Intellec-mds 800

[Tony Duell]

> 
> I am considering buying a classic pc.  The one I might buy is the intellec 
> mds 800.  It comes with a drive also.  I dont know much about vintage pc's 

I have one, I also have the manuals, including schemmatics..

> but would love to be like you all.  I thought starting with one of the best 
> pc's would be good.  So my question is, if I were to buy this pc, what type

Deifne 'best'. Best for what purpose? It's certainly not the fastest 
machine ever made. It's certainly not the first 8080 system (that honour 
may well go to the Intellec MSC8i). It is a very solid 8080 development 
system (and can be used to cross-develop programs for other processors, 
things like the 8048 and Intel's DSP (2900 IIRC)). 

What are you planning to use it for? Why do you want it?
 
> of monitor/keyboard do I hook up to it?  Where can I get one?

It uses a serial terminal. You can use just about any serial terminal, or 
a PC (deskop, laptop, even a palmtop) with a serial port running a 
terminal emulator (I often use my HP95LX or HP100LX for testing machines 
like this, those machines have a terminal emulator in ROM). In the end 
you mioght want to get a terminal from the same historical period, but 
you don't need to do this to start with.

The only problem may be that the MDS800 is expecting a current loop 
interface, not an RS232 interface. I built a converter for this _years_ 
ago (and can probably still find the schematics), I think such things 
were also made comemrcially at one point. However, if you're not 
comfortable with the idea of a serial termianl, then you probably don't 
want to start making interfaces...

> I want to test this intellec before I buy it and want a monitor/keyboard to 
> hook up to it before I buy it.
> 
> I also dont want to spend alot for the monitor/keyboard since the pc is 
> quite costly.
> 
> Thanks for your advice,
> Andy
> 
> ps, if I buy this intellec, what can I do with it?

Err, why on earth do you want to buy it if you don't know what you can do 
with it? Well, OK, I've bought machines not knowing exactly what they can 
do, but I generally have a fairly good idea as to what they were used for.

To be honest, I am not convinced you'd be happy with the MDS800. It 
sounds like you have very little old computer experienec at all. This is 
not a bad thing -- we all started somewhere, we all had to learn (and 
most of us, including myself, are still learning). But the MDS800 is not 
a totally trivial machine to get going or keep going. I would suggest 
starting out with one of the all-in-one CP/M machines (my favourite is 
the Epson QX10, but there are many, many, more that people here can 
recomed) at least to get he feel of 8080/Z80 based computing.

-tony