Date   : Thu, 08 Nov 2007 15:18:14 +0000
From   : fragula@... (Fragula)
Subject: ROM / RAM boards...

Pete Turnbull wrote:

> I agree. The ATPL Sidewise was the Rolls Royce of sideways ROM boards.

Ohh.. You obviously never used a Computech Integra-B, though I suppose
that might be disqualified because it is /so/ much more than just a ROM
board.

20K of Video shadow RAM, 12K of "Other" Shadow. Low current 62256 SRAM
based.

Up to 16 off 16K of Sideways RAM. Write protectable in pairs IIRC. - all
battery backed 62256 SRAMs.

RTC/Config RAM that worked really well.

A "MOS Extension" that gave, depending of the *CONFIGURE options used a
fairly high degree of B+ B+128, Master 128 etc. compatibility. (Subject
to a few hardware differences, i.e. the extra 6502 opcodes of the
6512/R65C02P2 etc.

If only it had been implemented in standard TTL, and perhaps production
scaled up to get the price down a bit. ISTR it was a couple of
blokes+dog outfit in Whitehaven, Cumbria, and though it's an exquisitely
nice thing to use, it was horrendously expensive at the time, around
?165, and that was for a semi-populated PCB. (32k of shadows, and two
62256s for sideways.

It came with the aforementioned MOS extender, and a few disks showing
the power of the thing, including something with more than a passing
resemblance to Windows, that worked with a mouse, and a bunch of "open
source" Applets, written mostly in BBC BASIC  (in fact i think it was
actually called "Integra Windows" now i think about it.. food for a
court case perhaps, as IIRC Microsoft were still on Dos 2.xx at that
point in time, GEM was only a fledgeling thing (i.e. pre GEM2.) and the
only tidy implementations were on Mac and Lisa, outside of the extremely
exotic.

Maybe I'll keep that machine and my ACW seperate..  I've been thinking
of trying to shoehorn it /all/ into the ACW case, though that's probably
not that sensible really.

Cheers!

M.