Just picked up an Osborne ...and a Seagate HD I have no idea how to install

[XeonTux]

I just picked up an Osborne tonight. Found it on usenet for $25 and not far from me. It's in good working condition and came with a ton of software, books, and old magazines, and the original box that it has been stored in the majority of its life. It even has a modem... too bad there's prob no TCP/IP stack available

About all I've done so far is fired it up and ran WordStar, after my roommate made some jokes about the monitor. Luckilly CP/M is similar to MS-DOS so I at least know how to run programs, change directories, change drives...

I also got an old Seagate 604, a whopping 5MB hard drive. The owner said he had it hooked up externally but doesn't know where the cable is. I have no idea what cable to look for or even where to plug it in! Not sure yet if it is MFM, RLL, or some antique interface that predates those.

Anyone here have (or used to have) an Osborne?

 

[XeonTux]

Apparently this is too old-school for anyone here

I am having difficulties finding any info about this HD

 

[ScottMac]

The drive is almost certainly MFM. RLL didn't show up until ~20-30MB drives. It's probably a SASI (Shugart Associates Standard Interface)....a system that eventually evolved into SCSI (but this is NOT A SCSI DRIVE). It's not IDE either. It's likely to be SASI....makes a good paperweight.

I had an Osborne, played with the Kaypros, and my Imsai 8080 ended up in the DEC Computer Museum in Boston. CP/M is sorta close to MSDOS, but wait till you try to use the serial ports...there ain't no such thing as a COM: port in CP/M. For that matter, there's no LPT: port either. You got PUN: and RDR: CON: and some other esoteric devices you can reference.

Try compiling your own OS too, while you're at it. All the components to edit, compile and load your edited CP/M system are included with the system. Did you get CP/M 2.1, 2.2, or 3.0?

I still have a H/Z S100 system on the shelf, in case I need a backup system.

Have fun

Scott