🚀 go-pugleaf

Mike Ciaraldi (mcia@uhura.cc.rochester.edu) wrote:
: In article <cf16naP0Bwx25HbsAe@transarc.com> Pat_Barron@transarc.com writes:
: >So, I seem to have aquired a Burroughs B20.  Looks like it was meant
: >to be used as a word processing system.  It's running an operating
: >system called BTOS.
: >
: >What else is there to know about this system?  Can it run any sort of
: >"real" operating system?  Anyone have any software for it that they no
: >longer want...?
: >
: 
: The B20 runs BTOS, which was called CTOS when you bought it from Convergent.
: I think the B20 used a Z80 or similar 8-bit microprocessor.

No, it uses 8086 or 8088. I'v seen one running an MS-DOS - emulator.

I saw it in our 4H assosiation's local office. I even made a program to
it with my brother at our high scool time. They used it for word processing
and financial purposes. And to run our program which counted points for
little hard-working gardeners (well, the only language we got was basic.
Surprisingly it was very near GWBasic...)

My opinion is that the BTOS operating system was much better than most of the
other character based PC-OS:es at that time. For example, to run a program 
you only needed to give few letters from the program name and it searched 
all matching commands or programs starting with those letters. I do not know
what was inside the OS, but for the user it was more frendlier than for example
MS-DOS.

About software running on it, I cannot say much. I have only seen that word
processing program and MS-DOS emulator (it could not run Turbo Pascal v 3.0).
I think that accounting program they had run under the emulator. If I remember
correctly, there is at least Fortran for it too.

 Nite