Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!sun.soe.clarkson.edu!nelson
From: nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: GATHER and say NO to MCA!
Message-ID: <1147@sun.soe.clarkson.edu>
Date: 6 Jul 88 14:23:58 GMT
References: <11463@steinmetz.ge.com> <401@cpro.UUCP>
Reply-To: nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson)
Organization: Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY
Lines: 51

In article <401@cpro.UUCP> asgard@cpro.UUCP (J.R. Stoner) writes:
)From article <11463@steinmetz.ge.com>, by davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr):
)) There is a bus which allows multiple masters (DMA and CPUs look the
)) same) with a priority scheme, stacked interrupts, etc. It even allows
)) diferrent CPUs to reprioritize the interrupt handling. It has been in
)) continuous production since 1976 and is available with all Intel
)) processors (I suspect the 432 is no longer sold), 68k and NS32k family,
)) etc.
)
))This is the IEEE696 standard bus.
)
)Some people just can't get IBM out of their collective heads no
)matter how hard you bang on them.

The Zenith Z-100 has (had--no longer in production) a IEEE696 bus and
runs MS-LOSS and Microsoft Windows.  

The third most interesting thing is that you had 768K of uninhibited
access, and another 192K of video ram that you could overlay with
memory.  None of this 640K crap.  Not only that, but the bus has 24
bits of addressing, so the choice of direct addressing or bank
switching is determined by the CPU board.

The second most interesting thing about the Z-100 was that it had two
processors, a 8085 and 8088, and it was designed back in 1983.  At
that time, Zenith had models in the lab that ran as fast as 12 Mhz,
although the parts to do so where prohibitively expensive.

The most interesting thing about the Z-100 was that there was no such
thing as graphics mode--you were *always* in graphics mode.
Therefore, special fonts && double-high characters && italics &&
underlined && boldfaced && greek && boxes && lines && smiley faces if
u really want them are NO problem.  Not only that, but the resolution
is 640x225x8.  It was possible to reprogram the CRT controller for
640x240x8 as a true bitmap unlike the CGA && Herc and like the EGA.
You could also reprogram it for interlace to give 640x480x8, and there
are aftermarket products to bring it up to 640x480x16.  Note that this
is on an *ordinary* monitor.  (Disclaimer: interlace mode sucks, but
if you need the resolution, you need it.)

I was going to write an anti-aliased font driver for it, but I never
got around to it (Jerry Pournelle would have eaten it up).

Bobby Inman is quoted in the July 4 issue of PC Week as saying "I'm
not bothered at all by big companies coming in and setting standards,
but they need to do it early, not late.  What bothers me when they
come in too late is that they grind up the smaller companies who were
in there in the beginning, and who did the important work in setting
the real standards."
-- 
Pray that Bush gets re-elected so that the Republicans will be blamed for it.