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As an excuse to fire up the old systems, and celebrate BASIC now being over 50 years old - I ran the "Ahl Benchmark" on a few hardware systems that I have. https://voidstar.blog/exploring-project-ahl-in-2024/ SYSTEM ACCURACY RANDOM-NESS TIME(S) YEAR...

The 5100 does run software much slower, despite being the same processor. One reason may be the character set of the 5100 is rather "poorly chosen" whereas the 5110 is more EBCDIC-like out of the box, so the 5110 probably has less need for extra translation between those internal emulators...

Right, that what I meant as "out of the box" and what "turn key" capability they included (in ROM). The 5100/5110's also included an extensive "solver" library (on tape), with BASIC and APL source. So part of the expense was that bundled ROM and packaged software, and it's always subjective...

Well as one candidate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Computing_Benchmark#cite_ref-2 Though seems to me, for consistency, R should be initialized to 0? Maybe it doesn't matter. It covers some SQR and SQRT. Obviously that's not the benchmark they ran (being the articles were from...

True, and the IBM 5110 did overlap into that POS (point of sale) category (there are some photos of one being used in a department store, combined also with the "FORM" keyword added to its BASIC to make development of data entry forms much easier). Their BASIC also had matrix operations...

Oh, I don't know if "obsolete" is quite fair. I recall plenty of issues on RAM chip reliability in those early days of microcomputers (at least across Altairs and early Commodore's), so maybe there was something to be said for IBM going to the expense of including parity checks all over in the...

Sounds right - I came across an actual IBM 5100 price sheet (I had seen one for the 5110 but not yet the 5100). Trying to remember the original PDF, but can't find it at the moment (it was on bitsavers but outside of the normal IBM5100 folder). But it notes that the "base price" includes the...

DORTMUND LEUVEN LIBRARY Does anyone know what this refers to? A person, place, organization? Sounds like something from Middle-Earth.

Nice changes, good to consolidate a bit about these systems. With only about 3000 to 5000 units sold per year for just a few years, they are niche systems. And those quantities applied in general to the Datapoints, Wangs, HP, Tektronics, and these IBMs. But talking with now-retired business...

Has anyone gotten the Mario Special for this NEC running on hardware? It seems to be a "dual loader" where it first loads a typical BASIC program, that then runs a "fancy loader." This second loader seems to use a different "protocol" (or format) and may be more sensitive to volume setting...

"we need Gerber file for PCB, BOM file and pic&place file for assembly." Thanks, I see now for Kicad. I assume BOM is "bill of material", an inventory of IC's and pin headers? Plus I think there is one switch in the build. A few of the components are obvious from the photos, but didn't see a...

It's the same WiModem232 I used here on the CoCo3 at 19200 baud (with 6551 chip). The onboard PIA 6821 of that system was hard to bit bang past 2400. But yeah, I'd imagine the PC-8001's 8251 UART should be a tad more performant. Anyone happen to be aware of any other cassette based...

I recall trying that - and it would toggle the display of things like "CR", but the "BS" symbol seemed to appear in either case. As for the baud rate jumpers on the PC-8001 MK II, I've assumed it is ok to adjust those while the system is running? The WiModem232 I have defaults to 300 baud on...

Well, REM (remote) isn't critical - you just have to be more mindful of pressing STOP yourself after done loading. I just got one of the NEC PC-8001 VGA adapters - works great, so I can use a modern flat panel and not put more wear-and-tear on the CRT. INKEY, can't believe I missed that...

Ah, but without the diagrams, it's not obvious (to me) what the pinout order is (at least not being a DIN connector expert; like in that Japanese user manual the clockwise order of the CMT pins from 1 is 1-4-2-5-3-7-8-6. Also in that manual is the currently the only photo of that RS232 ribbon...

The PC-8001 I have came with a Japanese copy of the users manual. Not sure if that is completely archive yet. But I made the attached PDF that has some pin-out info that I hadn't seen described as well elsewhere (I mean with also diagrams that are more explicit about which pin is which).

I've also picked up a 8001 mk II just to compare it. Here are some follow up notes on the PC-8001 mk II : - When in terminal mode, GRAPH+B is key to swap back to BASIC. The User's Manual for PC-8001 mk II on archive.org is in Japanese. But luckily the mk II that I got, the connectors...

Think the internal 16-pin DIP socket is like the pinout expressed for the PC-8062 cable. I goofed in thinking the ribbon cable followed the "normal" IC pinout (1-8 on one side, then 9-16 wrapped around to the other side). Doesn't invalidate any finding, and I realize to keep that "socket...

I'll get notes on a more concise wiring diagram tonight. That little 16-pin ribbon cable, the pins are "crisscrossed" (not like a regular IC DIP) so gotta be careful there.

Ok, confirmed it all works! And here's the video... Happy BBS'ing now on your NEC PC-8001 !!! (but no ANSI and no backspace support, so it's a little bit of a rough ride) Just GND/TX/RX, enough to communicate. Didn't find RTS/CTS pins, so this might not work for data transfer (KERMIT...