DEC Rainbow 100+
Hi Everyone, So we have an absolutely gorgeous, looking almost brand new, completely dec'ed out (see what I did there?), DEC Rainbow 100+ for hands on use in the museum now in the new business office display. It currently boots up to MS-DOS and runs the DEC WPS word processor. It also seems to have 123 installed, although there may have a copy protection issue. But what intrigues me the most is that the MS-DOS boot disk is E:... C: and D: appear to exist, but aren't MS-DOS formated. So, I'm guessing these might be CP/M partitions for the Z80 processor also in the DEC Rainbow. But, the big question, how do we tell it to boot CP/M? And, I understand it can also function as a standand alone VT-100 terminal. How do we get it to go into that mode? This opens an entirely different world of uses once it is rotated out as the "business" computer on the business desk. Oh... most importantly... I had forgotten how absolutely gorgeous smooth scroll is. Thanks much, -Adam
Curious so looked a little. No first hand experience. Should have a boot menu https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images4/1/0516/12/vintage-dec-rainbow-pc-... http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/rainbow.html I always found the smooth scroll looked nice but was significantly slower than jump so I always turned it off. Is it any different on this machine? On Mon, Mar 02, 2020 at 08:23:32PM -0500, Adam Michlin via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
Hi Everyone,
So we have an absolutely gorgeous, looking almost brand new, completely dec'ed out (see what I did there?), DEC Rainbow 100+ for hands on use in the museum now in the new business office display.
It currently boots up to MS-DOS and runs the DEC WPS word processor. It also seems to have 123 installed, although there may have a copy protection issue.
But what intrigues me the most is that the MS-DOS boot disk is E:... C: and D: appear to exist, but aren't MS-DOS formated.
So, I'm guessing these might be CP/M partitions for the Z80 processor also in the DEC Rainbow. But, the big question, how do we tell it to boot CP/M?
And, I understand it can also function as a standand alone VT-100 terminal. How do we get it to go into that mode? This opens an entirely different world of uses once it is rotated out as the "business" computer on the business desk.
Oh... most importantly... I had forgotten how absolutely gorgeous smooth scroll is.
Thanks much,
-Adam
Interesting. This a video we took when first booting the machine: https://www.instagram.com/p/B86IsEwHV9v/ No menu. The Columbia link says it could potentially run 3 OSes: MS-DOS, CP/M-86 (16-bit), and CP/M-80 (8-bit). That would make sense with C:, D: and E:. The plot thickens... I'll go through the manuals carefully at the workshop this weekend. I haven't seen smooth scroll in decades, so I can't really say if it is different that what I know. It is beautiful, but I can imagine that the speed would get annoying with repeated uses. On 3/2/2020 9:37 PM, David Gesswein via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
Curious so looked a little. No first hand experience.
Should have a boot menu https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images4/1/0516/12/vintage-dec-rainbow-pc-...
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/rainbow.html
I always found the smooth scroll looked nice but was significantly slower than jump so I always turned it off. Is it any different on this machine?
On Mon, Mar 02, 2020 at 08:23:32PM -0500, Adam Michlin via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
Hi Everyone,
So we have an absolutely gorgeous, looking almost brand new, completely dec'ed out (see what I did there?), DEC Rainbow 100+ for hands on use in the museum now in the new business office display.
It currently boots up to MS-DOS and runs the DEC WPS word processor. It also seems to have 123 installed, although there may have a copy protection issue.
But what intrigues me the most is that the MS-DOS boot disk is E:... C: and D: appear to exist, but aren't MS-DOS formated.
So, I'm guessing these might be CP/M partitions for the Z80 processor also in the DEC Rainbow. But, the big question, how do we tell it to boot CP/M?
And, I understand it can also function as a standand alone VT-100 terminal. How do we get it to go into that mode? This opens an entirely different world of uses once it is rotated out as the "business" computer on the business desk.
Oh... most importantly... I had forgotten how absolutely gorgeous smooth scroll is.
Thanks much,
-Adam
Back in my college days, I always set my VT for smooth scroll. On Tue, Mar 3, 2020 at 7:23 AM Adam Michlin via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Interesting. This a video we took when first booting the machine:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B86IsEwHV9v/
No menu.
The Columbia link says it could potentially run 3 OSes: MS-DOS, CP/M-86 (16-bit), and CP/M-80 (8-bit). That would make sense with C:, D: and E:.
The plot thickens... I'll go through the manuals carefully at the workshop this weekend.
I haven't seen smooth scroll in decades, so I can't really say if it is different that what I know. It is beautiful, but I can imagine that the speed would get annoying with repeated uses.
On 3/2/2020 9:37 PM, David Gesswein via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
Curious so looked a little. No first hand experience.
Should have a boot menu
https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images4/1/0516/12/vintage-dec-rainbow-pc-...
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/rainbow.html
I always found the smooth scroll looked nice but was significantly
slower than
jump so I always turned it off. Is it any different on this machine?
On Mon, Mar 02, 2020 at 08:23:32PM -0500, Adam Michlin via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
Hi Everyone,
So we have an absolutely gorgeous, looking almost brand new, completely dec'ed out (see what I did there?), DEC Rainbow 100+ for hands on use in the museum now in the new business office display.
It currently boots up to MS-DOS and runs the DEC WPS word processor. It also seems to have 123 installed, although there may have a copy protection issue.
But what intrigues me the most is that the MS-DOS boot disk is E:... C: and D: appear to exist, but aren't MS-DOS formated.
So, I'm guessing these might be CP/M partitions for the Z80 processor also in the DEC Rainbow. But, the big question, how do we tell it to boot CP/M?
And, I understand it can also function as a standand alone VT-100 terminal. How do we get it to go into that mode? This opens an entirely different world of uses once it is rotated out as the "business" computer on the business desk.
Oh... most importantly... I had forgotten how absolutely gorgeous smooth scroll is.
Thanks much,
-Adam
On 3/3/20 7:22 AM, Adam Michlin via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
Interesting. This a video we took when first booting the machine:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B86IsEwHV9v/
No menu.
The Columbia link says it could potentially run 3 OSes: MS-DOS, CP/M-86 (16-bit), and CP/M-80 (8-bit). That would make sense with C:, D: and E:.
This is correct; I've run all three on a Rainbow. I sold and serviced them at an after-school job in the 80s in Lawrenceville, NJ. But I have zero recollection of how to select which OS to boot. :-( At least I can confirm the OS list above. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
No menu.
The Columbia link says it could potentially run 3 OSes: MS-DOS, CP/M-86 (16-bit), and CP/M-80 (8-bit). That would make sense with C:, D: and E:.
I fired up my PC100-B3 to check this out. Mine has a single RX50 (Drives A and B) and a single MFM hard drive (RD51/ST412) which is Drive W (presumably W = Winchester). To select the boot drive: - Press F3 to get into the setup menu. - Press "Next Screen" 5 times to get to the "AUTO-BOOT" setting. You will see something like "W=DRIVE". - Press UP or DOWN arrows to cycle through the available options (A, B, C, D, W or ?). "?" means show the boot drive menu on startup. - Press SHIFT-S to save the new setting - Press F3 to exit from settings You can also press HELP (top row, next to the large DO button) for more info. If your hard drive (W) is partitioned, you should see a partition selection menu after you select W from the main boot menu. Hope this helps. Malcolm
On Mon, Mar 2, 2020 at 8:24 PM Adam Michlin via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Hi Everyone,
So we have an absolutely gorgeous, looking almost brand new, completely dec'ed out (see what I did there?), DEC Rainbow 100+ for hands on use in the museum now in the new business office display.
It currently boots up to MS-DOS and runs the DEC WPS word processor. It also seems to have 123 installed, although there may have a copy protection issue.
But what intrigues me the most is that the MS-DOS boot disk is E:... C: and D: appear to exist, but aren't MS-DOS formated.
So, I'm guessing these might be CP/M partitions for the Z80 processor also in the DEC Rainbow. But, the big question, how do we tell it to boot CP/M?
And, I understand it can also function as a standand alone VT-100 terminal. How do we get it to go into that mode? This opens an entirely different world of uses once it is rotated out as the "business" computer on the business desk.
Oh... most importantly... I had forgotten how absolutely gorgeous smooth scroll is.
Thanks much,
-Adam
Basically you have to set the boot menu to select which OS to use, it will then go to the assigned partitions for the OS of choice. You can set it up to copy files with some limitations, between DOS and CP/M. It's in the manual how to set this up. When you first fire it up, it should ask you what OS to boot to. You can tell the OS install on all partitions or leave x drive letter for CP/M, etc. Bill
participants (6)
-
Adam Michlin -
Bill Degnan -
Dave McGuire -
David Gesswein -
Dean Notarnicola -
malcolm＠avitech.com.au