winter's computers
found, loved, and nurtured for spring
my ugly geek secret

Saturday 9 June 2007

bozo

Model

  • Compaq Deskpro
Introduced
  • 1984
CPU
  • Intel 8086, 7.14 MHz
RAM
  • 640 KB
Video
  • 12" Monochrome
  • 640 x 200 CGA, 80 x 25 (text) MDA
Disk
  • 10 MB harddrive
  • 360 KB 5¼" floppy (A:)
  • 360 KB 5¼" floppy (B:)
Network
  • Interlink via parallel port
Operating Systems
  • MS-DOS 6.22
Features
  • Monitor switches between MDA and CGA mode, so you get nice crisp text when not displaying graphics
  • TVOut option
  • Boots in slower compatibility mode, but pressing Ctrl-Alt-\ switches to 7.14 MHz
bozo is set up identically to mabell. It's got PC-Tools Deluxe on it, which includes a bunch of file system utilities and Desktop: a suite including Notepad (text editor), Outline (structured text editor), Database, a remote dial-up terminal, calculators, and a few other functions.

At one time I had this linked to another PC through the DOS Interlink utility, which allows a PC acting as a client to access the drives of another PC acting as a server. In fact, I had three PCs connected together this way, so that one PC would publish its drives over a null-modem serial port cable to the second PC, and the second PC would publish its drives and the Interlink connected drives of the first PC via a Laplink parallel port cable to the third PC.

Clever or sad... you decide.

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