gil@cornell.UUCP (06/06/84)
From: gil (Gil Neiger) Are these machines any good? How many drives would one probably want to run it - would one need an entire drive for system files? Please respond by mail if possible. - Gil Neiger gil@cornell (arpa,csnet) cornell!gil (usenet)
emjhm@uokvax.UUCP (06/12/84)
#R:cornell:-33700:uokvax:3400043:000:2249
uokvax!emjhm Jun 11 22:55:00 1984
You need to be a little more specific on your question. Sanyo, kind of
like Tandy, both make quite a few different kinds of machines 8 and 16-bit.
The popular 16-bit called the MBC-550/555 runs garden variety MSDOS 1.X
and 2.X as an option. It is very similar to most common 8088 machines
that run MSDOS with normally two slimline TEAC 5" DSDD drives. It is
not IBM PC compatible any more than many other superior machines that
actually use an OS for what it was intended.
Sanyo also makes an MBC-1100/1150 which is an excellent 4-MHz Z-80
machine. The main board can accomodate up to 128K-bytes of RAM and 6K
or bootstrap/exec ROM. It emulates a Beehive terminal via internal ROM
and runs garden variety CP/M. Part of the BIOS is in ROM most notably
the disk routines. Part of the BIOS is in ram including the function
key definitions and the disk tables (ie DPB's and DPH's and translation
tables). The 1150 has two slimline TEAC DSDD drives. Internally, the
digital electronics are all contained on one card which has the Z-80
CPU, CRT controller, Disk controller, Centronics Parallel connector, and
RS-232 connector. As far as I'm concerned, It's one of the better CP/M
systems for the money. California Digital was selling the MBC-1150 and
the Sanyo PR-5000 letter quality printer for 1800.00. The printer by
the way was made by Transtar a sub. of Vivitar and is an excellent
medium speed printer. It is very similar to the Transtar-120. It
uses standard Olivetti Ribbon carts. and Silver Reed Wheels. The printer
alone sells for from 450.00 to 500.00.
As for turbo pascal, it should have no problem whatsoever. There's
plenty of space on their 312-K drives. Sanyo has very good service at
regional service centers. They usually try to fix machines locally but
if their diagnostics can't find the problem, they send the malf. board
to the factory for a replacement if necessary. All of the Sanyo machines
are simple to work on and use mostly parts which are easy to find around
the US. Nothing with Japanese part numbers as far as I could tell. All
their power supplies are switchers and run cool. The keyboards have 20
programmable function keys across the top and a full keypad with a programmable
enter key.