MacCHARLIE

[haplain]

Any ever seen one of these or know what's up with it? Seems cool.

 

[unity]

Wonder who bought it. Short lived products, pretty cool and pretty rare. Google can get ya the details!

 

[haplain]

What you mean about buying it like who the clients were?

Yeah it's limited though, so I didn't know if anyone had any personal experience with the device or not?

 

[Gorgonops]

It's basically a PC clone (well, more of a "generic" MS-DOS box, its compatibility wasn't that great) that hooks up to the Mac's serial port and uses the Mac as its monitor. (Making screen updates both slower and buggier than the real thing.) I believe it included some rudimentary functions to let you paste text between the PC's screen and the Mac clipboard and some sort of disk file transfer utility... as mentioned, Google will get you the details. The "coolest" part is probably the keyboard extender that wraps around the original 128k/512k's keyboard to add function keys and a number pad.

I think I saw one in real life once at a computer-fest thing when I was, I dunno, eleven. Other than that, well, no first hand experience.

 

[unity]

What you mean about buying it like who the clients were?

Huh? I figured you bought it. I notice the auction ended. I have no clue what you mean by clients.

 

[haplain]

I did purchase it. I meant who would used it.

 

[unity]

I did purchase it. I meant who would used it.

Ah, gotcha. Much confusion there for a sec.

Good question though. I have never seen one in the wild. I saw a video for it, but I don't know when and where. Are you thinking of installing it or keeping it boxed?

 

[Gorgonops]

I meant who would used it.

Mostly they tried to position it as a way for Macs to move into PC-dominated offices by providing data transfer capabilities, a way for Mac users to use some mission-critical PC application on the same workstation, etc. Obviously it wasn't a very practical solution as the MacCharlie cost almost as much as a typical low-end PC clone, and its data transfer capabilities weren't much better than you could achieve by just tying the two systems together with a null modem cable, so no wonder it didn't sell that well. I suspect most of them were bought by well-heeled individuals for personal use.

 

[haplain]

I'll probably just keep it in the box. Maybe I'll put it on the empty space on my shelf for now.

 

[TheMacGuy]

It looks like a side profile of compact. I'm guessing it somehow attaches to the side of a compact?

 

[Anonymous Freak]

I thought someone here posted about getting one a couple years ago...

Ah, yes.. Charlie and applefreak. (Waits for them to chime in...)

Here's a page that has a picture of one of their ads - yes, it slaps on to the side of the compact, and is basically a tiny IBM PC clone.

 

[TheMacGuy]

That thing is freaky looking.

 

[Charlieman]

I had bit of fun hacking around with one a few years ago:

http://www.vintagemacworld.com/charlie.html

The target market for MacCharlie were people who needed an occasional or part-time PC to run DOS applications such as accounting, database, online services etc. The limited graphics capability meant that it couldn't do much more. The Mac console updates quickly enough to make it usable for text based applications.

Dayna considerably overestimated the market and had a warehouse of unsold MacCharlies and unassembled parts. They worked out that most buyers used the MacCharlie for file transfers and reworked it as the FT100 PC disk unit. This used a MacCharlie case with a serial or SCSI connection to the host Mac. It was a much bigger hit and was followed by the well known DaynaFILE range.

Accessories for the MacCharlie included a carry case (which definitely was sold) and an expansion card for ISA cards (built, but I don't know if it was ever sold). The expansion slot in the MacCharlie is a modified 8 bit ISA slot -- check the pin outs before inserting a card.

Dayna created ROM updates and software updates. The version for the Plus should be good for System 6 and other Macs.

 

[mcdermd]

I remember seeing one of these at the local Apple reseller in the mid 80s.

 

[64k16bitmac]

Great item. It like turning your mac into some sort of Dos transformer 8-o

 

[genie_mac]

Cool! I'd love to get one, but I assume they are pretty rare. Although not quite as cool as AST's Mac86 SE card...now that would be the ultimate as far as I am concerned. Does anybody here have one / have info other than what's on the net (which isn't much). Even rarer than the MacCHARLIE I would say :O

 

[mcdermd]

I have all the doc for the AST card with boxes full of stuff I bought but there's no card

 

[haplain]

Well I know someone with another MacCHARLIE and 512k attached to it. The CHARLIE is in the box, with MacCHARLIE carry case, in pristine condition. The 512k has not box but is also in equally amazing shape :beige:

 

[Charlieman]

The AST cards were part of Apple's bid for corporate acceptance, along with Tokenring networking and parity RAM. Phoenix Technologies as well as Apple had a hand in the card's design according to contemporary reports. Sadly I don't have much technical data on the cards. Can anyone tell me whether they used an 8088 or 8086 processor? How was RAM provided?

Another oddball are the Perfectek Corporation DOS cards. These were promoted at the Mac World show in San Francisco, 1987 but no test samples were available. Descriptions were provided for three models -- for the Plus, SE and Mac II. Shipments were promised for March 1987 but nothing seems to have appeared even in 1988. Has anyone seen one?