Preserving a NOS Basis 108

Submitted by abirahemmed on July 10, 2021 - 1:56am

I was lucky enough to recently acquire a new-in-box Basis 108, a German-made Apple II clone with a Z80 coprocessor for CP/M. It's a big, heavy beast with a metal case and high-quality keyboard. The original owner was a Kaypro dealer who bought it for evaluation purposes and never used it. My original intent was to get it working and use it, but once I saw it, I realized that it needs to be preserved as is. 

 

The system is a base model with no disk drives and 64K RAM. I might also need to find a ROM to add drives. So, getting it working is a bigger task than I expected, and the system is really an historical artifact. I have scanned its documentation, which is quite detailed and includes schematics and code. Interestingly, it has two sets of docs. One is a preliminary version in an unmarked binder stamped with the system's serial number. The other is a final, larger version in a branded binder. I've scanned the latter and will send to anyone who wants a copy.

 

This is a spam copy of Michael Nadeau's post (thanks, robespierre!). I've left it in place because of the comments, but any new comments should be made to the original post. - Tom, 2023-04-22

Comments

Submitted by softwarejanitor on July 10, 2021 - 9:50pm.

I have a Basis 108 I aquired from someone on this forum not that long ago.  They were an awesome machine in their day.  I hope to be able to download copies of the docs you have!

 

 

 

Submitted by softwarejanitor on July 10, 2021 - 9:51pm.

The one that I have has had EPROMs added and also had drives added.  So if you need more on that, I have the ability to copy EPROMs, as I have an EPROM eraser and burner, and I even have a small supply of 2716 and 2732 type EPROMs.