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80s era Mac 'side car' Ms-Dos compatability add on - Did this product even exist?
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plateshutoverlock
Nov 25, 2021, 11:13:39 PM11/25/21
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This was something I saw in a computer magazine circa mid 1980s. It was basically a headless PC that used the Macintosh as the monitor and keyboard input and touted along the lines of giving the Macintosh access to the world of business PC software.
Details I remember are:
- It was 8088/XT clone based
- it used a VT-100 like terminal emulation program for I/O ("let's you run TEXT mode MS-DOS programs") and did not display PC graphics.
- This program had floppy disk icons on it suggesting that it had the ability to share files between the Mac and Pc side, and likely made use of the Mac's floppy drive.
- The 'side car' PC was displayed right next to a Mac Plus, with the interface window displayed on the Mac's screen.
- The ad had a second rate look to it and it was in the back of the magazine amongst all of the othet minor/second rate computer company ads
I was looking for this product on the web, with varipus search engines and dosens of carefully crafted search terms with no luck.
This leads me to believe that this was a product that never made it out of prototype stage, and the company who was making this product closed shop right after announcing it, or possibly a fly by night scam, which wasn't too uncommon in the 'want ad' section of computer magazines back in those days.
Details I remember are:
- It was 8088/XT clone based
- it used a VT-100 like terminal emulation program for I/O ("let's you run TEXT mode MS-DOS programs") and did not display PC graphics.
- This program had floppy disk icons on it suggesting that it had the ability to share files between the Mac and Pc side, and likely made use of the Mac's floppy drive.
- The 'side car' PC was displayed right next to a Mac Plus, with the interface window displayed on the Mac's screen.
- The ad had a second rate look to it and it was in the back of the magazine amongst all of the othet minor/second rate computer company ads
I was looking for this product on the web, with varipus search engines and dosens of carefully crafted search terms with no luck.
This leads me to believe that this was a product that never made it out of prototype stage, and the company who was making this product closed shop right after announcing it, or possibly a fly by night scam, which wasn't too uncommon in the 'want ad' section of computer magazines back in those days.
D Finnigan
Dec 22, 2021, 10:27:10 PM12/22/21
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On 11/25/21 10:13 PM, plateshutoverlock wrote:
> This was something I saw in a computer magazine circa mid 1980s. It was basically a headless PC that used the Macintosh as the monitor and keyboard input and touted along the lines of giving the Macintosh access to the world of business PC software.
MacCharlie
> This was something I saw in a computer magazine circa mid 1980s. It was basically a headless PC that used the Macintosh as the monitor and keyboard input and touted along the lines of giving the Macintosh access to the world of business PC software.
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