Friday Quiz #4
Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)
Posts: 23,514
What is it? And who made it? (I've photoshopped all nomenclature off of the front panel, so as not to give it away.)
-Phil
-Phil
Comments
The Poly 88 by Polymorphic Systems was my first computer. It used a TV monitor for its screen and a cassette tape drive for storage. I bought it to start a mail-order software company, and selected it based upon a rather nice feature set. It used a variant of HP BASIC, which I preferred over the MS variety. But it was a poor choice for starting a business, since the customer base just wasn't there. So I ended up buying a TRS-80 and selling software for it instead.
-Phil
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymorphic_Systems
EDIT: Forget the link, I just couldn't get it to work.
Always admired it's simplistic design. Cutting edge for it's day, when everyone else was using front panel communication. From what I remember the price was reasonable, compared to other systems using the 8088.
EDIT: Or what processor was that? Answer: 8080A.
Do you still power those cap's up?
I owned a Altair 8800. Sold it on ebay for $3500. Me and my dad paid $495 for the kit. Best two years of father and son bonding!
I currently have a CCS mainframe:
http://www.s100computers.com/Hardware Folder/CCS/History/History.htm
Going to go up on ebay. Replaced all the power caps.
Oh so that's why the robots of erco are gathered around your place.
And if you want to revisit the past, the VCF East is coming up, going to be held 3/31 and 4/1 and 4/2 at InfoAge.
It is nice to see one, in as original condition as yours.
http://www.oldcomputermuseum.com/polymorphic_88.html