I started piling some of my imaged disks onto a big ProDOS volume for use with Virtual ][, using Glen Bredon’s DOS.MASTER, since nearly everything I’d ever done was in DOS 3.3. In the process, I came across an old text file I’d written called “Writing Drivers“. Click the link if you want to see the whole thing, but it had an interesting bit of history in it concerning the Epson QX-10. I don’t know when I wrote this, but it would have been around 1985 probably, apparently it was five months after I bought my Novation Apple-Cat ][. But, here’s some of my QX-10 cred—something that I feel a bit compelled to provide, since I (unintentionally, honest!) scooped this QX-10 from @retroearl of the Retro Computing Roundtable. The first RCR podcast to air after I bought it (but which was recorded before) contains a bunch of heartbreaking discussion of how much he wanted it and how cool it was. (Sorry! Sorry!)
But, anyway:
When I started out, i had an Epson QX-10. They are business machines that run CP/M and are not quite IBM compatibles. Since then, Epson has come out with more in the QX series, and the 10 is pretty much obsolete. Anyway, it had a Comrex ComMunicator modem, and one example program in Microsoft BASIC. I took the challenge, and developed my first "driver," if you can call it that, in Microsoft BASIC on the Epson. I continued, and developed an entire board. Shortly after, however, I had to return the QX-10 to work, since I was borrowing it from them, and they needed it back. Because of that, i got more interested in modems in general, and borrowed an old acoustic modem (compatible with the "Networker") from the school. In high hopes of buying an Apple-Cat, I developed BBS software, and a machine language driver for the networker. Finally, about five months ago as of the time of this writing, I got my Apple-Cat and converted my driver to work with the Cat.