Misc. Ramblings

Wow! Talk about retro. The IMSAI 8080, or at least a version of it called the Series II USB, is apparently being manufactured. I say apparently because the site is kind of disorganized. But you can see the site here for yourself and decide whether you want to part with over $1,000 for something like this.

Note that you can use a regular ATX-style motherboard if you want to have a retro outside but a modern interior or buy one of their S-100. Your choice. There is also a Zilog eZ80, running at 50MHz, developers kit for those of you who are into Z-80 code (all two of you out there). The Series Two runs CP/M, although they say you have to download some of the code from other sites since they are unlicensed.

You must also remember that this is 1970s technology so when they say their system works best with hard drive partitions of no larger than 8MBs, they do in fact mean eight megabytes, not gigabytes. And when they talk about floppy drives, they are mostly referring to 5.25-inch or eight-inch drives, although you can also connect a 3.5-inch (assuming here that the diskettes can be formatted with the correct tracks, sectors, density, and side-select).

I never used, much less saw, one of the original IMSAIs back in the day. During my time in college, it was a DEC PDP-11/45 running RSTS/E, where I learned to program in Basic Plus and the Apple II, which supported, gasp, color!

Later on I purchased my own Atari 800XL, monochrome (yellow characters on black) monitor, and saved programs to cassette tapes until I got enough money to buy an external floppy drive. Hard drives? Those were those big glass platters spinning in floor standing cabinets that only the big boys had. Oh well, enough nostalgia.

Aloha!