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PCjr Pictures, Set 3: Advertising |
Here are some pictures from older magazines (mid 1984 - 1986) that I thought were interesting.
| This is a Microsoft Booster ad from PCjr
Magazine,
probably
sometime
in 1985. The MS Booster added a bus mouse, a clock/calendar
chip,
and in most configurations an additional 128KB of RAM. When
introduced,
it was priced at $295 for the basic version and $495 for the version
with
the memory.
My PCjr had one of these, and it was well worth the money. Some of them came with a copy of the Microsoft Flight Simulator, which worked well on a 128KB machine, but was exceptional on a 256KB machine. (And the mouse control was handy too.) The mouse connected using a DB9 connector, but it certainly wasn't a serial mouse. The original keyboard is shown in this picture. |
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Check out the toys in this picture!
Second diskette drives were a common upgrade, but Legacy made some of the nicest ones. You could get the expansion unit with either no diskette drive, a second diskette drive, or even a hard drive. (I'm not sure if you could do two diskette drives and a hard drive.) These units had some neat panels that could show you memory references, and you could also use them to add memory and a clock/calendar. |
| A quick review of the Rapport Drive Two, from
PCjr
Magazine
in 1984
or 1985. This expansion chassis isn't as flashy as the legacy
models,
and doesn't have as many configuration options. It does
provide
the
needed second diskette drive, memory expansion, printer port, and
clock/calendar
that a stock PCjr doesn't have.
The "exploded" view gives you an idea of how these expansion chassis were added to the PCjr. Typically a tall sidecar is used to bring the expansion bus up to the expansion chassis. Sometimes the internal modem slot was used for a SCSI card (to support a hard drive). It is more than likely that the diskette controller was replaced, because the standard one did not support two diskette drives. On this particular expansion chassis, the large sidecar is used to add a parallel port, a clock & calendar, and to bring the I/O bus up to the additional memory in the expansion unit. The original PCjr diskette drive controller is used, but with a special cable that diverts some of the signal lines to some more logic circuitry in the expansion chassis. That additional logic circuitry fakes the controller into supporting two diskette drives. The expansion chassis has it's own power supply and it's own external transformer - it is switched on and off by circuitry that senses when the PCjr main power supply is switched on and off. It is hilarious to think of using a 512KB machine with two floppy drives today. In the mid 1980's, it was a perfectly reasonable machine, and I used less of a machine into my 2nd semester of college for word processing, presentation graphics, and email! |
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When I first saw ColorPaint on a cartridge running on the PCjr in 1984, my jaw just about dropped. This was an incredible piece of software, and it showed the advanced features of the PCjr.
In 1984, a mouse would have been a rare option. (The Mac had been introduced that year, and it was the first machine to feature a mouse as standard equipment.) In 1984, the only other machine to have 16 colors on the display at the same time would have been a PC AT with an EGA card, or a specialized machine such as the MindSet. (EGA not only did 16 colors, but it had better screen resolution as well.) For the home market, this was as good as graphics got. And it ran 1-2-3, Wordstar, and other real applications.
This machine is a 128KB model .. there are no sidecars
on it
to
boost
the memory or provide other options. The mouse is probably a
serial
mouse, plugged into the serial connector available on the back of the
machine.
The keyboard is the second model (the one that replaced the chiclet
keyboard),
and it still is wireless.
(C)opyright Michael B. Brutman, mbbrutman@yahoo.com
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