powering up older machines - is it safe?

[Steven Hirsch]

On Tue, 3 Jun 2008, Allison wrote:

>> Do you recall anything about the semi-mythical Corvus interface for the
>> VT180?  It's mentioned in the Corvus technical literature, but I've never
>> talked to anyone that's actually seen it in the wild.  I'm curious if it
>> ever actually existed.
>>
> Nothing mythical.  There was a version of the corvus interface that
> was a board that went under the Z80 and therefor allowed most any
> Z80 system to accept the corvus hardware.  It wasn't however sold as
> a uniquely Robin thing.

Hmm.  Definitely referred to as the VT180 interface in the Corvus book, 
but perhaps that was more of a statement about the software?

If anyone has one of these, I am very interested in owning it.

> FYI the Robin does not have any for of external bus.  If you want
> access to the bus you have to jack up the Z80 and grab it there.

Corvus took other routes as well.  The interface for Xerox 820 connects to 
a pair of what appear to be parallel IO ports on the motherboard.  Given 
the limited transfer rate, it certainly did not need to be sitting on the 
processor bus.

Steve


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