2 ms·

I have a TRS-80 Model 6000 with Xenix in a closet somewhere. But I've only ever powered it up a few times and seen the prompt... even 20 years ago when I got it

I have a TRS-80 Model 6000 with Xenix in a closet somewhere. But I've only ever powered it up a few times and seen the prompt... even 20 years ago when I got it at the flea market, it was impossible to scrounge up the 8" floppy disks the thing used. Always meant to explore a little more with it, never did. There's a knockout in the back for an arcnet card... this thing really could be networked with more than just serial/modems. Pretty weird.

technothrasher 2y ago
> even 20 years ago when I got it at the flea market, it was impossible to scrounge up the 8" floppy disks the thing used. https://www.floppydisk.com/5point25 https://www.floppydisk.com/5point25
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
  > We carry a variety of 8" disks. Please call (800) 397-7890 for details. Don't even want to know. That's some "the menu doesn't have any prices listed" bullshit.
musicale 2y ago
Very cool! Regarding 8" floppy drives, it appears to be possible to connect an ancient 8" floppy disk controller such as a Western Digital FD1771[1] to fairly recent 3.5" floppy drives (and older 5.25" drives) - the signals didn't change that much (though there may be some issues with RPM.)[2] There also appear to be hard disk emulators (based on the open source FreHD[3]) available for those machines as well[14]. Xenix on emulated HD sounds like a possibility. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Digital_FD1771 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Digital_FD1771 [2] https://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/drive.html#threefive https://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/drive.html#three... [3] http://www.vecoven.com/trs80/trs80.html http://www.vecoven.com/trs80/trs80.html [4] http://trs-80.com.au/trs80/emulator.htm http://trs-80.com.au/trs80/emulator.htm
musicale 2y ago
ARCnet is interesting. Deterministic performance, robustness/automatic ACKs, cables up to 2000 feet, still used in industrial settings. Biggest downsides seem to be lower speed and the limit of 255 nodes per LAN, but this addressing works better than Ethernet for IPv4 since the lower 8 bits of the IP address can be the LAN address, eliminating the need for complicated ARP exchanges. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARCNET https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARCNET

technothrasher 2y ago

> even 20 years ago when I got it at the flea market, it was impossible to scrounge up the 8" floppy disks the thing used. https://www.floppydisk.com/5point25 https://www.floppydisk.com/5point25

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
> We carry a variety of 8" disks. Please call (800) 397-7890 for details. Don't even want to know. That's some "the menu doesn't have any prices listed" bullshit.

musicale 2y ago

Very cool! Regarding 8" floppy drives, it appears to be possible to connect an ancient 8" floppy disk controller such as a Western Digital FD1771[1] to fairly recent 3.5" floppy drives (and older 5.25" drives) - the signals didn't change that much (though there may be some issues with RPM.)[2] There also appear to be hard disk emulators (based on the open source FreHD[3]) available for those machines as well[14]. Xenix on emulated HD sounds like a possibility. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Digital_FD1771 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Digital_FD1771 [2] https://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/drive.html#threefive https://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/drive.html#three... [3] http://www.vecoven.com/trs80/trs80.html http://www.vecoven.com/trs80/trs80.html [4] http://trs-80.com.au/trs80/emulator.htm http://trs-80.com.au/trs80/emulator.htm

musicale 2y ago

ARCnet is interesting. Deterministic performance, robustness/automatic ACKs, cables up to 2000 feet, still used in industrial settings. Biggest downsides seem to be lower speed and the limit of 255 nodes per LAN, but this addressing works better than Ethernet for IPv4 since the lower 8 bits of the IP address can be the LAN address, eliminating the need for complicated ARP exchanges. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARCNET https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARCNET