Re: Filesystem creation

Riley Williams
2002-05-14T07:06:10Z

Hi Dan.

>> It would be nice to find someone with an XT with 512-640K of RAM and
>> the casette drive, if only for an excuse to add /dev/tape 8)

> I've got both, but IBM did away with the cassette interface when
> they introduced the XT, so you won't find such a thing. I was only
> offered on the PC (5150, I believe). Of course you could always find
> a PC with a memory board that's got 640K of RAM. How you'd load ELKS
> from cassette to memory using ROM BASIC is beyond me though :)

Not quite true - IBM made the cassette interface an "optional extra" on
an expansion card for the original IBM PC/XT (with up to 256k of RAM on
the motherboard) but had discontinud it by the time the revised model
(with up to 640k of RAM on the motherboard) hit the shelves.

My understanding is that the BIOS support didn't vanish until the XT-286
and as such, if you can find one of those interface cards, you can quite
probably still get a 640k XT with a cassette interface.

Best wishes from Riley.