[comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc] Sirius 1 pc.

cczdvh@clan.nott.ac.uk (David Valentine-Hagart) (04/18/91)

I have just aquired (gratis) an old & venerable piece of pc technology
namely a  Sirius 1 micro. From the bootup messages I can tell it
is running MS-DOS 1.25aH !!! with an I/O subsystem version 2.71.
256K of ram and command version 2.01. Other messages tell me the
keyboard is british02 and the char set is british01, it also has
one parrallel port and two 25 pin serial? ports on the back..blah.blah.
So far so good, *but* because it was free (you guessed :-> )
I don't have any docs .
Can anyone give me some info on this machine, most importantly :

1. What is the disk format/size... a DS/DD 48tpi floppy formatted ok
   on this machine but could not be read on a modern 360K MS-DOS drive
   (oh woe).

2. Assuming I can surmount problem 1. can anyone provide/point me in
   the direction of an upgrade to the OS, Dos 2.xx f'rinstance & any
   runnable software.

But seriously folks.. any help would be *seriously* appreciated .

David Valentine-Hagart   aka. rest home for retired pc's .
                         Email me on cczdvh@uk.ac.nott.vme
                                                       ^^^
ps. The address of the manufacturer Victor Technologies, Scotts Valley 
    Calif. ...whither they now ???
                eMail....cczdvh@uk.ac.nott.ccc.vme....

tedk@cbnewsc.att.com (ted.g.kekatos) (04/19/91)

In article <1991Apr17.203351.23757@cs.nott.ac.uk> cczdvh@clan.nott.ac.uk (David Valentine-Hagart) writes:
|I have just aquired (gratis) an old & venerable piece of pc technology
|namely a  Sirius 1 micro. From the bootup messages I can tell it
|is running MS-DOS 1.25aH !!! with an I/O subsystem version 2.71.
|256K of ram and command version 2.01. Other messages tell me the
|keyboard is british02 and the char set is british01, it also has
|one parrallel port and two 25 pin serial? ports on the back..blah.blah.

The Sirius-1/Victor 9000 (same machine) was a fine machine for its
day. It was introduced slightly before the IBM-PC. Therefore it
is not PC-compatible. The last version of MS-DOS available was 
2.11. There where keyboard for several dozen markets. The disks are
not compatible with anything else. The drive is custom and used
variable speed motor. The single sided drive formats to about 700K
and the double sided formats to 1.4M. The drive uses DS/DD disks.

The machine was manufactured by Sirius Tech in California for
Victor Business Machines. Victor sold them in the US and Sirius
sold them elsewhere. Later, Sirius bought out Victor and changed
its American operation to Victor Tech. The whole operation
filed chapter 11, bankrupt and re-structure. They later manufactured
PC-compatibles in the US and Europe. 

I have tons of software, tons of manuals, technical manuals, service
manuals, two working machines, and have been using mine until about 1/1/91.

The software is "old" compared to today's PC software. 

You may telephone me. 9am to 5pm Central time.


Ted G. Kekatos           Amateur Radio N9IXE   
Packet: N9IXE @ WB9MJN.IL.USA.NA
INTERNET: tedk@i88.isc.com
UUCP: ..!att!ihlpl!tedk                   708.979.0804
AT&T Bell Laboratories, Indian Hill, IH-6T-206
2000 North Naperville Road.
Naperville, Illinois. 60566 USA

gtoye@hp835.mitek.com (Gene Toye) (04/19/91)

In article <1991Apr17.203351.23757@cs.nott.ac.uk> cczdvh@clan.nott.ac.uk (David Valentine-Hagart) writes:
>I have just aquired (gratis) an old & venerable piece of pc technology
>namely a  Sirius 1 micro. ...
>
I remember that system fondly.  It was the first MS-DOS system I used.  In
the US it was called the Victor 1000.  Although MSDOS, it is NOT IBM PC
compatable.  There were special versions of programs for it.  It had
many advantages over the PC in that the character set was soft
and could be changed with a included utility.  Same for the keyboard
key mapping.  You could (and some applications did) have custom keyboard 
and character set mappings for each application you ran.  It also had
logical hard disk volumes long before IBM thought of anything more than
C:.

>1. What is the disk format/size... a DS/DD 48tpi floppy formatted ok
>   on this machine but could not be read on a modern 360K MS-DOS drive
>   (oh woe).

As memory serves, they used a variable speed drive to get more
storage from DD medium (a la Macintosh).  Not a PC compatable format.
Have you noticed that the tone made by the drive changes as it 
steps through the tracks?

>2. Assuming I can surmount problem 1. can anyone provide/point me in
>   the direction of an upgrade to the OS, Dos 2.xx f'rinstance & any
>   runnable software.

I seem to remember that they made it to 2.11 and then the line was
discontinued due to Victor going bankrupt (driven out by lack of
PC compatability I think).  I wish I could help you more but the
company I worked for at that time is out of business as well.  

>
>But seriously folks.. any help would be *seriously* appreciated .
>
>David Valentine-Hagart   aka. rest home for retired pc's .
>                         Email me on cczdvh@uk.ac.nott.vme
>                                                       ^^^
>ps. The address of the manufacturer Victor Technologies, Scotts Valley 
>    Calif. ...whither they now ???
>                eMail....cczdvh@uk.ac.nott.ccc.vme....

They went bankrupt,  then came back selling PC clone hardware, and I
think they may have gone bankrupt again.  Haven't seen any of their
stuff around in a long time.

Good luck finding stuff for your machine.  


-- 
Gene Toye, Software Engineer                               gtoye@hp835.mitek.com
OpenConnect Systems, 2033 Chennault Drive, Carrollton, TX 75006
214/308-0454
DISCLAIMER: My employer had no idea I was going to say that.