Last updated: 26-Jun-2026, 05:29 PM AEST by Don McKenzie
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After the TRS-80 days, we got involved in an Australian designed computer, the BGR "Excalibur 64". What it had in common with the TRS-80 is they both used a modified Microsoft Basic, however the Excalibur was a colour computer. You could not load in a TRS-80 tape or run any TRS-80 .CMD files.
Its closer to a Microbee than anything, as per the AMC article - "They identified Microbee as the only Australian success in the low end market and proceeded to closely parallel key aspects of the Microbee's development."
Mick became president of the new club we had formed. He designed the software and hardware for a high resolution graphics board, and a 512kb memory extension, mainly used as a ram drive for the Excalibur, and had many other designs, such as an internal-external 1200/75 baud modem. Other projects of his were printed in Electronic magazines.
The BGR Company was operational for only about 12 months, and the club survived about 3 or 4 years. At this point, IBM clones came along and swamped the market, and I think most of us sold our Excalibur 64s.
Archive Org. Collection of ads. Can be zoomed up easily: Archive Org Ads
Interestingly, the Microbee Technology Forum hosts an extensive collection of approximately 100 Excalibur files, images, and ads, thoughtfully uploaded by Alan Laughton. However, accessing them requires navigating a few hoops: joining as a member, awaiting activation, and requesting File Repository Access Is it worth the effort? If you're keen to delve deeper into the world of the Excalibur Computer, the answer is a resounding yes. Alan's diligent work in scanning and uploading is commendable. Additionally, there's a dedicated "Don McKenzie" folder, documenting numerous projects, including PBUFF, spanning from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s before Dontronics was thought of. With around 30 files, it's a treasure trove of my forgotten endeavors.
From the Microbee Archives: Excalibur Newsletters ▼
News 30-May-2025: Dave Chinnery is building up a Wiki page: Excalibur WiKi Page Currently the link is broken, but I will leave it in place for now.
News 13-Apr-2026: Dave Chinnery is also building a Hackaday Project Page: Hackaday Project Page He is Recreating the Excalibur from scratch.
News 26-Jun-2026: And Dave Chinnery's June 2026 Newsletter. A very interesting read. Dave Chinnery's June 2026 Newsletter
Alan corrected some of the images I had displayed and provided three additional key images that are crucial to the Excalibur story:
Excalibur 64 First Sales Brochure.
Excalibur 64 First Ad July-1983.
Excalibur 64 Last Ad "Today's Computers Monthly" magazine of August 84.
Compiled and edited by Don McKenzie
The following details were shared by Greg Campbell through the "20th Century Computers EXCALIBUR 64" Facebook Group Greg played a pivotal role as one of the three founding members of "BGR," where he represented the "G" in the company's name. I've compiled all available text and files sourced from the Facebook Group and incorporated them into this page.
The CP/M Excalibur 64 was created in the very early Eighties by BGR Computers P/L as a home built DIY Z80A CPU Computer KIT of parts and comprehensive Construction Manual. It was sold across Australia from Electronics Magazine advertisements and offered with a Return IF Too Hard to build and BGR would build it for an extra $99 and post back to you. The background to this company is an interesting story and will feature some time in the future on this Group. The product itself like most high tech items has an interesting story in its conception and marketing as well as the technical details of this ground breaking innovation at the time before the IBM PC was released a few years later.
1983 Excalibur 64 DIY Computer partial Manual ▼ by Greg Campbell
This Image Album is a part of the original pre-production Excalibur 64 Construction Manual. If there is serious interest I may add the complete pages later on. BGR sold less than a thousand of these kits across Australia so probably not many survived the IBM PC onslaught of the mid Eighties although the Excalibur 64 User Group did survive for many years after the IBM PC appearance.
31-Mar-2024
Hi Don, great to see you on here! Unfortunately I can't remember any more than I have already posted on my group here. It will be up to you and Mick and any original Excalibur owner's that can help you with all the details. My memory of anything past twenty years ago is sketchy unfortunately. Well on the way to 80 here does not help mate. ?? Also moving a few times in the last thirty years did nothing to retain the stuff that I should have kept. Amazing I had anything to be found, except that I am a hoarder of life stuff to my wife's horror. ?? Not looking forward to the next move! Cheers mate and thanks for all your support at the time.
The Excalibur 64 DIY Kit PC by BGR Computers P/L Victoria Australia. AUSTRALIAN MICRO COMPUTERWORLD - MAY 1984 magazine ▼
Another price rise in December 1983, but now the Excalibur64 from BGR has grown into a fully fledged business machine with extremely competitive market place specifications and presentation.
Here is the later 1983 sales brochure. Price had risen to $699: Excalibur Brochure PDF ▼
Thanks to Alan Laughton, I have been able to get the Newsletters from the Microbee archives, and placed them in One zip file ▼
There is so much info there, and so old that I had forgotten most of it.
One gem is basically an early road map for my BPUFF Printer Buffer board which helps me out enormously.
Thanks to Mick Gulovsen, Here is a link to all of the Excalibur files he has or has found. There are some nice quality schematics and in the one for keyboard and IO it shows there was indeed a cassette interface and it also shows the speaker was 8ohm interface One zip file ▼
I bought one of the first Excalibur64 computers as soon as I saw it advertised (I WON'T make claim to the first), in fact the factory, in Breese street Brunswick, was about a 15 minute drive from my home in Hadfield and I was a frequent visitor to BGR and became almost part of the furniture there.
BGR was, as far as I knew, a play on COLOUR, as in RGB, as well as being the initials of the 3 directors first names, Burt, Greg & Robert.
The board itself (rather large size I guess about 45cm square) was designed by a company called LSC electronics in Alphington.
I am not sure of the date they were contracted but it really had to be circa 1982.
I visited them several times and it was there that I saw the artwork in 3x actual size (It may have been 4x) in any case the artwork was HUGE and had red and blue tape for the tracks which were photographed and reduced to produce the 2 sides of the PCB (red being one side blue the other). This amazed me at the time as it was all laid out by hand, I was designing PCBs for my own projects, as I still am, and at that time I was using sticky rub on 'letra-set' style tracks and part footprints in 2 x size. The chaps at LSC were very helpful and gave me a tour of their offices where the work was done. They did quite a good job overall.
The Excalibur64 was advertised as having 64k RAM which was correct in that the actual size of the chips but inaccurate in that only 48k was usable as ram, the other 16kB of address space was the ROM firmware which was a modified Microsoft Rom basic as used in the TRS80. The TRS80 was only 12kb but the Excalibur64 boosted this to 16kb to support their colour and programmable character set commands.
I really don't know, and I am sure I never did know, who ported CP/M over to the Excalibur64 but it worked very well.
BGR advertised the Excalibur64 for $399 as a kit, build it yourself computer, which in retrospect was probably not the greatest idea as many (probably most who bought the kit) were out of their depth when it came to building something this large. BGR introduced a $99 "return to us for repair" fee which saw a huge percentage of Excalibur64s returned for repair many of which their in house technicians were unable to repair.
I offered to have a look at these 'irreparable' units and Don and I spent every Friday evening testing, diagnosing and repairing these units, we charged BGR a $50 flat rate repair or not (after proving ourselves as being able to repair them) of which Don and I split between us.
I would guess that over all we repaired 50 or 60 boards and from my memory we didn't fail to repair any but some did take a couple of full sessions, the workmanship of many of them was horrid, although some were relatively competently built.
Repairs could be as little as 10 minutes, indeed several times we repaired 5 or 6 in the session but some took a couple of solid evenings to nut out. Pride forced us to persist as we wanted to make a statement that we could fix them all.
Based on the fact we got only the boards the BGR technicians couldn't repair I would take a guess as to a figure of 300 being sent back as not working. This would no doubt have been overwhelming for BGR at the time as they would have struggled repairing the faulty boards and keeping the kit preparation humming along. I remember they employed 3 or 4 technicians in their factory.
Don and I used Rob Mcallister's fantastic 'Static Z80' to orchestrate these repairs along with a logic probe, neither of us had an oscilloscope in those days and indeed it wasn't required.
The Excalibur64 got to be fairly popular and I am unsure of how many were sold, I have heard of just over 1000 units but I think that may be a little on the low side but I was not privy to that information.
I started the User group relatively soon into my 'love affair' with the Excalibur64 and BGR kindly advised all of their client base of the group's existence and passed on my details to those who had already purchased and those that bought later.
The first user group meeting was held, from my memory, at a local computer/electronics shop in Coburg or Moreland, courtesy of the owner who for some reason his name eludes me. That first meeting was PACKED, I reckon 150 people jammed in to hear me preach.
We held a formal vote for president and I was elected unopposed, I held that position until circa 1986 where I voluntarily stood down and Bob Green was elected to take the reins.
In my Excalibur64 period I designed quite a few add-on boards for the Excalibur64, some are listed below, not necessarily in order of design date and not a complete list of add-ons I designed.
A 512k RAM upgrade to the 64k Ram.
This started after a user, Graeme Twogood, wrote a program to use the unaddressed 16kb of RAM as a RAM drive.
This impressed me so I decided to design a board with 512kb of RAM which was implemented as a 464kb RAM drive (29 pages of 16kb) which was massively faster than the floppy disk drives, the remaining 48kb was general system RAM.
A 1200/75 baud internal modem for connecting to websites via a telephone line, (Fido-net) and through a couple of 3rd party transporters, for the cost of a local call, several overseas companies portals could be accessed.
A keyboard buffer (FiFo) that buffered the keyboard, up to 16 characters, so that you could type without losing characters whilst a program was loading etc.
And my masterpiece, a full Hi-Res graphics board add-on.
The latter was one of my best designs and also probably my downfall in the Excalibur64 community. The hardware was entirely mine in concept and in fact I was, almost, the only person who could see the how the design worked.
I had a meeting with Don, Terry Jenkins and Terry Dark to discuss the concept and Terry Jenkins (not really a technical man) and Don just could not grasp where I was headed with it all but Terry Dark could follow exactly what it was about and he was a brilliant software consultant and was able to write the changes needed to the ROMs to support it.
The concept involved adding more static RAM to increase the quantity of programmable characters from 64 (or was it 128) to 2048, which was enough to actually fill the screen with them and with smart software draw lines, circles, squares etc etc.
Terry played around with the code and suggested that the character size be reformatted from an 8x12 layout to an 8x16 layout (less lines of characters but this was only for the HI-RES mode screen and the resolution was identical).
This change made the software many times simpler for Terry to write and the result was a very fast hi-res graphics with proper commands in the ROM to support it all.
Terry did an excellent job with the code and the ROMs changed from 2 x 8kB to a 16kb and 8kb ROM set, the extra 8kb was toggled via hardware and held ONLY the hi-Res commands.
He did however charge us just over $3000 for his work which was very reasonable for the work he put in but was pretty high coming from the perspective of a hobbyist on a fitter and turners salary. Terry Jenkins offered to split this cost and we went ahead, hoping to make a profit.
We had to copy protect the software functions and I even did a trick to the PCB artwork that needed a via drilled out as I deliberately shorted a data and address line to make pirating the board harder. I know that someone in the Adelaide user group was actively attempting to copy, a friend sent me a picture of a failed attempt to replicate it but the last I heard they were tearing their hair out by the fist full.
We charged $200 for a fully built and tested module that needed just 7 jumper wires and 4 chips removed (and replaced onto the Hires board) possibly one track cut or pull pin from socket. Every ROM set was serialized and required a copy protected disk to be booted to enable the Hires functions which remained functional until a full power off.
We felt this was the best way to protect our investment and in the end we sold 36 or 37 units which was 2 over the break even point. If we didn't add the protection there would have had a lot of half price copies floating about and we would have lost most of the money with no reward, in truth we only wanted to recoup our investment, indeed we did release non-copy protected boot disks to those who bought from us after our investment was covered.
I was being drawn into the PC world by then but my love of the Excalibur64 still lasts.
The user group still went for at least a year and in the end we decided to fold as the turn up got gradually less and less in fact some of the last meetings attracted as little as 4 attendees. We tried to merge with the Sorcerer's user group but we could not agree to terms of the merger, neither group wanted to lose their identity, in the end we both suffered.
BGR folded 12 or 18 months after they started and I always thought that it was due to the directors being out of their depths as not one of them was technically minded, it was only in the last 6 months that I have found out that there was a robbery of over $100,000 of electronic parts taken from their factory and no insurance to cover the loss.
It is sad but I also think their days were numbered at that time. It was a fantastic computer but started too late and was rolled by the 'attack of the clones'
Note from Alan Laughton:
The Microsoft Basic was updated by L.S.C. Electronics Pty Ltd for the Extended Basic ROM from original 12k to 24k (1x16k+1x8k) and the original CP/M 2.2. They later updated CP/M 2.2 to the more functional ZCPR 3.0 and 3.1
Not sure who was in charge of this 1984 advertising!? How NOT to sell a computer - completed or not.
Electronics Australia July 1983 4mb PDF ▼
8-Apr-2024 Don McKenzie: I have just been informed that I built the motherboard in this specific unit.
Rear View
Alan Laughton 11-May-2024
Here are a couple of photos of the Excalibur opened and partly dissembled and a close up of the main board.
Don McKenzie 11-May-2024
I've been informed that I constructed this motherboard. If indeed I did, it would have been in 1983, over 40 years ago. I can't recall constructing just a motherboard. It's possible this refers to my original Excalibur computer, which I crafted for personal use and later sold off during the PC Clone era.
As you can see it is missing a Transformer and voltage regulators.
Alan Laughton 12-Jun-2024
Well I finally cleaned the paint back on the keyboard case, got a perfect match to the colour from Bunnings of an Epoxy paint. Looks a million $'s now and a perfect match to the case. Though the pic doesn't really show its true colour.
It seems Mick Gulovsen served as the club president at times, and authored the newsletters from February 1984 to August 85 and then Bob Green took over as President and Editor through to Dec 1988.
I've taken a few snapshots of the high-resolution graphics board crafted by him and Terry Jenkins.
On Saturday 18th of May 2024, Riley Perry from ACMS hosted a podcast on the Excalibur 64 with me (Don), Mick Gulovsen, and Alan Laughton. Given the extensive knowledge and memories each of us has, I suggested that Alan ask the questions and throw them at Mick and me.
This setup allowed Riley to take a step back and simply moderate for a change. I also felt more at ease, as Mick's recollection of the Excalibur 64 is far more detailed than mine.
I was amazed by Alan's knowledge and memory. Despite being only a few years younger than me, he could recall intricate details of the Excalibur and has an incredible archival memory of virtually every computer designed and built in Australia.
I must point out that Alan has an Excalibur 64 in his collection, but never actually operated one, so he is working from his amazing memory and massive collection of documents.
As a result of the Podcast, I've added more details to this website page, and below with permission of all parties, the small email exchange that took place after the Podcast.
I will also add a link to the Podcast on this page when available.
On 20/05/2024 6:56 am, Don McKenzie wrote:
Thanks very much Alan, just check and see if I didn't muck anything up.
And if you have any other thoughts that may improve the page, please let me know.
Don...
On 20/05/2024 9:59 am, Alan Laughton wrote:
Hi Don,
My few comments are that in the first paragraph you quote
"The BGR 'Excalibur 64', that was effectively a colour version (clone) of the TRS-80," that is simply not true, you could not load in a TRS-80 tape or run any TRS-80 .CMD files. The only thing it had in common with a TRS-80 was both used a modified Microsoft Basic. It's closer to a Microbee than anything, as per the AMC article -
"They identified Microbee as the only Australian success in the low-end market and proceeded to closely parallel key aspects of the Microbee's development."
You also have the link in -
"Here is the original sales brochure: (1983). Excalibur Brochure pdf" which is NOT the original sales brochure but a later one, look at the price.
The archive.org collection of Excalibur adverts is far from complete.
You also quote "Mick ..... authored the newsletters from February 1984 to December 1988." His last Newsletter was August 85 and then Bob Green took over as President and Editor through to Dec 1988.
They are the only issues I can see at the moment. But it might be worth quoting somewhere that the Microsoft Basic was updated by L.S.C. Electronics Pty Ltd for the Extended Basic ROM from original 12k to 24k (1x16k+1x8k) and the original CP/M 2.2. They later updated CP/M 2.2 to the more functional ZCPR 3.0 and 3.1
Hope that helps.
Alan
On 20/05/2024 3:00 pm, Don McKenzie wrote:
Thanks Alan, it certainly does help.
Find attached image.
This was the only point I was a bit hazy on.
as per the AMC article -"They identified Microbee as the ???
Not familiar with the article, so I modified the text to hopefully cover it.
I think I corrected all the other points including the LSC updates, which I added to the end of Mick's text.
Don...
On 20/05/2024 3:52 pm, Mick Gulovsen wrote:
Hi Alan, Don,
Dates for Newsletters and my reign as president are very flaky in my memory, if I had to put dates in writing I would have guessed I was president from 1983 (late) or early 1984 until 1986.
I see similarity to the TRS-80 as well and cannot comment about the Microbee (with no experience with it) which I see as totally different than the E64. The basic was certainly identical to the TRS-80 as well as memory map but the Disk operating system was definitely different and not compatible. The CMD files were part of TrashDos.
As you may have garnered from our discussion, whilst I remember many things about the E64 days I moved on (as we all did at varying times) and replaced a lot of memories with new ones.
If the E64 was released at $350 initially then I certainly had a later release as I know I paid $399 for mine.
As to ZCPR it has come back to me now, the port of ZCPR was done by Graham Toogood (80% likely) or Stuart Smith (20%) it did NOT come from BGR or LSC.
Kind regards,
Mick
On 20 May 2024 at 5:55 PM, Alan Laughton wrote:
Thanks Mick & Don,
The TRS-80 and Ex64 may have used the same Basic but so did 1/2 dozen other computers of the time including the Apple 2e. The TRS-80 doesn't use the AMD-3a terminal codes as does both the Ex64 & Microbee, the TRS-80 doesn't use PCG's for graphics, both Ex64 & Microbee has 128 available, the TRS-80 had no colour but both Ex64 and Microbee had 32 colours available, TRS-80 disk capacity varied but 200kb normal, while both Ex64 & Microbee used 80tr drives and both had 786kb available, the TRS-80 graphics were low-res chunky graphics, both the Ex64 and Microbee had Low-res and High-res very similar graphics modes. The list can go on and on. The ONLY similarity between a TRS-80 and the Ex64 is they both used standard Microsoft Basic.
The dates of Presidency are all in the Newsletters, that's where they come from.
The Ex64 first release was for $350 as per the advert in July 83 EA mag, it only lasted a month as the advert in August 83 it was up to $399.
If those 2 gentlemen wrote ZCPR3 then they didn't change the boot up message, as per
Cheers, Alan
On 20/05/2024 7:08 pm, bigmick58 wrote:
Hi Alan,
I didn't say Graham or Stuart WROTE ZCPR, but I thought one ported it to the E64, of course I could be wrong as I didn't even remember it when you first mentioned it.
Kind Regards,
Mick
On 21 May 2024 at 7:51 AM Don McKenzie wrote:
Hi all,
I'm considering how best to summarize all this information. I could either edit it as I did before or present it as an email exchange.
It's clear that Alan has a wealth of facts in his archives and an incredible memory to draw from. We're relying on 40+ year-old memories, with Mick being in a better position than I am I feel.
For the purpose of this exercise, let's refer to the "1977 trinity Personal computers" as the first generation of PCs. The second generation would then be the Australian-designed and produced PCs that followed. The third generation would be the IBM PC and its clones. This categorisation doesn't consider Gen-2 PCs from other countries or where the later Apple models fit in.
My question is: Why did many users of Gen-1 TRS-80s migrate to the Ex-64 Gen-2 when there were many other options, including the Microbee, to choose from?
Was it because the Ex-64 had a copy of the TRS-80 ROMs and provided a clear path for BASIC programmers?
Or the fact that it was a colour computer?
I know the Microbee came out at least 12 months before, so why didn't hobbyist such as Mick and Don go in the Microbee direction?
Don...
On 21/05/2024 9:36 am, bigmick58 wrote:
Hi Don, Alan,
For me the big attraction to going away from TRS-80/System80 was Colour.
I was 25 in 1983, I am 66 in a few months.
My first sight of the Microbee was less than impressive, I am not sure where I first saw it, possibly a computer show.
Honestly, I also don't know what I didn't like about it at the time because looking back the 'bee looks to be a great computer for its time, possibly the fact the original was a B/W build. In fact I wasn't aware that it was released in a colour version until Alan mentioned it. I chose my path at the time to try the E64.
Strangely, I look for smaller designs with my PCB designs (still packed with as many features as I can) these days but I dismissed the 'bee as a toy and that prejudice stayed with me and I never looked at it again. The same when I saw the Apple ][e clones.
I, unfairly, labelled them as toys and it stuck in my brain as such never to be revisited again.
Looking at images of the 'bee I now see a beauty that I didn't see at the time.
Possibly, I liked the E64 for its size, which I think is ugly these days, as a method to contain all the Don and Mick modifications which I knew would naturally follow.
I also looked at the sorcerer before I purchased the System80, Dick Smith sold both but I think the cost of the sorcerer was too much for a fitter and turner apprentice to afford (I think it was about $1300 compared to around $700).
Why don't we hear about the Exidy Sorcerer in the list of early PCs?
I admit to having little knowledge of its innards but I remember it had much better graphics than the TRS-80. Indeed I remember an asteroids game on it that I played for hours in DS store. That was one of your favourite games at the time but alas I could not afford it.
Anyway, I wish to thank you Alan for doing so much to record and archive early Aussie PCs, without you and your efforts these would fade into oblivion.
It is as I get older that I appreciate the earlier history that I used to leapfrog to where I am today but at each step I disposed of the old and went with the new almost as if the old never existed.
Take care
Kind Regards,
Mick
On 22/05/2024 6:09 am, Don McKenzie wrote:
I was 40 in 1983, and I remember attending all the computer shows that came up. We went with a friend, Ray Osborne, who sadly passed away around 2003. We were like the three amigos. Before his passing, Ray was building AVR programming kits, "The Little rAVeR" for Dontronics customers.
Remind me, Mick. Did we see an 8088 or was it an 8086 plug-in board for the TRS-80? You had to remove the Z80 and replace it with this new board. We certainly didn't go in that direction.
Like Mick, we knew the function of every I.C. in the TRS-80, and we saw the Excalibur in kit form as a new workbench for our adventures. Of course, the key word was "Colour." The thought of owning a Microbee never crossed my mind.
Alan and Mick:
What I would like to do is log this email exchange as part of my Excalibur historical page. I'll edit any small typos and abbreviations, but leave the basic text unaltered. If you are both OK with me using this thread on my page, please let me know.
And any closing comments?
Don...
Wed, 22 May 2024 08:03:15 bigmick58 wrote:
Hi Blokes,
Use what you wish Don. I have nothing to hide or be ashamed of (well I probably do but I haven't voiced them. Yet).
Ray passed away on Boxing Day 2002, I picked him up and brought him to my parents for Christmas lunch, little did I know that was the last time I saw him. He was 44.
That infamous moment Don, where we met a fanatic/Psycho who was ranting 8086, 8086, 8086 ad infinitum, was an 8088 plug in board that you replaced the Z80 with this plug in board to create an IBM clone of some sort. I was tempted but didn't bite, it was quite expensive and you didn't have the expansion slots that a real clone had so it was well short of ideal. I decided to break into the PC world with a "real clone" (oxymoron intended).
Take care
Kind Regards,
Mick
Wed, 22 May 2024 19:15:54 Alan Laughton wrote:
Hi Don,
I have no issues with using these emails. Go for it.
Alan
Mick Gulovsen Sun 14 Dec, 20:41 (8 hours ago)
to Don, Karl, Riley Hi Don, All, I have had a good read through and it is extremely comprehensive. The ONLY thing that is not quite correct is in these lines.Note from Alan Laughton: The Microsoft Basic was updated by L.S.C. Electronics Pty Ltd for the Extended Basic ROM from original 12k to 24k (1x16k+1x8k)LSC released the E64 as a 16k Rom set (2 x 8k). The Roms were increased from 16k to 24k with my Hires board, the extra 8k was in a 16k Rom that was bank selected in when access was required to the Hires commands that Terry Dark wrote. Extremely well done Don. Regards, Mick
Don McKenzie. 8-May-2024
My handwriting, my Genex3 Character Generator for the Excalibur.
Mick Gulovsen 10-Feb-2026
The BGR release of the Excalibur64 used a character size of 12x8 pixels, with either 64 or 128 programmable characters.
To achieve Hi-Res (properly, with drawing commands), I built the Hi-Res add-on board to increase the number of programmable characters to 1024 (or thereabouts). That meant there were enough programmable characters to fully fill the screen.
What Terry did with his software was program the 6845 display controller to use 8x16 characters, which made the software much easier and significantly faster.
To handle the graphic commands, he wrote directly into the programmable character memory. The rest was history. He added so many commands to draw boxes, circles, and arcs-complete with options for fills and even patterned fills.
It was FAST-very fast. Terry did a brilliant job on the software.
I have a feeling BGR folded before we got the Hi-Res fully up and running. I would have loved to present it to them and strike a deal to get an Excalibur64 Mk II produced. It would have been better than any other 8-bit computer out there at the time.
The Hi-Res board required removing four chips (I think it was four) from the Ex64 PCB and placing them on the Hi-Res board. It involved cutting one track (or lifting a pin if it was in a socket), plugging the Hi-Res board into the vacated sockets, and adding about seven jumper wires from the Hi-Res PCB to various spots on the Ex64 main board.
It would have been a natural progression to integrate it all into a Mk II PCB.
I hope that helps.
Regards,
Mick
