All machines linked to their forum thread (full comment import)

1,289 discussions, 9,527 archived comments; pages no longer carry the comments themselves.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01YDRjtmAiNpo5mK5N3d7QwZ

content/museum/durango-f85.md

@@ -66,78 +66,7 @@ params:
     value: 14'' then 5.25'' hard disc, 1 or 2 external FDD,
   - label: PRICE
     value: From $11,000
-  comments:
-  - author: David Ovington (United Kingdom)
-    date: Sunday 25th April 2021
-    text: Starbasic still lives on! I worked for a UK company for 28 years (through various acquisitions) and the software still uses it and the ISAM database. Around 2005 we were getting restricted by the capabilities even though it had been ported to SCO unix / AIX etc. So we bought a license for the compiler and RUNtime and I did a load of improvements, increased program size, linked it to run alongside Java, replication of data out to SQL Server etc I still use it for quick utility programs to process text files, used it for so long it’s second nature!
-  - author: Steve P (UK)
-    date: Monday 4th November 2019
-    text: We used one of these for our stock control, invoicing and accounts around 1980 with a horticultural wholesaler. We had the optional second dual disk drive to expand the memory to accommodate the number of stock lines we had. If I remember correctly, the whole package cost around £12.5k, a lot of money for a small company at that time but it revolutionised the way we worked. The floppies were not the most reliable, and had a habit of failure showing at the end of day back-up, usually meaning re-inputting the whole day''s work again!
-  - author: Andy Dent (Australia)
-    date: Sunday 23rd September 2018
-    text: My first paid job was working on a Durango in Perth, Western Australia, back in 1981. I ended up $ping out of my Engineering studies to work full-time for the company who were a reseller who heavily customised the business suite. That got me my first major job - I walked in and slapped down a listing of Star-BASIC source with my initialled comments and said "I can understand and debug this". Amazing hardware and usability for the time.
-  - author: Dick Schmoekel (United States)
-    date: Monday 27th August 2018
-    text: Wow!! I didn''t think anyone else remembered the Durango. I ran into Durango and George Comstock at Comdex in 1979 and we very quickly signed up to be one of their early dealers, Sunbelt Data Services out of Houston, Texas. We ended up selling a ton of them, first as dealers and then setting up other dealers throughout the US. We developed their Accounting software (AR, AP, GL. Payroll, OE/Inv and a Client Writeup Package for CPAs. We later sold the software back to Durango. That was a GREAT little machine for its day but the IBM PC release killed it. Thanks for the memory!!!
-  - author: Adnan
-    date: Tuesday 8th August 2017
-    text: |-
-      dear Frank!\
-      I am interested to buy! Do you still have the computer?\
-      Danke :)
-  - author: Ken Macumber (Boston, MA)
-    date: Thursday 25th May 2017
-    text: I used a Durango in South Africa in 1981,2 and 3. We used it for word processing. The company, Grinaker Projects, had a number of these systems. We wrote a cool construction bar chart scheduler program that would print out bar charts based on fields that contained start and stop dates, task, and sub-contractor. I could printout individual sheets per sub-contractor and I would distribute task lists to each sub on a weekly basis. It was pretty leading edge stuff for the time and it was very efficient.
-  - author: Peter (Germany)
-    date: Thursday 5th January 2017
-    text: |-
-      Hallo Frank,
-
-      hatte selbst 2 DurangoF-85 plus ext Doppel-Disk.
-
-      Was soll dein F-85 kosten? (etl aus Nostalgie.....)
-
-      Gruß aus Hamburg\
-      Peter Breitenfeld\
-      brt@peterbreitenfeld.de
-  - author: Frank (Germany)
-    date: Friday 22nd July 2016
-    text: |-
-      I have a Durango F85 incl. some discs and would like to sell it. Anybody interested?
-
-      Best regards\
-      Frank
-  - author: Hector Buffa (Argentina)
-    date: Wednesday 17th June 2015
-    text: |-
-      When we began our activities we had two F-85. Finally, we''d added hard disk to both computers, and we was able to connect them using ASCUTL.
-
-      Then we knew that Mollecular launched a model named Popy o something like that. We saw that computer and we knew that the operative system was able to run on Xenix (Unix little version)
-  - author: Ian Roworth (UK)
-    date: Tuesday 17th March 2015
-    text: |-
-      Spotted these 2 posts albeit 2011 I worked for the only UK reseller for the Durango to boot from a floppy disc it was ''Code'' followed by ''Load''\
-      Hope this helps
-  - author: Peter Breitenfeld (Germany)
-    date: Monday 11th July 2011
-    text: |-
-      Hi Jim,
-
-      I had 2 F85 and an external Dual Floppy drive$ My brother stored them for me nearly 15 years ago. Neither of us is quite sure if they still do exist anymore.
-
-      You have to $ the sytem disk in drive 0 an press 2 keys, if I remember well, like $ctrl$ and $del$. Maybe you simply try two keys which seem familiar in this respect, or which might ring a bell.
-
-      I still have the D-Basic disk, and also Star-Basic, which I used for programming software with for my company at the time.
-
-      All the best $ let me know.
-
-      Regards from Hamburg\
-      Peter Breitenfeld
-
-      If you hit the right keys, it should boot from disk.
-  - author: Jim Herman (USA)
-    date: Saturday 21st May 2011
-    text: i am a CPA and purchased one of these machiness in 1982 or so and another one a year later. They were wonderful computers and I still have both of them and the software. I fired one up yesterday but found that I had forgotten how to get them up an going. Oh, well, the machines now are a lot faster and easier to run but the Durango was great.
+  forum_thread: 916
   oc_id: 939
   source:
     url: https://web.archive.org/web/20220818102400/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=939