Date   : Thu, 15 Aug 1991 08:25:12 GMT
From   : mcsun!hp4nl!gufalet.let.rug.nl!rug4!laverman@uunet.uu.net (Bert Laverman)
Subject: Re: cp/m machine help

Stuart Pearl writes:
>I need information on a Televidio 803 which I believe is some sort of 
>machine (circa 1982-1984) that uses the cp/m operating system.
Indeed it does. Welcome to the 8-bit zone...

>The unit has a monochrome monitor, two floppy drives and for operating
>software it has B-DOS (Before DOS?).  I believe it was previously used
>in an office environment for wordprocessing, spreadsheet and probably 
>some "desktop" functions.
I think you mean BDOS (no dash), and that's just part of the CP/M OS.

>I know nothing about cp/m but would like to know if it's possible to load
>any of the versions of DOS onto this machine, or if its operation archi-
>tecture is something that's BIOS dependant, or whatever.  Is there any 
>hardware restriction as to what kind of operating system such a machine
>can use?
Aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrggghh!!!! (please extend this to max display width :-))
Some people worry about 'life after death', but this is more like 'was
there computing before DOS', where DOS undoubtably means MeSsy-DOS. ;-)

Dear Stuart, this Televideo 803 will not only run no DOS programs, it
even doesn't run DOS itself! It has (probably) the amazing amount of
64 Kilobytes of memory (not 640, 64!). It's processor is _not_ one of Intel's
brain-damaged segmented 80x86es, but something immensely more unlikely:
The Zilog Z80! Max. addressing capability: 64KB, 8-bit registers, 16-bit
addressing. The 803 (probably) has a 4MHz processor clock. It's disk
format, though 360Kb, will makes any PC/XT/AT throw up unless guided by
a special utility.
  It also is a member of that unique and wunderfull family of machines that
can run most of each others programs, even when their hardware is grossly
incompatible, which is a quality MS-DOS tried to copy (Hell, MS-DOS version 1
was designed to be _completely_ system call compatible with CP/M, so binary
conversion programs could be used), but IBM managed to spoil it.

>Not having seen the unit, I don't know what its guts look like.  Do these
>things have expansion slots like compatibles that would allow for the
>addition of modem card?  And if so, are there communciations packages for
>cp/m.  Please post any info here or send me email direct.
It has a serial port builtin. You'll have to get an _external_ modem. It
has no expansion slots, since it's not only incompatible, but actually..,
well,... incompatible!

I hope you don't get annoyed at this reply, but I just get emotional when
people mistake a _real_ machine for an IBM compatible. :-)

Greetings, Bert


-- 
#include <std/disclaimer>

  Bert Laverman,  Dept. of Computing Science, Groningen University
  laverman@cs.rug.nl                   bert@arrakis.nl.mugnet.org