Date   : Sun, 06 Dec 1987 17:06:00 GMT
From   : clio!berger@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: NEC-APC (CPM-86) Info Request

I can help with Kermit and the disk formats.  The NEC APC is an orphan
machine now, but way ahead of its time.  It's a shame to handicap it by
running CP/M-86 instead of MS-DOS.  NEC Information Systems still
offers support, software upgrades, and maintenance.

For the record, the NEC APC came out in 1983.  List price was slightly 
higher than a "similarly" equipped PC system, but discounts were
readily available.  In 1984, $ 3200 bought:

NEC APC, 8086 processor, 256K ram
640*512 graphics in 8 colors with monitor (VERY sharp - people still
are amazed when they discover the display is COLOR).  Two display
processors, one for text, one for graphics with hardware line and
circle drawing.  Special hardware for custom character sets.
Two 8" DSDD floppy disk drives (1.25 megabytes each), and the APC
printer.
Parallel and Serial ports are standard, 102 key keyboard.  22
Programmable function keys.
NEC 8023 graphics printer.

I've since added a math co-processor, and 640 K of RAM.

Standard (included free!) documentation included complete machine-
readable source listings of the BIOS and proprietary system utilities,
a System Reference Guide (including full technical details and
schematics), the MS-DOS Technical Reference Manual (far more
complete than the expensive IBM version, which wasn't even available
until 2 years later), MS-DOS user's guide, and bundled software
(WordStar, Multiplan, and DBASE II in my case).

I've never had a single maintenance problem since I've owned the
machine.

Now, can somebody explain how IBM sets the standards?!