Jo22 wrote on 2018-07-11, 02:55:

Hah, that's cool. :D I'll have to remember to do this more often, too. ;) […]
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OldCat wrote:

I think I owe everyone involved in this thread a bit of an update.
In short - I am going to hijack my own thread. [

Hah, that's cool. :D I'll have to remember to do this more often, too. ;)

Anyway, that 286 looks interesting to me. Reminde me a bit of the "Ergo" PC,
an 8088-PC that was built into a TTL/Mono CRT and had an ergonomic stand,
which the monitor/PC unit was mounted to and which could be moved in several dimensions.
I'm sorry, it's hard to describe. saw that PC once in my life in an old magazine.
Here's a drawing I made, maybe it gives an impression of the machine.

The attachment ergo_sctribble.gif is no longer available

The monitor was a green TTL monitor, likely in 720x350 resolution.
Not sure if it had Hercules (aka MGA, HGC) already or in IBM fashion, MDA.
When I was little, when I had my multimedia 286 PC with 4MB RAM, VGA, PAS16, HP LaserJet and a handy scanner,
I had no clue that a "boring typewriter PC" could draw such beautiful monochrome graphics.

Just recently, I few years ago, Hercules got my attention again. Probably because of DOSBox and the fact that
my father did a few scans in the 1980 with its handy scanner. And since the picture program did save screen dumps
instead of using a proper picture format, these scans could only be displayed by using Hercules hardware.
That's when I started to learn about Hercules and monochrome graphics in general, I think.

If you like, also have a look at EMÚ386. It'll emulate some of the 386 real-mode instructions,
so you'll be able to run quite a few more programs on your 286. According to the manual,
this comes in handy for ISA PnP utilities, as required for the newer Sound Blasters (SB16 PnP, AWE series).
It may also work with other programs, such as games, provided that they are dumb and don't check for a 386.

Quick update. The TeleVideo TS-1605 PC/XT Clone isn't same as the Ergo PC, but comes close to it.
Just found an blog article about it, very interesting machine based on a terminal.
Has on-board CGA and an ISA slot. An 286 accelerator card or an EGA card with TTL monitor support might have been a fine addition, to wire up internal monitor to it.

http://worldofvax.blogspot.com/2019/01/televi … -1605-pcxt.html

Edit: Sorry about this little necro post, but I just had to tell my younger self. ;)