Date   : Mon, 28 Nov 1988 18:40:39 PST
From   : secrist%msdsws.DEC@decwrl.dec.com (Richard Secrist, Digital Equip. Corp. USA)
Subject: "naive" NEC question

       You can get tons of technical info about NECs from either NEC
       or private sources I've talked about in prior notes regarding
       '8500.  They're all closely related -- you might even say
       incestuous.

       I'm on the road and don't have the info I posted earlier, but
       those sources should be able to get you any about-this-box and
       can-I-buy-it questions answered.  I can post it again later
       and/or you could post specific questions here where we can
       answer them.  Overgeneralizing most of this class of CP/M
       laptop can run generic CP/M things in truncated TPAs (~32K)
       without additional hardware, and with more plug in gadgets
       can be full-fledged CP/M boxes with disks and everything.  You
       can't mung the BIOS and stuff the same way since they're all
       ROMed into place, but CP/M is still alive and well (although
       it's not "getting better," and the liquidators are "bringing
       out their dead" [MF-DOS boxes are getting so cheap that CP/M
       systems don't draw much of a price anymore]).

       rcs