Single-user EXBASIC boot floppy

When the ORDINATOR had just gotten a working single-user CP/M in 1984, DJOE organized a series of BASIC courses. Because the people following the course needed hands-on experience, a special boot floppy for the ORDINATOR was made available. This was the first time that we allowed the ORDINATOR to be used by by people outside the ORD-GROUP without our continuous supervision.

This floppy would boot the system into EXBASIC, which we adapted for the ORDINATOR and called ORBASIC. It was apparently felt that the poor BASIC students were not yet computer-savvy enough to expose them to the CP/M prompt. This boot floppy may well have been the reason that our single-user BIOSes support an autostart command.

The floppy was kept close to the system; we even went so far as to make a mock-up that was permanently glued in place.

		1 PERSON EXBASIC ORDINATOR Ik hang links van de ORDINATOR
boot floppy mockup

A small usage pamphlet was written; you can see it below. To get things started, it was agreed that for the first few days someone from the ORD-GROUP would be available in case of problems. The "duty roster" for this was scribbled on the pamphlet copy; this would be Geert Jan for 1984/09/10 and Luc for 1984/09/11 (from the fact that these were a Monday and a Tuesday, respectively, we can infer that this was during the school holidays).

Opstart voorschrift voor single-person EXBASIC op de ORDINATOR.


- Zet de meest linkse van de tv-monitors aan. (Voorste draaiknop
  aan de rechterkant, is ook helderheid.)

- Verwijder de tempex hoezen van beide disk drives.

- Zet de ORDINATOR aan.

- Zet de voeding van de disk drives aan. (De knop erachter.)

- Stop de diskette met het opschrijft "1 person EXBASIC" (Paars
  stickertje) in de meest linkse disk drive,

- Druk op de bovenste grijze knop van de meest linkse print in
  het bovenste rek.

- Na enige seconden verschijnt op het scherm de tekst

  EXBASIC version 5.04/2 adapted to the ORDINATOR
  Copyright 1980 (c) by Exidy Inc.
  xxxxx Bytes free
  Ok

- U zit nu in EXBASIC. Alle normale commando's zijn beschikbaar.


WANNEER HET NIET WERKT:

  Als na herhaalde pogingen er geen tekst verschijnt, is er iets
  mis. Haal dan de disk er weer uit, zet alles uit en laat een
  briefje achter.


Afstart voorschrift voor single-person EXBASIC op de ORDINATOR.


- SAVE uw programma.

- Haal de disk uit de drive.

- Zet alles uit.

- Plaats de tempex hoezen weer over beide disk drives.

VERGEET DIT LAATSTE NIET !!!