Date   : Thu, 20 Feb 1986 14:03:54 PST (Thu)
From   : Chris McMenomy <christe@RAND-UNIX.ARPA>
Subject: Re: have an Osborne-1, would like to make it useful

We ordered and installed the Nuevo Double Density upgrade (that's the firm
in Texas you're thinking about) on our brown case Osborne I in August,
1984.  It took us about three hours, the first to get our courage up to
open the case--between the two of us we have about as much
electronic/mechanical/electrical engineering experience as a sixties'
sitcom housewife--and the last because we misread the instructions, which
were perfectly clear, supplemented with photos.  If we can do it, you can.
Cost then was around $150, and we figured at the rate we were buying
disks, DD capability alone would pay for itself in six months (it did).
Besides making 184K available instead of 92K, it also stores data in 1K
(rather than 2K) blocks, so there is less wasted space.  I am not a
hardware expert, so I can't give you a detailed analysis of performance,
but since we installed it we haven't had any cause to worry about it, and
we use our O1 heavily--4 hours a day or so, for text processing and
programming.  The DD upgrade kit includes the Osborne ROM version 1.5
which uses the BIOS correctly.  There are instructions for modifying the
system tracks to use the new ROM and DD code (but be careful: it is done
using a SETUP file and it takes longer than you think to finish; if it
doesn't finish, it won't work on the new ROM, and you'll have to put the
old ROM back in and start over).  Once installed, the Nueveo-supplied
ROM is all you need to run Borland's Turbo Pascal (which we use a lot).
I can't answer for TLC Lisp because we don't have it, but if all it
requires is a 1.5 revision, you should be set.

Good Luck!

Christe McMenomy
Rand Corporation
christe@rand-unix