*nix on "classic" systems

[Fred Cisin]

On Thu, 12 Apr 2007, M H Stein wrote:
> Speaking of CAD, I remember being blown away by an early demo of
> AutoCAD running on an XT with two monitors; an MGA for the
> commands, etc. and a CGA (or was it an EGA) for the drawing.
> Of course there were $$$ boxes that could do this as well, but on
> a lowly XT? I was impressed (didn't take much in those days).

The Wyse 700/Amdek 1280 was a popular choice for that, and other single
tasking graphics.  Yes, there were also Windoze 3.1 drivers for it.
1280 x 800 monochrome, using a dedicated card (which is often mistakenly
thrown into piles of MDA or CGA cards.)  'Course every few years you
needed to open it and tweak the controls to get enough brightness and
contrast.