🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec7.222607.3388@newstand.syr.edu> amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Allen J Michielsen) writes:
>In article <> choff@cs.wright.edu (Carl C. Hoff) writes:
>
>I am in the process of acquiring a retired Rainbow for a friend.  I see the
>manual and previous posters discuss a couple things.  First a Z-80 and a 8088/6
>processor. 

The Z80/8088 dual processor configuration is standard in ALL Rainbows.

>   Second, if you have the DEC DOS 2.11, with either a floppy or floppy/HD, 
>can many/most/some software from the IBM DOS world be used on it.  I understand
>that the video adapter is different, but if the software uses bios calls, it
>should work if the DOS emulation is at all well done.

Well, the disk format is different and the system bios's were different.
If you use standard MSDOS INT calls you should be ok.

>  I also have been told that the floppy drives are 180K density to the DEC DOS 
>2.11.  I thought the floppies were double sided, is this a limitation of the
>software or IBM compatability.
>

The drives are Single Sided 80 track 10 sector (400k per drive).

These can be written by AT's with high density drives with some public
domain software.

>   If there is the DEC DOS 2.11 version available, usually for free, and the
>system isn't compatible, why would anybody buy a dos 3.1 or code blue.  Do
>both of these require the factory 8088/6 option ? 

These make it much more IBM compatible.

>is the controller and needed stuff available, cheap, can some/many/all of the
>currently available st-412 drives be used with the system (albeit with limited
>capacity).

You can use any ST506 drive.  The controller, however is the harder thing to
find.

Bill

(not a real Rainbow guy - I used to work for DEC when they came out
and I am a Robin VT180 owner).


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        Bill Pechter, N2RDI           | The postman always pings twice.
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