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IMSAI Series Two
Dino writes "You can actually pre-order a new IMSAI here. These folks bought the rights to produce the IMSAI in the late seventies, and provided the unit used in Wargames. It has a genuine S100 bus, but also has modern features as well, the most interesting being a driver that will allow you to access an ATX motherboard via the parallel port as a disk drive."
Where is the obligatory Linux port?
The revolution will be televised. Blackout restrictions apply.
how long until an emulator is out for this thing?
Me email iz skyewalkerluke at microsoft's free email service.
But I'd probably buy one anyway, just for das blinkenlights. =]
but, why would I want to attach an ATX motherboard through the parallel port and use it as a disk drive?
I mean, what kind of crazy disk would a motherboard be?
controll my battlebot guard dog while chowning my neighbors' cat?
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
See, you're one of those proverbial "whippersnappers" that I've had occasion to grumble about.
cat
I remember being really impressed when the dude broke out with the 8-inch floppies in WarGames. I even remember that they were Elephant brand on the sleeve. Most of the stuff he did on the computer was possible too. The war dialer, the awful speech synthesis (although for some reason it improved halfway through the movie as if the dude learned how to talk correctly), the acoustic modem, etc. Even the trick he used on the door to the infirmary seems like it would be possible but I'm not an EE so I wouldn't know for sure. Definately a great movie.
Just remember, 640k should be enough for anything, so you've got lots of extra overhead on that thing!
Yeah, the price point is really questionable for a nostalgia/novelty item. Is there any reasonble practical application for a box like this?
- Have a picture
Seems that you can mount an ATX motherboard in these things. Kinda neat, be the envy of other geeks at the next lan party.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
it's a cluster of computers that wanders off into the mountains, kills an ice monster and then later gets killed by that monster's relatives. i've never known what the big deal about it is, really.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
I see that they're offering it for a kilobuck...remember when that was the price of a 64K Ithaca Intersystems S100 bus RAM card kit?
If you had read the specs you would know it does support Linux.... The PC software support includes a small software "server" that uses the native DOS/Windows/Linux file system to store files.
Some people are into computers because they have a pure thirst for knowledge. These people learn things that are useful, and things that are useless...its all part of the same continuum for these people. To those that do, computers are toys. They may be apt to learn php or AmigaDOS. This doesn't mean they often will forego something useLESS at the expense of learning something useFULL. But time permitting, its fun to tinker... It used to be that the computer field was filled with enthusiasts who knew their shit. But ever since the unwashed masses learned there was a paycheck attached to this knowlege, the industry was inundated with carpetbaggers who don't know what the fuck they are doing. But these carpetbaggers get jobs anyway, because they have MCSEs or A(asshole)+ certs... So are you just collecting a paycheck, bub? I would assume not, or I doubt you would be on this site. Which is why I am a little puzzled, I suppose...
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
Being a Nevada City native, my first thought on getting to the web page was "My God! Somebody listens to KVMR enough to post it on their web site!" My second thought was "My God! KVMR has a webcast!"
Anyway, check it out if you want to listen to a seriously strange mix of radio. Don't get discouraged if you hear a show you like and can't find it next week, as their schedule is pretty bizzare. "Every third Wednesday, 4-7AM" is par for the course.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
One meg of RAM. That may run about 4 services in Windows. Maybe.
Uh, maybe if the thing ran windoze then that might be an issue. You did see the processor it was running didn't you?
eh, it's been a few years... and it was the old translation, which wasn't nearly as enjoyable (or so i've heard, i haven't read the new one)
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
A couple of years ago I saw a nice, wood case NorthStar S100 system sitting on a surplus table for a very modest amount. I was tempted, but had to admit that there was nothing I would do with it. Would have had to use a PC as a terminal into the NorthStar, and even an old 386 could emulate the S100 machine faster than the S100. So what's to be gained by running an S100 system?
Of course the IMSIA would at least have the nice Blinkin' Lights, the NorthStar was one of the S100 PC's that avoided them and went right to a ROM monitor, but beyond that I can't see anything I would enjoy about an old S100 system.
By the way, Bil Gates didn't have an S100 system when he wrote MS Basic. He used an Emulator. The way I heard it from another student there at the time, as a student he got caught at Harvard running the emulator for commercial gain (developing a commercial product, MS Basic). He was instructed to cease immidately, or he would be thrown out of the university. He elected to leave. (Can anyone confirm that this is how it went down?) Lets just all be glad that he doesn't do such questionable things anymore. ;-)
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
But then i saw the slashdot ad when i started reading the comments. It made me want to buy from penquin computing. For around $1,700 i can get an AMD server from penquin computing.
My uncle had built the thing from a kit, and then we inheritted it. We didn't quite have to key in binary code on the front panel (although it was a good exercise), but I DO remember being excited about getting a used 32K S-100 memory card up at the Trenton Computer Festival (do they still have those?). We started off with a cassette interface and a 64x16 character monochrome display. Eventually added two 'hard-sector' 5-1/4 inch floppies (about 100K each). The processor got upgraded from the original 8080 to an 8085 and later a Z-80. We also built a TMS9918A-based video card (that was a pretty neet chip - wasn't it used in the Colecovision or something?) and I later built a MIDI interface for it. This was all back in the early/mid-eighties. A BSEE, MSEE, and 15 years of experience later, I still learned a lot of what I use on a regular basis on that machine.
Funny how for a machine that is supposed to ship in about a month that all the "pictures" they have of it are just computer drawings. I personally would find it interesting if they did ship this thing (though I'd never buy one), but I have to wonder though. It's too bad they decided up "upgrade" it, thereby losing any sales to those wanting something much closer to the original. It's kinda like reproductions of antique stuff (like phonographs say). Many people would buy repro's just because they like the look of the old phonographs and they probably won't ever even play it. But in the case of phonographs, these repros are significantly cheaper than purchasing an original. Here the price is almost even and I don't know of too many people who would purchase the thing to have it look good in their office (at least now post-web collapse).
No, it doesn't support linix as an OS, but uses a parallel port to use an ATX motherboard using Linux as a disk drive.
The revolution will be televised. Blackout restrictions apply.
Does it play "Global Thermonuclear War"? That looked like a great game.
IDE disks? IDE disks? What the bloody hell are IDE disks?
When I were a lad, we 'ad to use 8 inch floppies.
8 inch floppies? You were lucky.
Cut to the Four Yorkshiremen sketch. Is there anyone else here who remembers Phoenix?
I'm also not in the least bit interested in this IMSAI toy, in part because it's useless. Stick me in the "whatever floats your boat" camp along with the guy you're responding to.
What you don't seem to understand is that the phrase "unwashed masses" is generally used sarcastically, to mock people who have an elitist attitude like yours. "Carpetbagger" is used similarly nowadays, to mock the unreasonably resentful. You can't imagine how amusing it is to see you use both terms without a trace of sarcasm.
Heck, I wonder how many cassette tapes it would take to hold windows. Plus you'd have to have dedicated swap tapes. This would all be supported by NTTFS.
With a 20 MHz CPU and the expanded instruction set of the Z8 processor, it should also be able to spool hundreds of biorhythm charts out to my daisywheel in seconds and run Hunt the Wumpus really fast. This is nice!
I wonder if they're going to update CP/M to support all that RAM transparently. That would be sweet.
Well, the "cheesy 70's photo" is actually a still taken from Wargames, which was released in 1983. On it you can see matthew broderick and ally sheedy. Yeah, everybody else has said it, so i will too : a great movie, even if the technology, which plays an integral part in it, didn't age so gracefully. To the masses it will look "70's" and "cheesy" but to those of us who were into computers back then, it's a real flashback.
...I'd rather have an old PDP 8E.
Basil
All true geeks lust for a machine like this one that still allows you to program it and examine its state via the front panel, but this is an absolute requirement for all sincere geeks-in-training! Flush VB down the toilet if you haven't already; forget Perl, OOL, Linux and anything with an API that places 5 or 6 layers of insulation between you and the bare metal! If you really want to understand how a computer does it's job on a fundamental level, if you want to actually learn what the thing's doing, then you cannot do without a good basic machine like this. You will never be able to stand among the Great Geeks of History if you lack this kind of experience.
And the brethren went away edified.
What a strange grouping of words. Lots of rage, lots of bigotry.
I have a tremendous thirst and drive for knowledge. I'm all over cutting edge tech. I am learning something new all the time. New programs, new coding practices, new languages, new hardware, new OSes. All the time. Always have and always will.
Yet this is just a waste of time. Time better spent on kepping up with what's current. Working on what's next. Producing something new.
All this and yes, I earn a large salary doing it. Guess I don't fit into your little peg holes you've defined for everyone. I'd bet that though maybe some people do, most don't fit your narrow, bigoted, hateful view of the world. And that's a good thing!
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
You're the same kind of idiot that can't figure out why people would pay a lot of money for a 1932 Ford when they could get a brand new Mustang for less money.
It's a class thing. You wouldn't understand.
The Series Two is a powerful microcomputer that more than fulfills most users' needs, but people should know that there are less expensive computers available that often feature satisfactory performance along with popular accessories such as a keyboard and monitor.
This box would be more comparable to some overpriced kit car that tries to look like a 1932 Ford, rather than an actual 1932 Ford.
It is a "class thing". However, you're the one that doesn't "get it".
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
...I think Z-System, a CP/M-compatible operating system for Z80's that was made in the '80s, could indeed handle as much RAM as you'd managed to make the system address. I ran it on a TRS-80 Model 4 that had a processor upgrade card on it that used a HD64180, a relative of the Z180, and 384K of RAM. Hey, you laugh, but for a while I ran a BBS on it--since I could load the entire OS, BBS software and database indexes for 800+ messages into RAM, it ran faster than a lot of the PC BBS's of the day.
The "new IMSAI" looks like a machine I'd have loved about a decade ago, back when some ex-CP/M hackers had designed a Z180-based Z-System machine on a Baby-AT motherboard that used the XT bus. As I recall the official name was the "PC-Z" but they referred to it informally as the "Grudge." (Which of course led to someone suggest they should make a portable version and call it the "Pet Peeve.")
No, as fond as I am of reminiscing, I don't think I'll buy a new IMSAI, in case anyone asks. If I ever miss the old days, I break out a TRS-80 emulator, play a few rounds of an arcade game in its glorious 128x48 resolution, and remember that even if people pushed hardware to the limit those days in a way that they don't now, that doesn't mean it'd be much fun to go back.
You get a nice built in keyboard, an lcd display,
and it'll sync up to your real computer.
From there you can program your Z80 in assy, C, or basic. Heck, you can even download a basic interpretter onto your little palm-top/pda.
Experience the joys of accessing memory, indirectly indexing, and jumping back and forth.
And save $900 in the process!
So yeah, this is cute, but as dumb as a box of rocks. You can get those microprocessor notebook-style trainers for a couple of hundred bucks (check mouser.com ), not 9!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Didn't SAM stand for Software Automated Mouth or something like that? Good times. SAM, elephant disks, and my koalapad!
load "linux",8,1
"system monitor firmware with Assembly Language source code"
Those were the days... Apple II computers also came with the assembly source code to the system ROM in the owner's manual.
This box would be more comparable to some overpriced kit car that tries to look like a 1932 Ford, rather than an actual 1932 Ford.
It is a "class thing". However, you're the one that doesn't "get it".
Having owned an original Imsai 8080, I "get it" a lot better than you do. The original machine is a classic and there simply aren't enough of them to suit the demand. For someone who wants a classy reproduction that functions, this is hard to beat.
Comparing it to some modern system and belittling its CPU horsepower shows a complete cluelessness.
I'll bet you can overclock that sucker to 21 or 22MHz.
Someone needs to remind these guys what year it is. Had something like this come out in 1977 or so it would have been a competitive product. The problem is that it is 25 years later now and while Star Wars might not look too dated this thing sure does. S-100 systems and CP/M have been dead since before a good majority of the slashdot community were even born. Is there some reason why I should now shell out a thousand dollars for an S-100 system? For that kind of money I could get a Sun Blade 100, build myself a pretty decent Athlon system, or get my car's transmission fixed.
This product surely belongs in the more dollars than sense catagory.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Please try to explain WTF it is you're talking about in your summary of your news article. Slashdot just passes lots of this stuff through without adding any useful commentary, and I know you think you're being cool and all by using acronyms that only you and a few of your friends are familiar with, but please do the rest of us a favor by making your submissions easier to read.
... where it looks like the poster has just wanted to sound cool by not bothering to explain to the 99% of the population that isn't familiar with their pet little hobby, WTF they are talking about.
"IMSAI Series 2"? WTF is that??? And then the rest of the caption goes on to spew more unintelligable stuff about this IMSAI thing? It has an S100 bus? Great! What does that mean?!?!
I've just seen too many of these stories posted on Slashdot lately
How about this:
"KLV Chip Gets MOD4 Scoping"
F-Wad writes "Dysgen Inc. has begun shipping a new KLV chip with MOD4 scoping, allowing a bandwidth increase of over 50% in many cases. This should allow those of us without an interswitch to copy G6-level data nearly as fast as a real TTI-Mark IX!"
This could have come right off of the front page of Slashdot, I swear.
The hit counters have been going nuts and the e-mail has suddenly taken a huge jump! I don't know what's happening yet..
"Shall we play a game?"
"How about G-l-o-b-a-l N-u-cl-e-a-r Sl-a-s-h-d-o-t-t-i-n-g."
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
As you seem to imply, I bet a real degree has a lot more weight to it in the "real" world than a certification paper. I don't know if I'd give a rip about certifications, in the end I guess degrees are pieces of paper too, if one doesn't have what it takes to thrive in the real world, it doesn't matter what the degree is.
Completely useless. Of course it would be, to someone like yourself. You are indeed what the parent poster was describing.
Things I can think of to do with one of these:
#1 Learn a little about the history of computing. People like yourself never seem to realize, that computers almost resemble biology, with all the different species and relationships. It's quite easy to have an interest in what part these machines played...
#2 Teach. Grade schoolers, since obivously any older than that, and they'll be too stupid to appreciate it. Shame we couldn't have got to you in early childhood, you might have turned out better than this...
#3 Learn assembly language on a CPU that is a bit simpler than your modern superpipelined "no one can keep track of it" predictive scheduling and execution chip. Of course, someone like yourself would have no interest in that either. Also would apply to teaching the same.
#4 Learn electronics and circuit design. Teach it. Sure, I want to do my own custom PCI cards, but this would be a great way to start learning. Though IEEE 696 did have some funky power requirements... may also be a +5/+12v version of the bus. Dunno.
#5 Provide a break from having to use the generic and boring winbox that everyone is forced to use all the time. (Note: For others. For myself I have a nice collection to play with.)
#6 Annoy stupid fucks like yourself, who will never get it. Yes, I'll openly admit it. It's not by accident we antagonize morons like yourself, we actually like it. It's the one tolerable thing about your entire existence. I mean, you've all but admitted that you and those like you commandeered our hobby and occupation because of decent paychecks, and then have the audacity to insult what little is left of it. If we can't torture you, then the world is even less bareable.
And this is just what I could come up with, off the top of my head. Calling this machine useless is not just inaccurate, but a lie. Then again, claiming you have a pure thirst for knowledge is even more blatant, I suppose. I mean, most if not all knowledge seems useless at first, it's only later you discover how it can help you. Who knows what insight you're losing, that you might have if you used an IMSAI for a few weeks or months.
Actually, "Software Automatic Mouth". I remember because I always thought it was a bit awkward...
I posted an article here only a few days ago lamenting the creativity and innovation we saw in the hacker community in those days. Maybe I'm just getting old, but back then, hacks were real, and really did something, they weren't just poser "hacks" consisting of case mods, neon lighting, and replacing the front panel LEDs with blue ones. Oooooh, that's impressive - NOT!
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
I had a friend who had the same problem. She said after she quit tossing salads it went away. Might want to give it a shot.
his box would be more comparable to some overpriced kit car that tries to look like a 1932 Ford, rather than an actual 1932 Ford.
A better comparison might be to a Cobra kit car as compared to an original Cobra. There definitely aren't enough of those to go around, and the ones that are left are ridiculously expensive. And to top it off, the better modern Cobras (say, Factory Five's, for example) are actually *better* than the originals. All the good of the original, with some of the stupidity filed off. (If you've ever ridden in a real big-block Cobra, you'll remember the funny smell of your shoes being roasted by their close proximity to the exhaust, shielded (or is that just re-radiated?) only by a bit of flimsy sheet metal...)
No this isn't for everyone. It's cool, though, and I wish them well. In fact, I wish I'd thought of building them myself.
We were robbed when they took away our front-panel switches and LEDs! Keyboard? We don't need no stinkin' keyboard...
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
#1 Learn a little about the history of computing. People like yourself never seem to realize, that computers almost resemble biology, with all the different species and relationships. It's quite easy to have an interest in what part these machines played...
On the contrary, it's pretty fucking obvious to anyone with any interest in computing that there's an almost biological heredity tree to the machines and the organizations built around them. I don't see how shelling out $1000 for an example of an outdated machine helps you to understand that. I managed to grasp the idea of man's evolution without buying a fully-functional Neanderthal skeleton. Didn't you?
#2 Teach. Grade schoolers, since obivously any older than that, and they'll be too stupid to appreciate it. Shame we couldn't have got to you in early childhood, you might have turned out better than this...
Nice barb, but let's pretend you're not just being an asshole and look at your point: Sure, it's swell as a teaching aid. I'll admit I hadn't considered that. I currently have no use for such a teaching aid, as I have no kids and my friends either have a decent grasp of basic computing or just aren't interested. Besides, if they were, they could buy their own damned $1000 learning aid.
#3 Learn assembly language on a CPU that is a bit simpler than your modern superpipelined "no one can keep track of it" predictive scheduling and execution chip. Of course, someone like yourself would have no interest in that either. Also would apply to teaching the same.
I actually did have some interest in learning assembly language for a simple CPU, just to get a feel for how the machine works at that level. Guess what? I did it in a fucking emulator, like everyone else born after 1970. Get the fuck over yourself.
#4 Learn electronics and circuit design. Teach it. Sure, I want to do my own custom PCI cards, but this would be a great way to start learning. Though IEEE 696 did have some funky power requirements... may also be a +5/+12v version of the bus. Dunno.
Sure, that could be cool. I'm not so much interested in building hardware, but knock yourself out.
#5 Provide a break from having to use the generic and boring winbox that everyone is forced to use all the time. (Note: For others. For myself I have a nice collection to play with.)
This is my point. Use it for what? The reason this machine was dead was that it wasn't capable of handling modern computing needs. It had its time, I'm sure it was swell, but we've moved on. If you just want it for your collection, that's cool, but don't pretend it's particularly useful.
#6 Annoy stupid fucks like yourself, who will never get it. Yes, I'll openly admit it. It's not by accident we antagonize morons like yourself, we actually like it. It's the one tolerable thing about your entire existence. I mean, you've all but admitted that you and those like you commandeered our hobby and occupation because of decent paychecks, and then have the audacity to insult what little is left of it. If we can't torture you, then the world is even less bareable.
That's a pretty sad state of affairs. I'm not annoyed by your toy computer. I'm not annoyed that you think it's the shit and want to show it off. What annoys me is the holier-than-thou attitude you've adopted for no reason other than your own amusement. You're a textbook asshole, irrespective of my opinion of your toys. If you think you're torturing me, I don't know what to tell you... you're a pathetic dick, but that's hardly nails on a chalkboard to me.
There's a lot of knowledge out there, and I don't feel any need to pursue whatever knowledge this blinky box can give me. I've got other projects, and I'm on them and learning from them. If it offends you personally that I don't share the same interests that you do, that's a damn shame; but to think it reflects on me is the most twisted wishful thinking I've seen in some time.
Like I said, whatever floats your boat. Your buddy was the one who lashed out without provocation, not me.
Your geek and nerd cards are revoked immediately. Someone who doesn't know what an IMSAI or S-100 bus is just cannot be a geek or nerd.
There's nothing inherently wrong with playing with obsolete technology: by examining the systems of the past, you give yourself a chance to learn from history. Not only that, but it has all the normal benefits of a counterculture: the return of ancient systems to viability (by those who are freakish enough to take an interest) necessarily works against the tendency of mainstream society to damage itself by producing a monoculture.
One thing that interests me, though, is that people who resuscitate ancient hardware get kudos, whereas doing the same with ancient protocols is a "pretty crazy idea".
GROGGS: alive and well and living in
Yeah, I should read it. I read an older translation for an epic poetry class, and at the time it seemed far inferior to the Iliad and Gilgamesh. But maybe that was based on the fairly flat and unlively english.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Ever had to enter the IPL by entering the boot instructionsn on the front paned?
Back in the days when you'd be able to make sense of the pattern of flashing lights. Now fuggedaboutdid.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Yeah, well I had SFD 1000's (1 meg 5 1/4") daisy chained to offer more storage than just about any C64 BBS around. I then moved to a Lt. Kernel! This was a 10Meg hard drive that connected to the 64 via the cartridge slot. $1500! Pretty expensive for a high school kid. I ran and contributed a bit to C-Net, of course.
;) We're pretty lucky.
Speaking of drives on the 64, I also had an Indus GT. Sleek little black 5 1/4". It worked for about 3 months until it needed a head alignment. Guess it was too many runs with Error 29 Maker or 4 minute backup.
Ah, oh well, back to work... I never thought I'd be getting paid to do what I did back then for free.
load "linux",8,1
It seems you're the idiot who would pay $1000 for $10 worth of hardware
Have you ever priced the cost of a custom case? Silkscreened lettering on a front panel? High-quality S-100 connectors? Besides, it's not like $1000 is a lot of money.
Do you judge a painting's worth by the cost of the canvas and paint? Do you judge the value of a music CD by the manufacturing costs?
I've got five high-powered PCs in my computer room. I'd much rather have something like the IMSAI series 2 than another PC I don't need.