a Black Square Plastic
Emblem from the company that he had worked for.

His name is Randy Bradshaw, ever heard of him?

 ml> modifying those downloaded programs to add color since i was
 ml> working on a PCjr with color monitor... later a friend turned

I loved Tweaking BASIC Programs too!

 ml> me onto PASCAL and ASM and i never looked back... BASIC's PEEKs
 ml> and POKEs never made sense to me but i knew and understood what
 ml> they were doing... i was just never able to figure out where
 ml> folks got those lists of codes from and what they actually
 ml> meant... it wasn't until i got into ASM that it struck me as to
 ml> the OPs codes they were using...

I got the Commodore 64= Programmer's Reference Guide to help unTwist
all of that PEEK and POKE stuff, and also got the Guide for the VIC=20.

The book called Mapping The Commodore 64 by Sheldon Leemon really
helped me learn too!

 EV> That ITT with DOS 2.11 was a real good PC, in fact when it was
 EV> replaced by a Zenith 286 I thought the XT worked better than the
 EV> 286 did.  But what do I know???????????

 ml> the 286 was plagued by a few problems but those were HD
 ml> based... once the HDs were replaced, they didn't have any more
 ml> problems...

Yes, it did seem like the Zenith 286 20MB HD took a long time
processing the River Data we sent to the Ohio River Division server
each day compated to how FAST the 10MB HD in the ITT XT box would
do it.

Here all the time I thought the Zenith 286 was a pile of junk and
now I learn it was just the HDD causing the slow down.
I had always liked what I saw in the stores that Zenith made,
even Heathkit was connected with Zenith for some items.
Thanks for straightening me out that Zenith wasn't the fault,
it was the Hard Drive Manufacturer who made that 286 look bad.


 ml> FWIW: the 32bit 80386 was brought out by COMPAQ in 1986 IIRC...
 ml> this was the first time that the (de facto) PC Compatible
 ml> standard was updated by a company other than IBM...

About a year ago I read about how COMPAQ got their start.

... Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
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