[rescue] A bit of Fun

[Sheldon T. Hall]

Robert Novak said ...

> The Seequa Chameleon had 808x and Z-80 in a hardware dual boot
> configuration, as I recall. I thought it was incredible, but then I
> learned CP/M before DOS. Circa 1982 I think--NEC had a couple of machines
> that competed for mindshare in "serious" computer stores (i.e. non-kmart)
> with the Apple ][ and Franklin Ace.

Arrr, them was the days!  Nothing was so stupid that some manufacturer
wouln't try it.  x86 machines that weren't compatible with the IBM-PC.
Floppy drives that took two disks, but only had one head positioning
mechanism.  Z-80 cards for the 8-bit ISA bus so you could run CP/M on an IBM
PC.  EGA.  PGA.  IBM 5120.  Apple /// with a CP/M card. 26-line terminals
that scrolled 2 lines at a time. Word processors that couldn't format disks,
so you had to buy preformatted floppies for $18.50 each.  The Epson QX-10
with its "HASCII" keyboard and "ValDocs" OS.

Not only did the manufacturers build these hare-brained losers, they paid my
employers-of-the-era to port what passed for software to them.

I never had more fun in my life, actually.

-Shel