1983 Micro prices (was Re: The Origins of DOS)

[Jules Richardson]

Adrian Graham wrote:
> On 2/11/06 08:41, "Jules Richardson" <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> 
>> heh heh :)  I thought it funny that you mentioned Ferranti too. But no, this
>> was a much larger machine in a white metal case - it's not one I've ever seen
>> mentioned in any text about Ferranti before.
> 
> I've nosed through my D Block pictures and can't see anything of this one
> but a couple of the Advance86. Which room is it in?

Hmm, it used to be in the same room as the A86 - but it may depend on when you 
took the pictures as Ben and I had a good sort-out in that room. "PC clones" 
tended to end up in the room up the top of D Block (the one with the Xerox kit 
and micro trainers in it)

>> I'd wondered if the white machine was some weird forerunner, but if the text
>> on www.old-computers.com is right then the Advance 86 developed out of a much
>> smaller home machine and retained the original board alongside a newer
> 
> Somewhere I've got a writeup on the A86 from its launch but I'm guessing
> it's in Personal Computer News which means I'm 250 miles away from it right
> now. That'll have internals pix and hopefully a bit of history probably
> written by The Register's own John Lettice.

Aha - worth a look, then. I suspect we've got the same issue at Bletchley, but 
that doesn't help me much right now :-)

> Rah. Oh, I've saved you a twin-cpu Alpha 2000 4/233 if you're interested, if
> you ain't does anyone else want it?

Hmm, personally I'd say no - we've got a couple of nice Alphas already; if it 
was anything other than DEC I'd still be tempted if it was one we didn't have 
- but space is limited and we're swamped with DEC items as it is; I'd rather 
save the room for something from a different manufacturer. You may want to 
prod the BP mailing list about it though just to be sure.

cheers

J.