GET LAMP is here

[Fred Cisin]

On Thu, 12 Aug 2010, Tony Duell wrote:
> > Surely a graphical browser, (if NOT done in a High Level Language) could
> > be written to run on a 5150 with CGA.
> I think most graphical web pages would be pretty much useless at 320*200
> in 4 pre-chosen colours...

More useless than they are on this POS with VGA?


> IIRC the origianl 5150 couldn't take a hard disk.

Could be done, using a floppy boot disk with certain startup code.
Did any of them use the "extra" ROM socket on the 5150?

> So with a maximum, of 640K or RAM
EMS (LIM?)  Although MOST expanded memory systems were 16 bit, and written
with 286 code, there WERE 8 bit EMS boards, and 808x software.

> and 4 360K disk drives (which I suppose you oculd use for
> buffering data), I think it's going to be hard to handle multi-megabyte
> web pages...

I ran 8" DSDD on a 5150, with an aftermarket FDC board.

I saw 8 bit hard drives running on PCs, and even on Apple][, and TRS80
model 3!
I never bought one, because they were a few hundred to a thousand dollars
per megabyte!


--
Grumpy Ol' Fred     		cisin at xenosoft.com