Comments on: The Exatron Stringy Floppy http://www.trs-80.org/exatron-stringy-floppy/ TRS-80.org is a source for information about the Radio Shack TRS-80 line of computers, hardware, and software, with articles, interviews, and more! Sat, 21 Jan 2012 03:40:25 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Ken Harlow http://www.trs-80.org/exatron-stringy-floppy/comment-page-1/#comment-38971 Ken Harlow Wed, 28 Sep 2011 17:33:48 +0000 http://www.trs-80.org/exatron-stringy-floppy/#comment-38971 The good and the bad: Good, the ESF was fast and neat. And you could buy Bill Gates' Level III Basic on a wafer, which was really great. This was Microsoft's very first consumer product. Bad, the "endless loop" system was prone to tangling and, over time, read failures. Like 8-track tapes, I suppose. But way better than casettes for sure. Don't remember anything ugly... The good and the bad:

Good, the ESF was fast and neat. And you could buy Bill Gates’ Level III Basic on a wafer, which was really great. This was Microsoft’s very first consumer product.

Bad, the “endless loop” system was prone to tangling and, over time, read failures. Like 8-track tapes, I suppose. But way better than casettes for sure.

Don’t remember anything ugly…

]]> By: Mark McDougall http://www.trs-80.org/exatron-stringy-floppy/comment-page-1/#comment-26930 Mark McDougall Thu, 24 Feb 2011 21:19:29 +0000 http://www.trs-80.org/exatron-stringy-floppy/#comment-26930 I'm sure there are people that would be interested in the Timex CP/M code!?! And by Timex, do you mean Spectrum clone? I’m sure there are people that would be interested in the Timex CP/M code!?! And by Timex, do you mean Spectrum clone?

]]> By: Chip Conway http://www.trs-80.org/exatron-stringy-floppy/comment-page-1/#comment-26923 Chip Conway Thu, 24 Feb 2011 18:35:20 +0000 http://www.trs-80.org/exatron-stringy-floppy/#comment-26923 Just heard Exatron the current company owned by Robert Howell is now up for sale. It will probably sell for $500K. Just heard Exatron the current company owned by Robert Howell is now up for sale. It will probably sell for $500K.

]]> By: Clark Calkins http://www.trs-80.org/exatron-stringy-floppy/comment-page-1/#comment-26519 Clark Calkins Tue, 15 Feb 2011 00:25:04 +0000 http://www.trs-80.org/exatron-stringy-floppy/#comment-26519 I just stumbled on your site and it brought back many fond memories. I worked for many years with Bob Howell at Exatron on their Stringgy Floppy. I worked on a Digital Group interface initially and then on a Timex version. A the time I was an assembly programmer and wrote lots of code for this little device. For the Timex, I wrote a version of CP/M (I called ZCP/M as it was optimized for the Z-80). This was to be burned into a PROM and would sit in the 8-16k memory space (if I remember correctly). I got this to work (no small feat as the Timex system was a night mare to work with) but by this time the market was drying up and it never got released. I still have all of the code which is probably not of much use anymore. Those were incredibly fun times and it was a great group of people... Clark Calkins I just stumbled on your site and it brought back many fond memories. I worked for many years with Bob Howell at Exatron on their Stringgy Floppy. I worked on a Digital Group interface initially and then on a Timex version. A the time I was an assembly programmer and wrote lots of code for this little device. For the Timex, I wrote a version of CP/M (I called ZCP/M as it was optimized for the Z-80). This was to be burned into a PROM and would sit in the 8-16k memory space (if I remember correctly). I got this to work (no small feat as the Timex system was a night mare to work with) but by this time the market was drying up and it never got released. I still have all of the code which is probably not of much use anymore. Those were incredibly fun times and it was a great group of people…

Clark Calkins

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