cathoderaydude
@cathoderaydude

these are old pics but i was so goddamn busy today i forgot to take new ones and these are good enough so:

Phew.

this monstrous thing has been sitting on my shelf for over a year. obnoxiously overengineered hybrid PC clone from 1984, inexplicably 100% PC compatible even though Phoenix's BIOS wasn't available yet, also integrating a second, Z80 based subcomputer connected to the same monitor and keyboard with an internal KVM switch.

this thing is fucking stupid inside. i mean. you can see, but, like, it defies description or analysis. two motherboards, connected with a mezzanine header. at least three CPUs; the minimal amount of magazine coverage suggests it has an 8088, a Z80 and a 6805, but I suspect that's an understatement. I swear I found at least three distinct Z80 chipsets in this thing but I was so baffled by what i was seeing that i lost count.

six bespoke plug-in cards, of which two are pre-SIMM plugin memory modules, two are probably???? an incredibly overbuilt serial controller joined together by a flying ribbon cable (??? why??? its a custom motherboard???) and the last two comprise a 300bps modem married to a two-line telephone switch and speakerphone assembly.

and as if that wasn't enough, there are two more cards, except they're much smaller and they plug together with a mezzanine header, with the chips facing each other so it becomes a weird 1960s cordwood style assembly. but these don't go into a slot, they hang off the top cover of the machine and plug into a header on the modem

the Z80 side of the machine stores everything in bespoke palm-sized plastic modules containing a single SRAM chip and a CR2016 coin cell.

i can't begin to reverse engineer this, not even to the most basic functional blocks. it is a complete cipher, and even more strangely, it works, and it still works even after I took it completely to pieces to remove the (naturally) completely bizarre lithium battery that had in fact already leaked, but was so strangely designed that it contained the leakage and didn't destroy the board.

i had hoped to shoot a video about this thing this week but honestly i'm feeling completely overwhelmed. this is what happened the last two or three times that I pulled this thing out. i mean. how do you cover something like this??? how do you do it justice???


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in reply to @cathoderaydude's post:

Non-Euclidean computer obeying as-yet-undiscovered geometric principles of construction. Part of it is in another dimension. The components somehow intersect each other. An indeterminate number of CPUs, running at irrational clock speeds. There’s probably a jumper somewhere that switches the whole contraption into Atari ST mode.

1st thought:
This is the kind of machine that would have earned itself a name by the people working with it. Something like "the bastard" or "the beast".
2nd thought:
3 CPUs? It's the Millennium Falcon's flight computer!

The system permits single-keystroke switching between three main types of functions that run concurrently and are supported by three integrated microprocessors, according to Cooper. A Motorola, Inc. 6805 handles telephone functions; a Zilog, Inc. Z80 supports data terminal operation and personal time management software; and the 8088 chip runs IBM-compatible software.

Looks like a fun system. I guess it didn't do very well since they filed for bankruptcy in 1985.