chou@cvl.UUCP (Tsai-Chia Chou) (11/18/86)
I bought an xt-compatible pc last month. Everything seems great. But one day when I had to let the dealer change its multi-I/O board, I faced one problem. Without a disk controller in my pc, I realized it is nothing but a pile of junk. As my experience of using 8-bit micro such as Apple II or ZDS ( a Zilog micro using Z80 ), even you don't have any disk driver, you still can access its ROM and play the pc as a terminal. Now look what is xt. I have keyboard, monitor, modem, and I know there is some basic I/O software in its ROM, but I can not even make it as a terminal so that I can connect it to a host via my modem even in the bare mode. Is this the limitation of xt ? Is there any way to make xt act like a terminal without first booting DOS ? Could any one please give me the answer if it exists ? Thanks in advance. Tsai-Chia Chou ARPA : chou@cvl.umd.edu UUCP : ...!seismo!cvl!chou ============================================================================ Even the intelligent robot come out to be true, there is always something which human has to do by hand.
myxm@lanl.ARPA (Mike Mitchell) (11/19/86)
The limitations of your pc which you talk about would not be present in a
machine built from true blue. An original IBM without drives of any type
will boot to cassette basic and allow you to do some things. The problem
that you are describing is inherent to the BIOS which you acquired with
the purchase of the machine.
There are sources for floppy cards in Computer Shopper which will sell you
a floppy card for under $50. These cards are from Taiwan Inc and have zero
support, but if you need to get up and running, that might be the way to
go.
An advertiser in the latest Computer Shopper that I have is:
JDR Micro Devices
San Jose CA
408-866-6200
They have an advertisement for a floppy card for $35. I have seen them for
less money than that. If you need to get up and running, persuing an alternate
to your multi-io card might be the thing to do...
()
Mike Mitchell
...{cmcl2!ihnp4!ucbvax}!lanl!myxm
myxm@lanl.arpaperkins@bnrmtv.UUCP (Henry Perkins) (11/20/86)
The answer is "Yes".
However, you'd have to type in a terminal emulation program in cassette
BASIC. It would work, but who cares?
--
{hplabs,amdahl,3comvax}!bnrmtv!perkins --Henry Perkins
It is better never to have been born. But who among us has such luck?
One in a million, perhaps.