Looking for a Real Oldie

[Jim Battle]

Robert J. Stevens wrote:
> Around 1981-1985 a friend loaned me a Piece of Equipment. It has a S-100 
> Bus with five slots Horizontal in the Back. I had a regular Keyboard and 
> a Hex Keypad. I remember I cold enter in Hex Code and was able to Access 
> a FDC to test it.
> Can't be sure of the MFG. But Xpandor comes to mind. My Friend says SOL.
> Does this ring a bell with anyone
> TIA
> Bob in Wisconsin
> 

Bob,

The Sol or the Expander could both fit the description.  The Sol was FAR 
more common, though.  Neither had a hex keypad -- both had numeric 
keypads to the right of the main keyboard.  Also, both were designed in 
part (Sol) or whole (Expander) by Lee Felsenstein.

Sol:
	http://www.sol-20.org (among many)

Expander:
	http://www.corestack.com/machines/expander.html

I don't know about the Expander, never having used one, but the Sol has 
a small (2K) ROM monitor where you can ENTER hex, jump to a memory 
location, load/save from/to cassette.  Booting a northstar floppy system 
was just jumping to the boot ROM (commonly at E800).