Sam Ewalt wrote:
>But if you had the full complement of
>memory, the PC jr was fully compatible with
>the IBM PC.
You're the second person to question my comment on the PC jr. not being
compatible (the first did so off-listserv, which is probably more
appropriate unless you're using the jr. to run Arachne), and I'll respond
much the way I did to him.
First answer should probably be, "I never get between a user and his love
for His First Computer." (Ask me about the Commodore 128 some time.)
But the actual answer is, the idea that the jr. was not all that compatible
was common knowledge at the time. No guarantee that common knowledge is
RIGHT, of course, but it was widely believed. Seems to me lots of
manufacturers had separate sections in their docs and FAQs on getting their
software running (or not running) with the jr.
There is surprisingly little on the PC jr. on the web these days, but I did
run across one manufacturer website
(http://www.newdealinc.com/supportn/ts/278.htm) which states regarding its
NewDeal product:
"The PC-Junior uses the NMI for keyboard input, which NewDeal doesn't
support, therefore NewDeal doesn't officially support the PC-Junior.
"One user is running NewDeal successfully on a customized PC-Jr using the /s
parameter. The PC-Jr ships with only 256K, no hard drive, no expansion
slots, and an incompatible keyboard. He has added some kind of expansion
board, a SCSI hard disk, and 101-key keyboard all from "PC-Enterprises." He
also has a shareware program called JRCONFIG (by Larry Newcomb) that
reallocates video RAM outside standard RAM. He has allocated 32K to video
RAM. He says IBM makes products equivalent to all of these PC-Enterprises
components. However, he seems to be the only person so far who has gotten it
to work. He's using DOS 3.3.
"PC-Enterprises is a company which makes hardware upgrades for the IBM
PC-jr. They have a BIOS compatibility cartridge that fixes many of the BIOS
problems on the Jr, too."
I have no idea what the "BIOS problems", of which there were apparently
"many", refers to, but it doesn't sound good. In any case, it looks like
you have to turn cartwheels to get some software to run, and I don't
consider that consistent with what was meant by "IBM compatible", even if
you can eventually run it.
Still, if you still have a jr. and you're getting mileage out of one (can
you really run Arachne on a unit like that?), more power to you. I love old
units (I guess that's why many of us are into Arachne), and while I don't
have a jr., I do have Commodore, Atari, Apple, TI, Timex/Sinclair, Coleco
ADAM, Mattel Aquarius, and lots of others. I've spent much more time in the
PC world as of late, and I'm not sure you can go back. But these jewels
were, and are, a ton of fun.
