Re: Attacking the 35$ (not) computah

Jan Panteltje wrote:
> Attacking the 35$ (not) computah.
>
> "To get people interested in computers and electronics"
> Then why not release the datasheet of the chips?
> A circuit diagram, full documentation too.
>
> So that is a joke.
>
> Sinclair came with the ZX80 in the eighties.
> It was all TTL chips, and a Z80 processor.


Yo, Jan, do you even remember what that thing cost? I as a student back
then could most definitely not afford either the ZX80 or the ZX81.
Neither could anyone else I knew. This was for rich kids only. I still
remember drooling all over an advertisement in a French paper, then
seeing a fat four-digit Franc number at the end. Went over to Hema and
bought myself a Cote-du-Rhone instead. That I could afford.


> Now that was something.
> The ZX81 had some of that TTL integrated.
> Diagrams were available, I even had the complete ROM
> disassembly commented by Dr Ohara.
> THAT is how you get people interested,
> BBC micro was just like BBC, a government sponsored disaster,
> It flipped.
> Sinclair became Sir Clive Sinclair, for his contributions
> to that what you now try to claim,
> I'd say to the youngsters:
> Get an old ZX80.
>

Nah. Get an older PC. Much better bang for the buck. In fact, it's not
all that difficult to get one for free.


> The whole thing from an educational POV makes no sense,
> as how many youngsters have a HDMI capable monitor?


This is the 21st century, last time I looked. Both flat screens here
have HDMI input. It avoids having to think about settings, something
that might be asking too much of kids these days. With HDMI, you plug it
in, and it worketh.

[...]


> The ZX81 was available from the supermarket here (V&D).
>

At what price?

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On 06/03/2012 23:01, Joerg wrote:
> Jan Panteltje wrote:
>> Attacking the 35$ (not) computah.
>>
>> "To get people interested in computers and electronics"
>> Then why not release the datasheet of the chips?
>> A circuit diagram, full documentation too.
>>
>> So that is a joke.
>>
>> Sinclair came with the ZX80 in the eighties.
>> It was all TTL chips, and a Z80 processor.
>
> Yo, Jan, do you even remember what that thing cost? I as a student back
> then could most definitely not afford either the ZX80 or the ZX81.
> Neither could anyone else I knew. This was for rich kids only. I still

No it wasn't - at least not in the UK. The SC/MP was about £40-50 as a
kit and so was his scientific calculator before that. I think the ZX80
first launched at £100 and went up from there. I never got one because I
already had an Acorn Atom which was only £20 more in kit form. It wasn't
cheap but it wasn't unaffordable if you *really* wanted one.

The rich kids had Apples which were incredibly overpriced in the UK (and
arguably still are: think US $1 - £1 GB). Those of us that knew how to
make them do things got invited round and that was interesting.

> remember drooling all over an advertisement in a French paper, then
> seeing a fat four-digit Franc number at the end. Went over to Hema and
> bought myself a Cote-du-Rhone instead. That I could afford.

Shouldn't it have been about FF 1000 in those days?

>> Now that was something.
>> The ZX81 had some of that TTL integrated.
>> Diagrams were available, I even had the complete ROM
>> disassembly commented by Dr Ohara.
>> THAT is how you get people interested,
>> BBC micro was just like BBC, a government sponsored disaster,
>> It flipped.
>> Sinclair became Sir Clive Sinclair, for his contributions
>> to that what you now try to claim,
>> I'd say to the youngsters:
>> Get an old ZX80.
>
> Nah. Get an older PC. Much better bang for the buck. In fact, it's not
> all that difficult to get one for free.

Indeed. There are secondhand boxes for £50 over here which is less than
the cost of the XP OS license. The best second hand price performance in
the UK is about £100 which is good enough to do video rendering.

For a very long time an IBM PC in the UK cost around £2000 and slowly
improved in specification at or near constant price. Their comments
about 640k of ram being enough for anybody sound rather silly now...

>> The whole thing from an educational POV makes no sense,
>> as how many youngsters have a HDMI capable monitor?
>
> This is the 21st century, last time I looked. Both flat screens here
> have HDMI input. It avoids having to think about settings, something
> that might be asking too much of kids these days. With HDMI, you plug it
> in, and it worketh.

Almost any modern TV set has HDMI and digital works a lot better for
sharp text than either VGA or yuk! UHF modulators.

> [...]
>
>
>> The ZX81 was available from the supermarket here (V&D).
>
> At what price?

Dunno but in the UK about £69.95 (he always priced like that).
(so likely $99 at a guess)

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

DJ Delorie wrote:
> Joerg <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:
>> Yo, Jan, do you even remember what that thing cost?
>
> My ZX81 (TS1000) cost $99, not including the 16k ram pack.
>

In Europe it listed just under 3000 French Francs. Which was IIRC well
over $500. Anyhow, way out of league for a student.


> My first car cost $100.
>

My first car (same time frame as the ZX80) was under $50.


> I got them about the same time.
>

I built my computational stuff out of TTL chips. Should have used CMOS
in hindsight but that was even more expensive. On my first project I
paid north of $20 for a 1kbit (yes, bit) SRAM. I'd liked to have two but
that wasn't in the cards.


> Times have changed...


Not always for the better. But regarding electronics and computing the
good old days are right now.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Martin Brown wrote:
> On 06/03/2012 23:01, Joerg wrote:
>> Jan Panteltje wrote:
>>> Attacking the 35$ (not) computah.
>>>
>>> "To get people interested in computers and electronics"
>>> Then why not release the datasheet of the chips?
>>> A circuit diagram, full documentation too.
>>>
>>> So that is a joke.
>>>
>>> Sinclair came with the ZX80 in the eighties.
>>> It was all TTL chips, and a Z80 processor.
>>
>> Yo, Jan, do you even remember what that thing cost? I as a student back
>> then could most definitely not afford either the ZX80 or the ZX81.
>> Neither could anyone else I knew. This was for rich kids only. I still
>
> No it wasn't - at least not in the UK. The SC/MP was about £40-50 as a
> kit and so was his scientific calculator before that. I think the ZX80
> first launched at £100 and went up from there. I never got one because I
> already had an Acorn Atom which was only £20 more in kit form. It wasn't
> cheap but it wasn't unaffordable if you *really* wanted one.
>
> The rich kids had Apples which were incredibly overpriced in the UK (and
> arguably still are: think US $1 - £1 GB). Those of us that knew how to
> make them do things got invited round and that was interesting.
>

Apples were massively cloned in Germany and in the Netherlands. That
made them somewhat affordable. But the real ticket was to get to the US
and bring something back from there. If you were able to afford the
ticket, that is.


>> remember drooling all over an advertisement in a French paper, then
>> seeing a fat four-digit Franc number at the end. Went over to Hema and
>> bought myself a Cote-du-Rhone instead. That I could afford.
>
> Shouldn't it have been about FF 1000 in those days?
>

IIRC it was a lot higher. Anyway, not within my budget. Which wasn't too
bad because that meant I had to build my own hardware, and that was more
educational than anything I learned about computing and digital at the
university.


>>> Now that was something.
>>> The ZX81 had some of that TTL integrated.
>>> Diagrams were available, I even had the complete ROM
>>> disassembly commented by Dr Ohara.
>>> THAT is how you get people interested,
>>> BBC micro was just like BBC, a government sponsored disaster,
>>> It flipped.
>>> Sinclair became Sir Clive Sinclair, for his contributions
>>> to that what you now try to claim,
>>> I'd say to the youngsters:
>>> Get an old ZX80.
>>
>> Nah. Get an older PC. Much better bang for the buck. In fact, it's not
>> all that difficult to get one for free.
>
> Indeed. There are secondhand boxes for £50 over here which is less than
> the cost of the XP OS license. The best second hand price performance in
> the UK is about £100 which is good enough to do video rendering.
>
> For a very long time an IBM PC in the UK cost around £2000 and slowly
> improved in specification at or near constant price. Their comments
> about 640k of ram being enough for anybody sound rather silly now...
>

I paid around 10,000 Deutschmarks for my Tandon 386. This did not
include the NEC MultiSync monitor which was another few thousand.


>>> The whole thing from an educational POV makes no sense,
>>> as how many youngsters have a HDMI capable monitor?
>>
>> This is the 21st century, last time I looked. Both flat screens here
>> have HDMI input. It avoids having to think about settings, something
>> that might be asking too much of kids these days. With HDMI, you plug it
>> in, and it worketh.
>
> Almost any modern TV set has HDMI and digital works a lot better for
> sharp text than either VGA or yuk! UHF modulators.
>

UHF modulators were only for the well-heeled. All I had was a drifty
VHF-I modulator.


>> [...]
>>
>>
>>> The ZX81 was available from the supermarket here (V&D).
>>
>> At what price?
>
> Dunno but in the UK about £69.95 (he always priced like that).
> (so likely $99 at a guess)
>

I'd have bought it instantly at that price back then. But ...

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Jan Panteltje wrote:
> On a sunny day (Tue, 06 Mar 2012 15:01:11 -0800) it happened Joerg
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in <(E-Mail Removed)>:
>
>> Jan Panteltje wrote:
>>> Attacking the 35$ (not) computah.
>>>
>>> "To get people interested in computers and electronics"
>>> Then why not release the datasheet of the chips?
>>> A circuit diagram, full documentation too.
>>>
>>> So that is a joke.
>>>
>>> Sinclair came with the ZX80 in the eighties.
>>> It was all TTL chips, and a Z80 processor.
>>
>> Yo, Jan, do you even remember what that thing cost? I as a student back
>> then could most definitely not afford either the ZX80 or the ZX81.
>> Neither could anyone else I knew. This was for rich kids only. I still
>> remember drooling all over an advertisement in a French paper, then
>> seeing a fat four-digit Franc number at the end. Went over to Hema and
>> bought myself a Cote-du-Rhone instead. That I could afford.
>
> Joerg, I do not remember the price, but it was not much.
> But I was no student anymore at that time, so my perspective
> of 'expensive' was different, I had my TV shop, and plenty of TVs to
> try it on, scope, all equipment you can imagine to investigate it,
> I remember writing a small program in that BASIC that printed repair
> bills, added a serial printer interface for that, and actually
> sold some of that soft.
>

I even had a color TV in the early 80's because I rescued a Philips that
someone had tossed to the curb and repaired it. However, I could only
use it while nobody was cooking and the shower boiler was not heating up
because the whole apartment back at my time in NL was fused at 6A. One
circuit, that was it. Oh, and the HW100 ham radio transceiver had to be
off as well. Too many tubes.

>
>
>>> Now that was something.
>>> The ZX81 had some of that TTL integrated.
>>> Diagrams were available, I even had the complete ROM
>>> disassembly commented by Dr Ohara.
>>> THAT is how you get people interested,
>>> BBC micro was just like BBC, a government sponsored disaster,
>>> It flipped.
>>> Sinclair became Sir Clive Sinclair, for his contributions
>>> to that what you now try to claim,
>>> I'd say to the youngsters:
>>> Get an old ZX80.
>>>
>> Nah. Get an older PC. Much better bang for the buck. In fact, it's not
>> all that difficult to get one for free.
>
> That is not the point, from a kids learning point of view you can learn
> from the TTL circuit diagram how a real computer, plus the very clever video interface,
> worked, and even rebuild it from scratch.
> The very higly integrated chipsets of PeeSees these days would be a bit too much for most kids.
>

Back then PCs were very simple. And much more versatile than a Sinclair.
You could build your own interface cards. I bought a book "Top-Training
for Turbo-Pascal" that even came with a Vero/Vector style ISA card.

Of course, to use it I had to beg time at other people's PCs or wait
until I visited my parents because dad always had the latest and
greatest computing stuff from IBM.

[...]

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Jan Panteltje wrote:
> On a sunny day (Wed, 07 Mar 2012 10:30:13 -0800) it happened Joerg
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in <(E-Mail Removed)>:
>
>> Back then PCs were very simple. And much more versatile than a Sinclair.
>
> I am not sure you got the time table right.
>
> Lets check:
> http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_ZX80
> that was 1980.
>
> IBM PC:
> http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer
> August 1981
>

That was not the first personal computer fropm IBM. For example, we had
this one (it's actually still there):

http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/pc/pc_3.html

Mid 70's.


> I know this, because AFTER I did that program in BASIC one companion
> in my company wanted to buy an IBM, the IBM was +++++more expensive
>

Not if one works at IBM and gets an employee discount :-)

>
>> You could build your own interface cards. I bought a book "Top-Training
>> for Turbo-Pascal" that even came with a Vero/Vector style ISA card.
>
> After I sold the TV shop I went, after several other things,
> to work in the late eighties for a company where I just did that,
> ISA cards, I invented the wave table soundcard, suggested Boss patented it,
> he did not, an other missed opportunity,


Had that happen as well. Brainstorm meeting, the whole company. Theme:
What else could we do with ultrasound? Only requirement was absolutely
no laughing about ideas of others.

So I and a few other guys came up with an idea we thought was grandiose:
The sonic toothbrush! Thundering laughter, people slapping their knees,
falling off chairs. Needless to say, nothing came of this meeting. Five
years later Philips started making oodles of money with ... a sonic
toothbrush (we have them).


> Mostly the rest was special I/O stuff, huge amounts of I/O
> we only used IBM, no clones,
> Then ISA was replaced by what was micro channel bus... sort of flopped.
>

It had to and I predicted it (to IBM folks). Only open architectures can
win in this market.


> I remember one project that I did with that IBM PC got a lot of press
> and TV coverage, and caused a stir with IBM dealers as we 'bypassed'
> them and got the stuff directly from IBM, but were no official dealer,
> They came and my boss told them 'would you rather have that we did it with
> a clone?"
> LOL
>
> BTW I still have a PC with one ISA slot, some PCI slots and floppy drive.
> I do not have those large ISA prototype cards anymore, but still a Philips
> ISA video PAL receiver card.
>

You can still buy all sorts of new PC with ISA, because of heavy
industrial use. They are here to stay.

[...]

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On Wed, 07 Mar 2012 12:54:55 -0800, Joerg <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Jan Panteltje wrote:
>> On a sunny day (Wed, 07 Mar 2012 10:30:13 -0800) it happened Joerg
>> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in <(E-Mail Removed)>:
>>
>>> Back then PCs were very simple. And much more versatile than a Sinclair.
>>
>> I am not sure you got the time table right.
>>
>> Lets check:
>> http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_ZX80
>> that was 1980.
>>
>> IBM PC:
>> http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer
>> August 1981
>>
>
>That was not the first personal computer fropm IBM. For example, we had
>this one (it's actually still there):
>
>http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/pc/pc_3.html
>
>Mid 70's.

At the price, it was about as "personal" as a PDP-11. We had a bunch of them
that we had a coop student build from the BOM, too. ;-)

>
>> I know this, because AFTER I did that program in BASIC one companion
>> in my company wanted to buy an IBM, the IBM was +++++more expensive
>>
>
>Not if one works at IBM and gets an employee discount :-)

Well, there is that. ;-) Mine, a 5150, one floppy, 48K (the minimum employee
purchase), monochrome, and a CGA graphics card (no display) was about $2500.
>>
>>> You could build your own interface cards. I bought a book "Top-Training
>>> for Turbo-Pascal" that even came with a Vero/Vector style ISA card.
>>
>> After I sold the TV shop I went, after several other things,
>> to work in the late eighties for a company where I just did that,
>> ISA cards, I invented the wave table soundcard, suggested Boss patented it,
>> he did not, an other missed opportunity,
>
>
>Had that happen as well. Brainstorm meeting, the whole company. Theme:
>What else could we do with ultrasound? Only requirement was absolutely
>no laughing about ideas of others.
>
>So I and a few other guys came up with an idea we thought was grandiose:
>The sonic toothbrush! Thundering laughter, people slapping their knees,
>falling off chairs. Needless to say, nothing came of this meeting. Five
>years later Philips started making oodles of money with ... a sonic
>toothbrush (we have them).
>
>
>> Mostly the rest was special I/O stuff, huge amounts of I/O
>> we only used IBM, no clones,
>> Then ISA was replaced by what was micro channel bus... sort of flopped.
>>
>
>It had to and I predicted it (to IBM folks). Only open architectures can
>win in this market.

The problem was that ISA couldn't win in IBMs market. As we saw with advent
of PCI, later, they were right. The greater market wasn't ready for the
integration of microchannel, though.

>> I remember one project that I did with that IBM PC got a lot of press
>> and TV coverage, and caused a stir with IBM dealers as we 'bypassed'
>> them and got the stuff directly from IBM, but were no official dealer,
>> They came and my boss told them 'would you rather have that we did it with
>> a clone?"
>> LOL
>>
>> BTW I still have a PC with one ISA slot, some PCI slots and floppy drive.
>> I do not have those large ISA prototype cards anymore, but still a Philips
>> ISA video PAL receiver card.
>>
>
>You can still buy all sorts of new PC with ISA, because of heavy
>industrial use. They are here to stay.

If you have enough money.

(E-Mail Removed)zzzzzzzz wrote:
> On Wed, 07 Mar 2012 12:54:55 -0800, Joerg <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> Jan Panteltje wrote:
>>> On a sunny day (Wed, 07 Mar 2012 10:30:13 -0800) it happened Joerg
>>> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in <(E-Mail Removed)>:
>>>

[...]

>>> I know this, because AFTER I did that program in BASIC one companion
>>> in my company wanted to buy an IBM, the IBM was +++++more expensive
>>>
>> Not if one works at IBM and gets an employee discount :-)
>
> Well, there is that. ;-) Mine, a 5150, one floppy, 48K (the minimum employee
> purchase), monochrome, and a CGA graphics card (no display) was about $2500.


A lot of money. However, considering that I paid north of two bucks for
a SN7400 back then it was not outrageous at all. Also, you got a dang
reliable and sturdy computation machine for that and not some flimsy
foil keyboard like with the Sinclair.


>>>> You could build your own interface cards. I bought a book "Top-Training
>>>> for Turbo-Pascal" that even came with a Vero/Vector style ISA card.
>>> After I sold the TV shop I went, after several other things,
>>> to work in the late eighties for a company where I just did that,
>>> ISA cards, I invented the wave table soundcard, suggested Boss patented it,
>>> he did not, an other missed opportunity,
>>
>> Had that happen as well. Brainstorm meeting, the whole company. Theme:
>> What else could we do with ultrasound? Only requirement was absolutely
>> no laughing about ideas of others.
>>
>> So I and a few other guys came up with an idea we thought was grandiose:
>> The sonic toothbrush! Thundering laughter, people slapping their knees,
>> falling off chairs. Needless to say, nothing came of this meeting. Five
>> years later Philips started making oodles of money with ... a sonic
>> toothbrush (we have them).
>>
>>
>>> Mostly the rest was special I/O stuff, huge amounts of I/O
>>> we only used IBM, no clones,
>>> Then ISA was replaced by what was micro channel bus... sort of flopped.
>>>
>> It had to and I predicted it (to IBM folks). Only open architectures can
>> win in this market.
>
> The problem was that ISA couldn't win in IBMs market. ...


ISA won, big time. To this day it is heavily used in industrial
applications and you can buy new PCs with numerous ISA slots. When the
ICT on one of my projects croaked (after humming along for almost 15
years ...) the client simply bought a new ISA-PC and it was humming
again. Except now they have a CD-writer in there which makes backup easier.


> ... As we saw with advent of PCI, later, they were right. ...


PCI isn't used so much in automation. Sometimes, yes, but a lot is still
ISA.

http://www.nixsys.com/products/acces...rds/nx853.html


> ... The greater market wasn't ready for the
> integration of microchannel, though.
>

AFAIR they kept it proprietary. That was the cardinal mistake.


>>> I remember one project that I did with that IBM PC got a lot of press
>>> and TV coverage, and caused a stir with IBM dealers as we 'bypassed'
>>> them and got the stuff directly from IBM, but were no official dealer,
>>> They came and my boss told them 'would you rather have that we did it with
>>> a clone?"
>>> LOL
>>>
>>> BTW I still have a PC with one ISA slot, some PCI slots and floppy drive.
>>> I do not have those large ISA prototype cards anymore, but still a Philips
>>> ISA video PAL receiver card.
>>>
>> You can still buy all sorts of new PC with ISA, because of heavy
>> industrial use. They are here to stay.
>
> If you have enough money.


Nah, see link above. Most ISA mobos and cards are in the $200-$300
range. Peanuts if that makes a production line stop situation go away.

If someone is really hard-pressed for money they can get stuff from China:

http://www.alibaba.com/product-free/.../ISA_CARD.html


--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On Wed, 07 Mar 2012 12:54:55 -0800, Joerg <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>
>You can still buy all sorts of new PC with ISA, because of heavy
>industrial use. They are here to stay.
>
>[...]
>
>--
>Regards, Joerg

You are full of ****. Cite your "new" PC with ISA slots, mother****er.

On Wed, 07 Mar 2012 14:21:21 -0800, Joerg <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
>> On Wed, 07 Mar 2012 12:54:55 -0800, Joerg <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>
>>> Jan Panteltje wrote:
>>>> On a sunny day (Wed, 07 Mar 2012 10:30:13 -0800) it happened Joerg
>>>> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in <(E-Mail Removed)>:
>>>>
>
>[...]
>
>>>> I know this, because AFTER I did that program in BASIC one companion
>>>> in my company wanted to buy an IBM, the IBM was +++++more expensive
>>>>
>>> Not if one works at IBM and gets an employee discount :-)
>>
>> Well, there is that. ;-) Mine, a 5150, one floppy, 48K (the minimum employee
>> purchase), monochrome, and a CGA graphics card (no display) was about $2500.
>
>
>A lot of money. However, considering that I paid north of two bucks for
>a SN7400 back then it was not outrageous at all. Also, you got a dang
>reliable and sturdy computation machine for that and not some flimsy
>foil keyboard like with the Sinclair.

It was a lot of money, in 1982. Almost as much as my HP45 in 1973.
;-)

>>>>> You could build your own interface cards. I bought a book "Top-Training
>>>>> for Turbo-Pascal" that even came with a Vero/Vector style ISA card.
>>>> After I sold the TV shop I went, after several other things,
>>>> to work in the late eighties for a company where I just did that,
>>>> ISA cards, I invented the wave table soundcard, suggested Boss patented it,
>>>> he did not, an other missed opportunity,
>>>
>>> Had that happen as well. Brainstorm meeting, the whole company. Theme:
>>> What else could we do with ultrasound? Only requirement was absolutely
>>> no laughing about ideas of others.
>>>
>>> So I and a few other guys came up with an idea we thought was grandiose:
>>> The sonic toothbrush! Thundering laughter, people slapping their knees,
>>> falling off chairs. Needless to say, nothing came of this meeting. Five
>>> years later Philips started making oodles of money with ... a sonic
>>> toothbrush (we have them).
>>>
>>>
>>>> Mostly the rest was special I/O stuff, huge amounts of I/O
>>>> we only used IBM, no clones,
>>>> Then ISA was replaced by what was micro channel bus... sort of flopped.
>>>>
>>> It had to and I predicted it (to IBM folks). Only open architectures can
>>> win in this market.
>>
>> The problem was that ISA couldn't win in IBMs market. ...
>
>
>ISA won, big time.

Not in the market IBM was after. Micorchannel was successful until
PCI worked well enough to replace it.

>to this day it is heavily used in industrial
>applications and you can buy new PCs with numerous ISA slots.

Where you have armies of specialists who can figure out crap like
address and IRQ conflicts.

> When the
>ICT on one of my projects croaked (after humming along for almost 15
>years ...) the client simply bought a new ISA-PC and it was humming
>again. Except now they have a CD-writer in there which makes backup easier.


>> ... As we saw with advent of PCI, later, they were right. ...
>
>
>PCI isn't used so much in automation. Sometimes, yes, but a lot is still
>ISA.

Irrelevant.

>http://www.nixsys.com/products/acces...rds/nx853.html
>
>
>> ... The greater market wasn't ready for the
>> integration of microchannel, though.
>>
>
>AFAIR they kept it proprietary. That was the cardinal mistake.

That's wrong. But thanks for playing.

>>>> I remember one project that I did with that IBM PC got a lot of press
>>>> and TV coverage, and caused a stir with IBM dealers as we 'bypassed'
>>>> them and got the stuff directly from IBM, but were no official dealer,
>>>> They came and my boss told them 'would you rather have that we did it with
>>>> a clone?"
>>>> LOL
>>>>
>>>> BTW I still have a PC with one ISA slot, some PCI slots and floppy drive.
>>>> I do not have those large ISA prototype cards anymore, but still a Philips
>>>> ISA video PAL receiver card.
>>>>
>>> You can still buy all sorts of new PC with ISA, because of heavy
>>> industrial use. They are here to stay.
>>
>> If you have enough money.
>
>
>Nah, see link above. Most ISA mobos and cards are in the $200-$300
>range. Peanuts if that makes a production line stop situation go away.

And competitive cards are $20.

>If someone is really hard-pressed for money they can get stuff from China:
>
>http://www.alibaba.com/product-free/.../ISA_CARD.html