Date   : Fri, 05 Dec 1980005:36:00-MST
From   : Frank J. Wancho <FJW@MIT-MC>
Subject: [W8SDZ: New developments at Northstar]

Date: 12/05/80 01:59:22
From: W8SDZ
Re:   New developments at Northstar

Northstar is going to offer CP/M directly.  Apparently they are
expanding their support for CP/M to the point where it makes more
sense to offer it direct instead of referring sales to Lifeboat.
   Northstar will soon be offering a new memory board that has some
sort of memory-mangement built into it so that the Z80 processor can
address over 300k of ram WITHOUT BANK SWITCHING!  The process is said
to be transparent to the user, making the system look as if it had
over 300k of RAM!

The N* CP/M will retail for $230 and include support for their hard
disk.  The hard disk version from Lifeboat is $250.  My dealer has
placed an order for it and I will be receiving that copy to evaluate.
I'll have a report for you soon after I get it.

If we can combine that memory management board and, say, Godbout's
recently announced 128K RAM board, maybe we can seriously consider
offloading some of our medium sized FORTRAN programs into dedicated
single-user micros...

--Frank

P.S. In a slightly related topic for N* hardware hackers who have the
older series processor board made prior to about April this year: I
have the phantom line modification instructions available for anyone
who wants to try it.  N* claims it shouldn't, but several local users
have tried it here and claim it works.  If there is enough interest, I
will key it in and pass it along to try at your own risk...