ac999321@umbc5.umbc.edu (Robert D. Davis) (03/28/91)
Hello, This message is to anyone who is familiar with, or was once familiar with, PERQ computers, or who knows of _any_ information at all about PERQ computers (produced by Three Rivers Computer Corp. in Pittsburgh, PA which later changed its name to PERQ Systems (PQS), also known as ICL PERQ, and went out of business around 1985). I am seeking _*ANY*_ information at all that anyone can provide me with, that has anything to do with PERQ computers. Any comments about your experiences using them, any undocumented information or O.S. commands for any of the PERQ's operating systems (POS, Accent, PNX), any information pertaining to ways of solving any hardware or software problems, any tricks that you may have discovered to make getting anything done with them any easier, any historical information about them, any information on applications programs developed for them, or anything else at all that you can think of. No bits of information that you can provide would be considered too small or insignificant. After having obtained several of these machines in non-working condition a year ago, and not really knowing anything at all about them, I spent a great many hours performing "detective work" to locate information about them, and to find manuals, software, and working parts for them over the past year. During this time, I found out quite a bit of fascinating information about them. I also began to realize the historical significance of these, for the most part forgotten and overlooked, machines; the first commercially produced graphics workstations. With this in mind, I began to think that it would be a terrible waste not to share what I have found out about these systems, through information obtained though the help of many people, reading through lots of documentation, and my own personal experiences with using these machines. For this reason, I have begun writing a manuscript, which I hope will eventually turn into a published book, about the PERQs; when (if) it reaches this stage, I will include the names of all those who have contributed any useful information in the book. As I said before, _any_ bits of information, no matter how small, would be very much appreciated. I apologize for taking up net bandwidth for these messages seeking this information, but I do feel that a such a book pertaining to the first commercially produced graphics workstations, the PERQs, would be of historical value and would be of interest to many people, and I feel that the PERQ computers are very worthy of recognition. To those who have provided me with so much interesting and useful information about, and help with, the PERQS over the past year, I appreciate it very much. Robert D. Davis BTW, if there are any Perq users out there who are interested in the formation of a PERQ users group, please contact me. Thank you. ********************************************************************** Robert D. Davis # Any opinions expressed above are my own +1-301-744-7964 # and not those of my computer systems. ac999321@umbc5.umbc.edu #-------------------------------------------