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Microcomputers
A microcomputer differs from larger computers in that it uses a microprocessor chip and
is characterized by having its own memory, storage, input/output disks, keyboard and
monitor directly attached. Microprocessors made "personal computers" possible.
The first fully functional, powerful microcomputers made their appearance with the Alto,
developed at Xerox PARC. Although about 1,000 Alto models were made, it was not
widely marketed by Xerox. Other early microcomputers were also developed and made
available mostly in kit form. It was not until the Apple I was released did the widespread
popularity of personal computing start its rocket climb.
With some exceptions, early microcomputers such as the MICRAL, IMP-16c, Mark-8,
and Altair were sold mainly in kit form. The Apple I was highly successful, followed by
the Apple II and the Apple II+. Apple Computer also introduced the Lisa in 1983, but it
was not a major success. The IBM 5100 was its first microcomputer, but it was not a
market success. The IBM PC, introduced in 1981, was very successful in the setting the
standard in the DOS marketplace. The Macintosh, introduced by Apple in 1984,
established itself as a market success with its graphical interface and ease of use.
A Brief History of the Microprocessor
Abstract
The following article describes the evolution of the microprocessor which focused on the
technology, the companies and the people behind the invention. It begins with a brief
history before the Intel 4004, then describes the designing of the chip. It follows the
microprocessor through its iterations to RISC, parallel processing and to today's superRISC designs. (Footnoted references are indicated by a + sign.)
Background
The first Integrated Circuit(IC) was invented in late 1958 by Jack S. Kilby working for
Texas Instruments (+1). The company was an innovative manufacturer of transistors and
Kilbys first job with the company was designing micromodules (+2) for the military. This
involved connecting many germanium wafers of discrete components together by stacking
each wafer on top of one another.
Connections were made by running wires up the sides of the wafers. Kilby saw this
process as unnecessarily complicated. He realized that if a piece of germanium was
engineered properly, it could act as many components simultaneously. Thus the first IC
was born. A year later (+3), Fairchild Semiconductor (founded in 1957), a division of
Fairchild Camera & Instrument Corporation invented the modern silicon diffusing
process, or planar process which is still used today. The IC process gradually evolved over
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the next ten years including moving the development process over to computer aided
design in 1967 (+4).
In June 1968, Robert Noyce (who had helped in developing Fairchild's silicon process),
Gordon Moore and Andrew Grove resigned from Fairchild and founded their own
company. Intel (short for Integrated Electronics) was born. The departure of the three
men was significant not least because Robert Noyce was a co-founder and vice president
of Fairchild.
The reason behind the departure was the skepticism of the Fairchild managers towards
the future of the integrated circuit. Thus Fairchild's subsidiary semiconductor operation
resented the managers as they felt the invention had a great deal to offer.
The Reasons Behind Producing an Integrated CPU.
Busicom, a trading name of a now defunct Japanese company called ETI, was planning a
range of next generation programmable calculators.Busicom had designed 12 chips and
asked Intel to produce them. This was as a result of Intel's expertise with high transistor
count chips. Marcian Hoff Jr. was assigned to the project and after studying the designs
concluded its complexity far exceeded the usefulness of a calculator. Hoff was able to
contrast the design with the DEC Program Data Processor 8 (PDP-8). The PDP-8 had a
relatively simple architecture, yet could perform very high level operations. Hoff realized
a general purpose processor would be a simpler design, yet able to handle a greater
number of tasks. The MCS-4 chipset and in particular, the 4004 integrated CPU were
thus conceived. In 1969 Busicom chose Intel's "Microcomputer on a chip" (+5) (the word
microprocessor wasn't used until 1972) (+6) over its own 12 chip design. Busicom's
contract with Intel stated Busicom had exclusive rights to buy the new chip set (CPU,
ROM, RAM, I/O), however Intel agreed with Busicom in 1971 that in exchange for
cheaper chip prices, Intel would have full marketing rights enabling them to sell the chips
to whoever wanted to buy.
Intel CPU Design to the 8086
In late 1969, after the 4004 instruction set had been defined, Computer Terminals
Corporation (CTC) asked Intel to develop an LSI registers chip for a new intelligent
terminal they were developing. Due to experience with the 4004 and the furious pace of
development within the industry, Stan Mazor(who had helped on the 4004) and Hoff
agreed that they would put the complete processor on one chip. The 8008, an 8 bit
processor was defined and work began immediately. The chip was rejected by CTC as it
required many support chips (a minimum of 20 TTL packages for memory and I/O) and
was too slow. Chip design continued in parallel to the MCS-4 and in April 1972 the 45
instruction CPU was launched.
The chip became a great success. Intel looked at the CTC rejection of the 8008 and
realized they had to make a general purpose processor requiring only a handful of
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support chips. The Intel 8080 was born in April 1974 even though it was announced
earlier. Intel did this to give customers sufficient lead times to design the chip into their
products. The 8080 had 4,500 transistors, twice the number in the 4004 and could address
64K bytes of memory. Its speed was mainly down to the use of electron doped technology
as opposed to hole doped MOS transistors. The chip was an astounding success and
became and industry standard, emulated by other companies.
In 1978, Intel produced its first 16 bit processor, the 8086. It was source compatible with
the 8080 and 8085 (an 8080 derivative). This chip has probably had more effect on the
present day computer market than any other, although whether this is justified is
debatable; the chip was compatible with the 4 year old 8080 and this meant it had to use a
most unusual overlapping segment register process to access a full 1 Megabyte of
memory.
The Early Years: Not Just Intel
Although Intel had invented the microprocessor and had grown from a three man startup in 1968 to an industrial giant by 1981 with 20,000 employees and revenues of $188
million (+7), they were not the only company developing microprocessors. By July 1974,
19 microprocessors were either available or announced (+8). By 1975, that number
increased to 40 and by 1976 it was 54. Late 1972 saw the second ever processor, with
Rockwells PPS-4, a 4 bit processor. Another 4 bit processor, the Texas Instruments TMS
1000 was introduced on the market in 1974, although it had been designed in 1971. This
was around the same time as Intel's 4004, but TI failed to realize the potential, and left the
TMS 1000 to spend its first three years controlling a Texas Instruments calculator.
Surprisingly, the TMS 1000 was also the first microcontroller, as it contained its own
RAM and ROM on chip.
By the late 1970s, the cost of the chip had fallen to a few dollars, and had become the
processor of choice for consumer electronics. It was being produced in over forty variants
and sold in the hundreds of millions. The staggering development in the field was also
exemplified in 1974 by the National Semiconductor Processing And Control Element
(PACE). National was a Fairchild offshoot and thus had a large skills base. Unfortunately,
the chip was designed using hole doped MOS transistors. This resulted in a third of the
speed of the chip if instead it had been designed using electron doping.
Clones
Due to the success of the Intel 8008, Zilog and Motorola produced competing chips.
Motorola realized the potential of the microprocessor after seeing the 8008. In mid 1974
they launched the 6800, a processor in the same market as the 8080. Motorola launched
the 6800 with a wide variety of support in the way of system oriented hardware. This
integration proved a major factor in the popularity of the 6800, as it did not have Intel
compatibility to fall back on. Popular as the chip was, it fell well short of a derivative
designed by a group of engineers who left Motorola to begin their own company. MOS
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Technologies delivered their 6800 - influenced processor, the 6502 in 1975.
The 6502 was successful due to simple design, single power line and cheapness. It became
a favorite for the emerging small home computer businesses including Apple,
Commodore and Acorn. Being a simple yet powerful design it was able to hold its own
against the later designed and more powerful Z80. As a result, it had an influence on the
concept of Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) and especially the Acorn ARM
processor.
The Zilog chip, the Z80 was significant in that it was compatible with the 8080 yet added
80 more instructions. However this compatibility was not unexpected as Zilog was
founded by engineers who had left Intel. Two of those engineers were Frederico Faggin
and Masatoshi Shima who had designed the 4004 and 8080 for Intel. The Zilog (an
acronym in which the Z stands for "the last word," the "i" for integrated and "log" for
logic) Z80 was a very powerful processor including on-chip dynamic memory refresher
circuits. This enabled system designers such as Sir Clive Sinclair (+9) to produce
computers with very little extra circuitry and hence at very little cost.
A year after Intel produced their first 16 bit processor, Motorola introduced another
influential and long lived chip, the 68000. It was able to address a massive 16 megabytes
and was able, through intricate internal circuitry to act like a 32 bit processor internally.
The chip found fame in the Macintosh, Amiga and Atari personal computers.
A new philosophy - RISC
Most commentators see RISC as a modern concept, more akin to the 1990s, yet it can be
traced to 1965 and Seymour Cray's CDC (Control Data Corporation) 6600. RISC design
emphasizes simplicity of processor instruction set, enabling sophisticated architectural
techniques to be employed to increase the speed of those instructions. A classic example is
the VAX architecture where the INDEX instruction was 45% to 60% faster when
replaced by simpler VAX instructions. The CDC 6600 has many RISC features including
a small instruction set of only 64 op codes, a load/store architecture and register to
register operations. Also, instructions weren't variable lengths, but 15 or 30 bits long.
Although the term RISC was not used, IBM formalized these principles in the IBM
801(1975), an Emitter Coupled Logic (ECL) multichip processor. The architecture
featured a small instruction set, load/store memory operations only, 24 registers and
pipelining (+10).
When RISC became popular in the late eighties, IBM tried to market the design as the
Research OPD (Office Products Division) Mini Processor (ROMP) CPU, but it wasn't
successful. The chip eventually became the heart of the I/O processor for the IBM 3090.
The term RISC first came from one of two University research projects in the USA. The
Berkeley RISC 1 formed the basis for the commercial Scalable (formerly Sun) Processor
Architecture (SPARC) processor, whilst Stanford University's Microprocessor (+11)
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without Interlocked Pipeline Stages (MIPS) processor was commercialized and is now
owned by Silicon Graphics Inc. The Berkeley RISC I was begun by David A. Patterson
and his colleagues in 1980. He had returned from a sabbatical at Digital Equipment
Corporation in 1979 and had been contemplating the difficulties surrounding the
designing of a CPU containing the VAX architecture. He submitted a paper to Computer
on the subject, but it was rejected on the grounds of a poor use of silicon. The rejection
made Patterson wonder what a good use of silicon was. This led him"down the RISC
path" (+12).
The RISC I, II and SPARC families are unusual in that they feature register windows. A
concept where a CPU has only a few registers visible to the programmer, but that set can
be exchanged for another set, or window when the programmer chooses. This was
intended to provide a very low subroutine overhead, by facilitating fast context switches.
It was later acknowledged that a clever compiler can produce code for non-windowed
machines which was nearly as efficient as a windowed processor. Windowing is difficult to
implement on a processor, so the concept did not become popular on other architectures.
Around the mid-eighties, the term RISC became somewhat of a buzzword. Intel applied
the term to its 80486 processor although it was clearly nothing of the sort. Steve
Przybylski, a designer on the Stanford MIPS project satirizes this in his definition of
RISC. 'RISC: any computer announced after 1985' (+13).
Around the time the results of the Stanford and Berkeley projects were released, a small
UK home computer firm, Acorn was looking for a processor to replace the 6502 used in
its present line of computers. Their review of commercial microprocessors including the
popular 8086 and 68000 concluded that they were not advanced enough, so in 1983 began
their own project to design a RISC microprocessor. The result, ARM (Advanced RISC
Machine, formerly Acorn RISC Machine) is probably the closest to true RISC of any
processor available.
Parallelism- The Transputer
In 1979, Inmos was formed by the British government to produce innovative silicon based
products competing on the world stage. The formation was partly in response to the
increasing dominance of the market by the USA and the need to provide the UK with
manufacturing facilities. During the summer of 1980, Inmos were working on its first
microprocessor, however events were not smooth with two engineers having inflexible
positions over their idea of the architecture for this microprocessor. David May who had
been recruited from Warwick University and Robert Milne who had come from Scicon, a
specialist company producing complex computer programs were the engineers.Milne felt
that the Transputer, the name given for the Inmos chip, should be the first chip in the
world specially tailored to run Ada. He felt this was the future of micro- processor design
which was in strict contrast to May and Tony Hoare. Hoare was an academic guru from
Warwick where he had worked with May and shared a simplistic approach to the
Transputer design. Iann Barron, who had been the driving force behind Inmos became
tired of this rambling and forced his view on the team.His views happened to encompass
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those of May but he also envisaged the multiplicity of individual processors all working
concurrently (+14). The transputer came to market in 1985 as the T-212, a 16 bit initial
version with a RISC like instruction set. Each chip uniquely had 4 serial links which
enabled the microprocessor to be connected to other Transputers in a network. In 1994,
the T-9000 was launched. It is a design optimized for use in parallel computers using a
systolic array configuration.
The SuperRISCs
In 1988, DEC formed a small team that would develop a new architecture for the
company. Eleven years previously, it had moved from the PDP-11 to the VAX
architecture, but it was seen that it would start lagging behind by the early 1990s. The
project turned out to be huge with more than 30 engineering groups in 10 countries
working on the Alpha AXP architecture as it came to be known (+15).
The team were given a fabulous design opportunity; an architecture that would take DEC
into the 21st century. To accommodate the 15-25 year life span of the processor, they
looked back over the previous 25 years and concluded a 1000 fold increase in computing
power occurred. They envisaged the same for the next 25 years, and so they concluded
that their designs would, in the future, be run at 10 times the clock speed, 10 times the
instruction issue rate, (10 times superscalar) and 10 processors working together in a
system. To enable the processor to run multiple operating systems efficiently, they took a
novel approach and placed interrupts, exceptions, memory management and error
handling into code called PALcode (Privileged Architecture Library) which had access to
the CPU hardware in a way which microcode normally has. This enables the Alpha to be
unbiased toward a particular computing style.
The Alpha architecture was chosen to be RISC but crucially focused on pipelining and
multiple instruction issue rather than traditional RISC features such as condition codes
and byte writes to memory, as these slow down the former techniques. The chip was
released in 1992 and in that year entered the Guinness Book of Records as the world's
fastest single-chip microprocessor. While the Alpha attempts to increase instruction speed
by simplifying the architecture and concentrating on clock speed and multiple issue, the
PowerPC from IBM and Motorola is the antithesis to this. The PowerPC was born out of
the needs of IBM and Motorola to develop a high performance workstation CPU. Apple,
another member of the PowerPC alliance needed a CPU to replace the Motorola 680x0 in
its line of Macintosh computers. The PowerPC is an evolution of IBMs Performance
Optimized with Enhanced RISC (POWER) multichip processors. Motorola contributed
the bus interface from their 88110 microprocessor.
Conclusion
The microprocessor has become a formidable force in computing. From a humble
beginning as a concept of reducing the price of a calculator to high powered, uniprocessor
and multiprocessor machines in only two and a half decades is astounding pace. Like most
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classic inventions, its early years belong firmly to the start-ups and pre-pubescent
companies. These didn't have the baggage of the established companies and grew quickly.
However, the mid 1980s saw a changeover, mainly due to the spiralling cost of research
into process technologies and the greater man-hours needed to implement hundreds of
thousand transistors design. This was headed by Motorola, Intel, IBM and DEC. It is now
acknowledged that the RISC concept is the superior architectural concept and all the
forementioned companies have leading designs using RISC.
The microprocessor was originally designed for a calculator, yet in recent years it has
found its way into a multitude of designs. A seemingly exponential growth curve for
applications has occurred. From cars to personal computers, televisions to telephones, the
microprocessor proliferates, and the growth curve shows no signs of abating. This essay
shows just part of the large history of the microprocessor and the path designs took.
There are many other fields where the microprocessor has made a huge impact, not least
in the low cost market, which deserve to be investigated further.
Microprocessor Chips: Intel
MICROPROCESSOR
YEAR
SPEED
WORD LENGTH
TRANSISTORS MIPS
Intel 4004
1969
108 KHz
4-bit
2,300
.06
Intel 8008
1972
200 KHz
8-bit
3,500
.06
Intel 8080
1974
2 MHz
8-bit
6,000
.64
Intel 8086
1978
4.47 MHz
16-bit
29,000
.66
Intel 8088
1981
4.47 MHz
16-bit
29,000
.75
Intel 80286
1982
12 MHz
16-bit
134,000
2.66
Intel 80386
1985
16-33 MHz
32-bit
275,000
4
Intel 80486 (i486)
1989
20-100 MHz
32-bit
1.2 Million
70
Intel 80586 (Pentium)
1993
75-200 MHz
32-bit
3.3 Million
126 - 203
Intel Pentium Pro
1995
150-200 MHz
32-bit
5.5 Million
300
Intel Pentium MMX
1997
166-233 MHz
32-bit
4.5 Million
-
Intel Pentium II
1997
233-450 MHz
32-bit
7.5 Million
-
Intel Pentium III
1999
450-933 MHz
32-bit
Over 9.5 Million -
1 GHz
64-bit
15,000,000
Intel Itanium Processor
2000
(formerly Merced Processor)
1,200
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Pentium, Pentium Pro, MMX, Itanium, Merced are all copyrighted by Intel
Corporation
Computer Processing Speed
Computer processing speed depends on a variety of factors. Three of the most important factors are:
Word length (the number of bits that can be processed at one time by the microprocessor)
Cycle Speed (how fast individual events are processed, measured in Megahertz)
Data Bus Width (determines how much data can be transferred between the CPU and memory)
Other factors Include:
RAM (amount of available random access memory)
Disk Access Speed (speed that data can be read from hard disk)
Code Efficiency (how efficiently the computer code has been designed)
Chip - Intel 8088 Microprocessor and support chips (1981)
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Intel's historic 16-bit microprocessor containing 29,000 transistors (top left)
Shown is a D8088 CPU and set of 8 chips that represent the first generation of
support chips for the 8080, 8086, and 8088. All the chips are date coded from the
late seventies to the early eighties. The chips included are as follows:
The 8088 CPU chip - 8/16-bit Central Processing Unit (the Brains)
The 8212 Latch chip - Latch Device (temporary storage of 8-bit of information, usually
used between interfaces)
The 8216 chip - Bus driver (used to interface to the system bus)
The 8218 Bus (8080) Interface chip - used to interface to the system bus, this was used
with 8080 CPU's
The 8257 DMA chip - Direct Memory Access (coordinated applications/devices using direct
access to memory, off-loading CPU)
The 8259 Interrupt Controller chip - used to manage interrupts from I/O devices
The 8273 chip - HDLC Protocol Controller (used for HDLC/SDLC communications)
The 8274 chip - Multi-protocol Controller (used for communications)
The 8275 chip - CRT Controller (used to manage the computer's display device)
These are all the chips that might have found their way onto a computer
motherboard or support cards that used the 8080/8088 CPU's.
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Early Microcomputer Chronology
Includes single-board computers, home computers, microcomputer kits, etc. Some dates
are approximate. List is not all-inclusive and not in exact order of appearance.
Computer or Technology Event
Year
General Information
Linc
1962
The Linc (developed at Lincoln Labs) was the first
desktop microcomputer with a keyboard and screen. It
was designed for use by biomedical technicians in
around 1962. About 2,000 of these were made. It was
probably a dedicated function microcomputer rather
than a general purpose machine. (Ref: "Doing with
Images Makes Symbols" video taped lecture by Dr. Alan
Kay).
Early work with windows displays, mouse pointing
device and interactive computing.
1964
Dr. Douglas Engelbart and the Augumentation Research
Center
First commercial microchip, the Intel 4004.
1970
Intel produces the 1101 (256 by 1 bit) programmable
memory chip, and the 1702 (256 by 8 bit) EPROM. Intel
markets the 8008 microprocessor for $200.
1971
MITS 816
1972
National Semiconductor introduces the IMP-15 chip set.
1972
MICRAL R2E, France
1973
IMP-16C by National Semiconductor
1973
A single board computer ("SBC")
SCELBI-8H
1973
SCELBI stood for "SCientific, ELectronic, and
BIological" computer. The SCELBI microcomputer,
introduced in late 1973 from SCELBI Computer
Consulting, Inc., of Milford, Connecticut, was based on
the Intel 8008 microprocessor and was available in kit
form. Several hundred were sold at about $500 each, but
it did not become a big market success.
Gary Kildall develops CP/M operating system
1973
Intel introduces the 8080 microprocessor
1973
Motorola introduces the 6800 microprocessor
1973
Altair microcomputer by MITS
1974
The 816 was available from MITS in 1972. It was probably
the first programmable, general purpose digital personal
computer. About 8,000 were sold.
Announced in 1974, the Altair was the first successful
commercially-marketed and mass-produced personal
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computer. The Altair sold for about $395 in kit form and
about $650 assembled. The Altair also introduced the
Altair Bus (later known as the "S-100 Bus") which was
also used in many other microcomputers that followed
the Altair's blazed trail..
About 5,000 Altair 8800 units were sold by the end of
1975, and a total of about 10,000 were sold in the first
two years. The Altair is featured on the cover of the
January 1975 issue of "Popular Electronics" under the
heading "World's First Minicomputer Kit to Rival
Commercial Models."
The Altair needed a method for users to write programs
for it. Bill Gates and Paul Allen became aware of the
Altair and developed a BASIC interpreter for it and sold it
to MITS. Allen went to work for MITS, while Bill Gates
went on to develop other software. They later founded
Microsoft Corporation.
Mark 8 microcomputer by Jonathan Titus
1974
The Mark-8 was based on Intel's 8008 microprocessor. It
was described in an article by Jonathan Titus in the July
1974 issue of "Radio-Electronics" magazine. It was
estimated that about 500 experimenters built a Mark-8
type device.
The "Micro-8 Newsletter" was started in September 1974
by Hal Singer as a way for experimenters building the
Mark-8 to communicate and share experiences.
Apple I Computer by Jobs & Wozniac
1975
Apple Computer, Inc. of Cupertino, California, was the
largest of the early microcomputer pioneers and the
most successful in terms of rapid growth. Apple
Computer produced the Apple, Apple II, Apple II+ and
many others. The Apple I was announced at the
Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto, California, in
1975. The Apple I board was based on the 6502
processor and sold for $666.66.
Altair 680
1975
MITS Altair 680. The Altair 680 was introduced in
December 1975. The Altair 680 was based on the 6800
microprocessor chip, and came with its own power
supply, front panel control board and CPU, all in a case
measuring about 11 inches wide, by 11 inches deep, by 4
and 11/16 inches high.
The Altair 680 came with 1024 words of memory, a builtin interface for RS232, or 20mA or 60mA Teletype. The
Altair 680 was advertised as having a 4 microsecond
cycle time, 16-bit addressing and the capability of
addressing 65,000 words of memory, and provision for
1024 words of ROM or PROM. Software available
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included an assembler, debugger and editor.
The Altair 680 sold fully assembled for $420. It also sold
in kit form for $345. Anyone who bought an Altair 680
was also given one year free membership in the Altair
Users Group, probably one of the largest microcomputer user groups in existence at the time.
IMSAI 8080 by IMS Associates
1975
The IMSAI 8080 was available in December 1975 from
IMS Associates, Inc., of San Leandro, California. The
IMSAI used the Intel 8080A processor and the S-100 bus.
It was available in kit form for about $439 and in fully
assembled form for about $621.
The IMSAI 8080 came in a heavy gauge aluminum
cabinet with a lucite display panel, front switches, LED
indicators, and a 24 amp, 8 volt power supply. It came
with 256 bytes of RAM. I\O boards, floppy disk drives,
printers and other peripherals were optional.IMS also
provided Altair 8080 users with the ability to plug their
Altair MPU cards into the IMSAI 8080 box and run them
in parallel with the IMSAI 8080.
MIKE 2 & MIKE 3 by Martin Research
1975
Challenger II
1975
Challenger II was a dual drive floppy disk system with
16K of RAM and came with DOS and BASIC on the
diskettes. It sold for $1,964 fully assembled. Ohio
Scientific Instrument Company (OSI), of Hiram, Ohio .
Sphere 1, Sphere Corporation
1975
Sphere microcomputers were available (1975-1977) from
Sphere Corporation of Bountiful, Utah.
The Sphere 1 was built around a Motorola 6800
microprocessor chip, included a real-time clock, 4K of
dynamic memory, 1K of PROM software, a 512 character
video display, ASCII keyboard, and power supply. The
Sphere 1 sold in kit form for $860, and fully assembled
for $1,400.
SwTPC 6800 microcomputer
1975
The SwTPC 6800 microcomputer was based on the
Motorola MC6800 processor and was available in kit
form in 1975 for around $450. Several models were
available. Southwest Technical Products.
Jupiter II
1975
The Jupiter II microcomputer was available from Wave
Mate Company, of Gardena, California. The Jupiter II was
based on the MC 6800 microprocessor, 8K RAM, RS-232
interface, front and side panels, manuals, and power
supply. The Jupiter could interface with a TV for use as a
monitor.
Software included System Monitor, Debug (in ROM), text
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editor, assembler and BASIC. The Jupiter II was
available in KIT form for $1,225 or fully assembled for
$1,885.
RGS-008A microcomputer kit by RGS Electronics
Alto by Xerox PARC
1975
1975/76
In 1973, scientists and engineers working at Xerox PARC
came up with a concept for the first fully-functional
personal computer, the "Alto."
The Alto was the first microcomputer to have included a
monitor, keyboard, and CPU as a complete system. The
Alto, developed and operational by 1975/76 used 128K
RAM, had a removable 2.5 Mb hard disk and could be
connected to an Ethernet network.
The Alto was seen by Xerox executives as being too
expensive to have broad public acceptance and they
underestimated the high level of interest that personal
computing would eventually have with the general
public. For this reason, the Alto was not widely marketed
by Xerox and only about 2,000 were made.
The Alto computer was distributed within Xerox and to
certain government agencies. Some of Xerox's
employees at its Palo Alto Research Center, where the
Alto technology was developed, left to join a new
company, Apple Computer. Apple was designing a
computer with graphical interface similar to the
concepts studied at Xerox PARC.
Altair 8800a
1976
The Altair 8800a was available by October 1976. It was a
parallel 8-bit word/16-bit address computer, based on
the 8080 LSI chip. The Altair 8800a had an 18 slot
motherboard, 36 front panel LED indicators, power
supply, and internal cooling fan.
Altair 8800b
1976
The Altair 8800b was built around the 8080A
microprocessor, and was fully compatible with all the
Altair 8800 software. The Altair 8800b added
improvements to the case, and increased power supply,
and five new functions on the PROM:
(1) Display Accumulator; (2) Load Accumulator; (3)
Output Accumulator (to IO device); (4) Input
Accumulator (from IO device); (5) Slow (slows program
execution for debugging)
The Altair 8800b also included an Intel 8224 clock
generator and a 8216 bus driver. The 8800b was
available in October/November 1976.
IBM 5100 microcomputer
1976
IBM produced a microcomputer in 1976 called the IBM
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5100. It came with 16K RAM expandable to 64K. It came
with a built-in 16 line video display, keyboard, and tape
drives. It weighed about 50 pounds and cost over $8,000.
This was IBM's first microcomputer. It was not
successful in the marketplace.
INTERSIL
1976
Polymorphic 88
1976
PolyMorphic Systems of California (Goleta and
Santa Barbara) produced the "Micro-Altair"
microcomputer (1976). The Micro-Altair was designed to
be compatible with Altair software and peripherals. The
Micro-Altair was later re-named the "Poly-88"
(Polymorphic 88).
Micro-Altair (PolyMorphic 88) (1976)
The Micro-Altair was based on the 8080 microprocessor
and included 512 bytes of RAM. It could hold multiple
processor boards in its case. It required a TV monitor
and keyboard to operate. It sold for about $475,
including cabinet and power supply.
Zilog introduces the Z-80 microprocessor
1976
MOS Technology introduces the 6502 microprocessor
1976
AMT 2650
1976
Applied Microtechnology (AMT)
The AMT 2650 used the Signetics 2650 microprocessor
and was available in 1976. It cost about $200 fully
assembled.
Texas Instruments introduced the TMS9900 and
TMS9980 single chip, microprocessors
1976
Epic 2
1976
The Epic 2 was a single board microcomputer from
Burkeshire Systems of Mountain View, California (1976).
The Epic 2 was based on a 2 MHz 8080 microprocessor,
256 byte PROM, 2k of RAM, 16 general purpose I/O lines,
and software. Software included Monitor, Text Editor,
Game of Life, and Blackjack. The Epic came with a
keyboard, but the tape unit, video display and other
peripherals were optional. The Epic 2 K was the kit
version, which sold for $495. The assembled Epic 2 sold
for $775.
MicroNOVA
1976
Data General also produced the MicroNOVA, a
microcomputer with up to 32 K of memory. The
MicroNOVA was introduced in 1976.
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Xitan Alpha 1
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1976
Xitan Alpha 2
Technical Design Labs of Princeton, New Jersey
produced the Xitan microcomputers, based on the Z-80
microprocessor.
The Alpha 1 utilized the Xitan ZPU board and System
Monitor Board. It came in an aluminum case and
required separate monitor and keyboard. It was available
for $769 in kit form or $1,039 assembled. (1976)
The Xitan Alpha 2 was similar to the Alpha 1, but added a
Z16 memory module and Xitan packaged software. It
came with 18K RAM, 2K ROM, 2 serial I/O ports, 1
parallel I/O port, and a 1200 baud audio cassette
interface. It was available as a kit for $1,369 or fully
assembled for $1,749 (1976).
SDK-80 microcomputer kit
1976
Intel Corporation of Santa Clara, California, produced the
SDK-80 microcomputer kit in 1976. The SDK utilized the
8080 microprocessor, and consisted of a computer
circuit board and all the components to build a
functioning microcomputer (without the monitor or other
peripherals). It sold for about $350.
Challenger 65-1K
1976
Challenger 65-1K, fully assembled, 6502A
microprocessor, serial interface, 1,024 words of memory.
Cost was $439 (1976).
ETC-1000
1976
The ETC-1000 was produced by the Electronic Tool
Company of Hawthorne, California (1976). The ETC
microcomputer was based on the 502 microprocessor
chip, and included a 40 key keyboard, programmable 8
digit display, I/O interfaces, power supply, 1024 bytes of
RAM, and 256 bytes of PROM (including assembler).
The ETC-1000 came in a sharp looking square type
cabinet, with the "Electronic Tool Company" label and
the words "Etcetera System" on the front panel.
Astral 2000
1976
The Astral 2000 was produced by M&R Enterprises of
Sunnyvale, California, in 1976. The Astral 2000 came
with power supply, 8k RAM, 6800 micro- processor, and
cabinet enclosure. It also came with its own version of
BASIC, called "Astral BASIC."
There was an optional I/O tape interface unit for $49, and
floppy disk unit for about $1,000. Additional 8k RAM
boards were $245 each.
The Astral 2000 microcomputer was available in partially
assembled form for $995, and fully assembled for $1,250.
Commodore "PET"
1977
Commodore was founded in 1954 by Jack Tramiel and
Manny Kapp as Commodore Portable Typewriter
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Company, a typewriter repair business. Commodore
branched into adding machines and typewriters by 1956
and changed its name to "Commodore Business
Machines." In the 1970's, Commodore acquired MOS
Technology, a maker of computer chips. Commodore
also produced hand-held electronic calculators starting
in the early 1970's, such as the Commodore Minuteman
3.
Jack Tramiel took Commodore into the microcomputer
business and introduced the Commodore PET (Personal
Electronic Transactor) in January 1977.
Apple II Computer
1977
The Apple II was announced in 1977 and sold for $1,298.
The Apple II utilized the 6502, 1 MHz microprocessor, 4K
RAM expandable to 48K, 8K ROM expandable to 12K, 8
slot motherboard, 1,500 bps cassette interface, Apple
game I/O connector, ASCII keyboard port, on-board
speaker, and was compatible with a color TV for a
monitor. Apple added a disk drive in 1978, and VisiCalc
software was available by October 1979. The Apple II
computer was a huge success. Sales of Apple II
computers exceeded $900 million by 1983.
IMSAI PCS 80
1977
The IMSAI PCS-80, introduced in 1977, was a S-100 bus,
3 MHz, 8080 compatible microcomputer. It came with
2.5K, expandable with 4K, 16K, 32K, or 64K expansion
boards. It came with 3K ROM, 28 amp power supply and
full keyboard. It supported CP/M and a FORTRAN IV
compiler.
Challenger II
1977
Challenger II was a dual drive floppy disk system with
16K of RAM and came with DOS and BASIC on the
diskettes. It sold for $1,964 fully assembled (December
1977).
Challenger III
1977
Challenger III was a 32K, triple processor machine
compatible with 6502A, 6800 and Z-80 programs. It came
with dual drive floppy disks and sold for $3,481 fully
assembled (December 1977).
Heathkit H8 microcomputer
1977
The H8 was based on the 8080 microprocessor. The H8
system included a video monitor, cassette
recorder/player and 4K memory. It sold for $1,244
(December 1977). In 1978, a two-drive 5-1/4 inch (100K
capacity per drive) single density floppy disk subsystem
was added to the H8 line. To manage the new add-on,
Heath hired J. Gordon Letwin to design and write a
proprietary operating system, HDOS, for the hardware.
The original H-8 system was based on the 8080
microprocessor, but when CP/M was introduced in 1981,
a board using Zilog's Z-80 chip and a new monitor ROM
was available. This allowed the system to run either
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HDOS or CP/M.
Versatile 2
1977
Computer Data Systems of Wilmington, Delaware,
offered the Versatile 2 microcomputer in late 1977. The
Versatile 2 was a Z-80 based machine, with 16K RAM,
serial and parallel I/O ports, a built in video display
screen and a Shugart floppy disk drive.
The Versatile 2 software included BASIC, accounting
software, Star Trek, Star Wars, and Blackjack games.
The Versatile 2 sold for $2,495 fully assembled.
North Star Horizon-1
1977
The North Star Horizon-1 was built around a Z80A
microprocessor, operating at 4 MHz, and included 16K
RAM, diskette drive, 12-slot S100 motherboard, BASIC
and the North Star Operating System. It sold in kit form
for $1,599, and fully assembled for $1,899 (December
1977). The Horizon case came with either a wood grain
case, or blue metal case. Northstar claimed that by 1983,
over 30,000 Horizons were still in use.
North Star Horizon-2
1977
The North Star Horizon-2 was similar to the Horizon-1,
but included additional memory boards and a second
diskette drive. It sold in kit form for $1,999 and fully
assembled for $2,349 (December 1977).
TRS 80 ("Tandy-Radio Shack" model 80)
1977
The Tandy Corporation was founded in 1927 as the
Hinckley-Tandy Leather Company. The founders were
Dave Tandy and Norton Hinckley. Dave Tandy's son built
the company into a large consumer electronics firm and
changed the name in 1961 to Tandy Corporation. Tandy
purchased Electronics Craft of Fort Worth, Texas, in
1962. In 1963, Tandy gained controlling interest in Radio
Shack and acquired its nine stores. Radio Shack became
a division of Tandy Corporation. The company named its
personal computer line "TRS" for"Tandy-Radio Shack."
In 1977, Tandy introduced its personal computer the
TRS-80, which sold for about $400. The TRS-80 got its
name from "Tandy Radio Shack" Z-80 Computer. Radio
Shack sold about 200,000 TRS 80 model I machines.
They followed this with the TRS-80 Model II and the
Model III. They ran Radio Shack's proprietary operating
system "TRSDOS."
Cosmac VIP by RCA
1977
Epson EX-1 microcomputer (Japan)
1978
Atari 400
1978
RCA briefly got back into the microcomputer business in
around 1977, with the COSMAC microcomputers and the
RCA COSMAC SuperElf in 1978.
The Atari 400 home computer came with 16K of RAM and
10K of ROM. The model 400 used typewriter-style
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keyboard, with pressure-sensitive wipe-clean keyboard
panel. It had 57 alphanumeric keys and four special
function keys. It could support color, sound, inverse
video, full-screen editing, and four-way cursor control.
The Atari 400 used the 6502B microprocessor and had a
.56 microsecond cycle and 1.8 MHz clock speed.
The 400 weighed just under 6 pounds and plugged into a
television set for display. It was introduced in 1978. It
cost about $500, later reduced to about $340 (1982).
Atari 800
1978
The 800 used the 6502 processor, had 8K RAM
expandable to 48K, could access external cassette
player or floppy drives. It was announced in 1978,
although it did not ship until later. It weighed under 10
pounds and cost about $999.
KIM
1978
The KIM-1 was a single-board microcomputer. It came
with 1K of RAM and two 6530 ROM-RAM-I/O combination
chips equivalent to about 2K of ROM. The KIM-1 used a
23 key keyboard, six LEDs, and could interface with a
standard cassette recorder or a teletype machine.
The KIM-1 came assembled for about $245 (up to
November 1978). The price was later dropped to a
competitive $179.95.
The KIM-1 was originally produced by MOS Technology,
which later became part of Commodore. Rockwell
International later marketed the KIM-1. Syntertek later
produced an improved version called the SYM-1 which
had additional features.
Cromemco Z-2D
1978
The Z-2D microcomputer included a 5 inch floppy disk
drive, 4 MHz CPU, 1K 2708 PROM with bootstrap
Monitor, RS-232 interface, a Fortran IV compiler, BASIC,
and Z-80 assembler. The Z-2D was an upgrade to the Z-2
computer. The Z-2D was available by January 1978, and
sold for $1,495 in kit form, or $2,095 fully assembled.
Challenger C3-B
1978
The C3-B was offered in February 1978. It came with a 74
Mb Winchester disk drive, triple processor CPU (6502A,
6800, Z-80), Extended BASIC, 48K of RAM, OS-65U
operating system. It was designed to be a powerful small
business computer. The system, including a CRT, sold
for $13,000.
APF PeCos I
1978
APF Electronics, Inc. of New York City, produced a
variety of electronic and computer devices. The PeCos
("PErsonal COmputing System") utilized a 60-key
keyboard, 9 inch CRT display monitor and built-in
cassette deck. It came with 16K RAM and sold for $1,695
in 1978.
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Sinclair MK XIV microcomputer (U.K.)
1978
Digital Systems Micro-2
1978
Apple III by Apple
1979
AIM by Rockwell
1979
Digital Systems of Oakland, California, produced the
Micro-2, based on the Z-80 microprocessor, and came
with 32K RAM, four RS-232 serial interfaces, two Shugart
floppy drives, and ran the CP/M operating system. The
Digital Systems Micro-2 sold fully assembled for $4,995
(February 1978)
Rockwell produced the AIM 65 microcomputer which
came with an on-board thermal printer and small 20
character alphanumeric display. It came with a full sized
keyboard, R6500 programming manual, R6500 hardware
manual, ROM resident debugger and monitor, and
TTY/audio cassette I/O interfaces.
The Rockwell AIM 65 came assembled and tested. The
1K RAM model sold for $395. The 4K RAM model sold for
$445. (1980)
Altos SunSeries ASC 8000
1979
Altos Computer Systems, Santa Clara, California,
produced the Sun-Series ACS 8000-6 microcomputer in
1979-1980. The ACS 8000-6 was advertised as a Z80
double-density computer with up to 208K of high speed
RAM, two 8 inch floppy disk drives, 14.5 Winchester hard
disk, and support for four independent CP/M programs,
in such languages as BASIC, COBOL, FORTRAN, Pascal,
APL, and C.
The Altos ACS 8000-6 was available for $9,450 for a
single-user version, and about $11,900 for a four-user
version.
Zenith-Heath Z-89 Microcomputer
1979
The Z-89 came with keyboard, monitor, CPU, 48K
memory expandable to 64K, one built-in floppy disk
drive and two serial ports. It ran the CP/M operating
system. It was introduced in 1979 and sold for about
$2,895. In 1981, Heath/Zenith added CP/M to its product
line and modified the Z-89 hardware so that it could boot
up with either HDOS (Heath DOS) or CP/M.
Chieftain I, Chieftain II
1979
Smoke Signal Broadcasting, Inc., of Westlake Village,
California produced the Chieftain microprocessors.
The Chieftain I was based on the 6800 microprocessor,
came with 32K RAM, expandable to 64K, two serial I/O
ports, a 2 MHz processor board and 2K RAM monitor. It
came in a leather-grained cabinet with cooling fan, two
5-1/4 inch diskette drives and power supply. Chieftain II
had two 8 inch floppy drives. The Chieftain systems
started at $2,595. They were available in 1979.
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SuperBrain
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1979
Intertec Data Systems, of Columbia, South Carolina,
produced several microcomputer systems.
The SuperBrain microcomputer. The SuperBrain
contained two Z-80A microprocessors running at 4MHz.
One processor performed all processor and screen
related functions. The other processor was utilized to
handle I/O functions, although it could also be used for
main processor functions.
The Intertec SuperBrain was an 8-bit machine with 64k of
dynamic RAM. The system included a full 12 inch CRT
screen, and two floppy disk drives. It was a desktop unit
with built-in keyboard. The whole unit weighed about 45
pounds. It ran the CP/M operating system. It sold for
$2,995 (1980)
Texas Instruments (TI 99/4A)
1979
Epson KX-1 desktop microcomputer
1980
Cromemco Z-2H microcomputer
1980
Professional Arcade
1980?
Texas Instruments home computer, the TI 99/4A
introduced.
Astrocade, Inc., of Columbus, Ohio, produced "The
Professional Arcade," a home computer which could run
a variety of games as well as BASIC. It had a 30 key
keyboard, cartridge slot, and interfaced to a cassette
recorder. It sold for about $300 (1980's).
Compucolor II
1980
Compucolor Corporation, of Norcross, Georgia,
produced the Compucolor II microcomputer, with an 8color, 13 inch display screen, 8K RAM, and detachable
keyboard. It came with Extended BASIC and sold for
$1,595.
Sinclair ZX80 microcomputer
1980
Sinclair Research; Sinclair ZX-80
Clive Sinclair, a U.K. inventor, developed the ZX-80
microcomputer, a small Z-80 based computer that sold
for $199 plus $5 shipping. It was advertised in 1980 as
the first computer under $200.
The ZX-80 used the Z80A microprocessor chip, came
with a touch sensitive membrane keyboard, and could
interface with a TV set for showing its 32 character, 24line display.
The ZX-80 was only 6-1/2 inches wide by 8-1/2 inches
long by 1-1/2 inches deep. It came with 4K integer
BASIC, a 128 page manual, and a catalog of 27 different
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program cassettes available.
It was available in the U.S. from Sinclair Research, Ltd.,
of Wallingford, Connecticut. Sinclair also had offices in
Boston, Massachusetts.
Clive Sinclair's next model was the ZX-81, which sold for
under $100. Sinclair's English company made an
agreement with Timex in the United States, which gave
Timex the rights to distribute the ZX-81 in the U.S. under
the brand name "Timex-Sinclair."
Exidy Sorcerer
1980
The Sorcerer by Exidy was a microcomputer system self
contained in a keyboard unit, including a 16-key key-pad,
and insert slot for program cartridges. The Exidy
Sorcerer used the Z80 microprocessor chip. The
separate CRT display unit contained the floppy disk
drives.
A 1980 advertisement gives Exidy Sorcerer list prices as:
16k model........... $ 1,295
32k model........... $ 1,395
48k model........... $ 1,495
Video Display....... $ 499
Floppy disk unit.... $ 1,150
S-100 expansion unit.. $ 419
Compustar
1980?
The Compustar was Intertec's multi-user small business
computer. It came in various models from $2,500 to
$4,000, with available hard disk drives from 10MB to
96MB. The Compustar ran CP/M and had 64K of RAM.
Keyboard and monitor were built into the unit.
AIM 65
1980
Rockwell produced the microcomputer which came with
an on-board thermal printer and small 20 character
alphanumeric display. It came with a full sized keyboard,
R6500 programming manual, R6500 hardware manual,
ROM resident debugger and monitor, and TTY/audio
cassette I/O interfaces. The Rockwell AIM 65 came
assembled and tested. The 1K RAM model sold for $395.
The 4K RAM model sold for $445. (1980)
NewBrain
1980
Newbury Laboratories of Cambridge, England, made the
"NewBrain" microcomputers.
The NewBrain microcomputer was available from
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Newbury Labs in 1980. It came with 2K RAM and could
be used with a television as a monitor. It utilized optional
cassette tape recorders and printers. It sold for the
equivalent of $376 to $593 U.S. dollars, depending on the
model.
"NewBrain" was featured in the November 1980 issue of
"Popular Science" magazine, along with several other
hand-held computers.
APF Imagination Machine
1980
APF Imagination Machine by APF Electronics. The
Imagination Machine ran on the Motorola 6800 processor
and came with 9K of RAM. It had a 53-key keyboard with
two built-in joy sticks with numeric keypads. It was
available by 1980 and was featured in the November
1981 issue of "Popular Science" magazine. It sold for
about $1,600.
Acorn Atom
1980
Acorn Computers was started by Chris Curry and
Herman Hauser, former employees of Sinclair. Acorn
made single board computers, including the Acorn
Atom, single board, 3k memory, released in 1980.
Morrow Decision 1
1981
Morrow Designs, of San Leandro, California, was started
in 1976 by George Morrow. It produced several different
microcomputer systems including the Morrow Decision
1.
The Decision 1 utilized the Z-80 microprocessor and
could support floppy disk drives and a hard drive. It was
available in 1980 and ran CP/M.
IBM PC by IBM
1981
IBM's first successful entry into the microcomputer
marketplace was the model 5150, more widely known as
the "IBM PC," in 1981. IBM began development of the PC
in August 1980, in a small building at its Boca Raton,
Florida site. The original team of a dozen developers, led
by Philip Donald "Don" Estridge, was given 12 months to
complete the project.
The development team needed to break the rules, to go
outside traditional boundaries of product development
within IBM, and they did. They went to outside vendors
for most of the parts, went to outside software
developers for the operating system and application
software, and acted as an independent business unit.
These changes enabled them to develop and announce
the IBM PC in 12 months -- at that time faster than any
other hardware product in IBM's history.
"Acorn" was the code name given to the IBM PC during
its early development.
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The main circuit board for IBM's PC was built at the IBM
plant in Charlotte, North Carolina,; the keyboards were
built at IBM's Kentucky plant,; disk drives were made by
Tandon Corporation, Zenith Electronics Corporation,
and SCI Systems of Silicon Valley supplied circuit
boards. Monitors came from Taiwan and printers were
made by the Japanese company Epson. The IBM PC was
introduced to the world at a press conference in New
York City at the Waldorf Astoria ballroom, as well as
several other locations around the country. The IBM PC
used the Intel 4.77 megahertz (MHz) 8088
microprocessor.
The diskette drives offered 160 kilobytes (KB) of storage,
the equivalent of about 50 single-spaced, typewritten
pages. Users could plug the PC into their home
television set or choose from an optional monochrome
or color display.
"Popular Science" magazine, in its November 1981
issue, featured a cover article on the "New Personal
Computers" including the IBM PC.
A typical configuration of 64 KB of memory, a single
diskette drive, a color display adapter and IBM Disk
Operating System (DOS) was priced at $2,665.
Xerox Star 8010
1981
In 1981, Xerox developed the Star 8010 microcomputer,
which contained many of the Alto concepts. The first
systems cost about $16,000.
Osborne 1 portable
1981
Adam Osborne was born in Thailand and immigrated to
the United States. He was a proficient technical writer
and his book "An Introduction to Microcomputers" sold
over 300,000 copies. He became highly interested in
microcomputers and designed his own, and then formed
his own company, "Osborne Computer Corporation."
Adam Osborne personally promoted his new portable
computer. His philosophy of success is described very
well in his own article in the May 1981 issue of Kilobaud
Microcomputing magazine, entitled: "An Industry
Challenge: The Osborne I Computer" (pages 106-110).
The Osborne 1 portable PC, the first portable PC with
self-contained monitor, keyboard and CPU, was
introduced in 1981 at the West Coast Computer Faire. It
had 64 Kb of memory, a 5 inch display screen and had
two floppy disk drives and a full sized keyboard.
The Osborne weighed twenty four pounds and relied on
the CP/M operating system. The Osborne I sold for
$1,795 which included Sorcim's Supercalc and
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Micropro's Wordstar software. The Osborne I was very
popular. In 1982, over 125,000 Osborne computers were
sold.
Commodore Vic 20
1981
Commodore introduced the VIC 20 in 1981. The
Commodore VIC 20 used the 6502, 8-bit processor, had
5K memory and used the Commodore operating system.
It came with a 64 key keyboard, four programmable
function keys and auto repeating control keys. It could
be connected to a TV or video monitor, and could
display a screen 22 characters by 23 lines long. It also
could support graphics, color and sound.
It was introduced at $300, but sales and volumes were
good and prices soon dropped to $100 or less. The
Commodore VIC 20 was extremely popular as a
consumer computer.
Ithaca InterSystems 2A
1981
Epson HX-20 Hand-Held computer
1981
Epson QX-10 microcomputer
1981
Sinclair ZX81 microcomputer
1981
Casio FX-9000P
1981
Hitachi MB-6890 microcomputer
1982
Intel announces 8086 microprocessor
1982
First Compaq portable PC announced
1982
Osborne Executive
c1983
InterSystems produced the Ithaca InterSystems 2A
microcomputer. This system was based on the Z-80A
microprocessor, included 64K RAM, front panel controls,
disk controller, and 20 slot motherboard. It did not
include keyboard and monitor.
The FX-9000P was introduced in 1980. It was based on
Z80 microprocessor clone, came with 12K ROM, 4K
CMOS RAM expandable to 64K RAM, 67 key keyboard
and a 16 line, 32 character display screen that could
support graphics. The FX-9000P sold for about $1,200.
The Casio FX-9000P was featured in the November 1981
issue of "Popular Science."
The Osborne Executive was an improved version of the
Osborne 1 and provided an optional 8088 processor to
make it capable of running MS DOS. The screen was
increased from 5 inches to 7 inches. It came in the same
basic case as the Osborne 1, but its diskette drives
could also read IBM diskettes, Xerox 820 type disks and
UCSD P-System disks. It came with 128K of memory and
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sold for about $2,500.
Due to business difficulties, Osborne Computer
Corporation was forced to file for bankruptcy in 1983
Columbia Commander 964+
1982
Columbia Data Products, Inc., of Columbia, Maryland,
produced a variety of microcomputer systems. Columbia
had distributors throughout the world, including the
U.S., Australia, Belgium, Colombia, Denmark, Hong
Kong, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, Netherlands, NetherlandsAntilles, Spain, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland,
United Kingdom and Venezuela.
The Commander 964+ utilized dual Z-80A processors,
128K RAM host system, 32K RAM terminal, four RS-232
ports, four parallel ports, 800K disk storage, monitor,
keyboard, and came with CP/M and MP/M operating
systems. The Columbia Commander was designed as a
multi-tasking business computer. It was available by
1982.
Oric 1
1982
Oric International made the Oric 1 (16 to 48 K RAM) in
1982, and other models including the Atmos and the
Stratos. They went out of business in 1984. The Oric 1
with 16K RAM sold for 80 pounds (UK). The 48K version
sold for 140 pounds (UK).
Bubcom80
1982
Systems Formulate Corporation was a company started
by former Fujitsu employees. In around 1981, they
formed a joint development effort with Fujitsu and one of
Japan's makers of bubble memory and produced a
microcomputer called the Bubcom80. Systems
Formulate Corp. was based in Mountain View, California.
The Bubcom80 was based on the Z-80 microprocessor,
came with 64K RAM, 99 function keys, interfaces for
cassette tape, monitor printer, joysticks and two bubblememory controllers. It could support a color monitor.
Optional floppy disk unit held 8 inch floppy disks, each
holding 1.2 Mb of data. The system had no ROM, but
used bubble memory cartridges. Each of the two
cartridges was about 1.8 by 2.4 by .8 inches (about 1/2
the size of a cigarette pack). The bubble memory
cartridges were non-volatile memory and could store
information even when power was off. Each cartridge
could hold 32K bytes of data (1982). The advantage of
bubble memory was faster access time than floppy
disks, and lower cost for bubble memory controllers
than for disk controllers. The bubble cartridges
themselves were about $175 to $200 each. When the
Bubcom80 came out in 1982, most American
manufacturers had steered away from bubble memory,
so this machine was somewhat unique. The entire
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system cost about $3,000. The floppy disk drive was an
additional $1,200 to $1,500.
Kaycomp II
1982
Kaypro
Kaypro got its name from Andrew Kay. Kaypro was
formerly called Non-Linear Systems. In 1953, Andrew
Kay, an electrical engineer from MIT, founded NonLinear Systems (NLS) company. NLS was involved in
research and development of non-linear electronic and
mechanical systems. Non-Linear Systems changed its
name to "Kaypro" in 1982.
In 1982, the "Kaycomp II" computer was introduced,
designed to compete with the popular Osborne portable
microcomputer. The Kaycomp weighed about 29
pounds, and ran the CP/M operating system. It sold for
about $1,795.00
In 1982, the Kaypro was introduced. In 1983, Kaypro
released the successor to its first computer, the Kaypro
2x. The Kaypro II used the Z80Z, 8-bit processor and
CP/M. It cost $1,295.
Zenith-Heath Z-110/Z-120
1982
The Zenith-Heath Z-110/Z-120 system was introduced in
1982 and featured both the 8085 and the 8086 CPUs. It
had 128K RAM expandable to 640K, two serial ports, one
parallel port, a monochrome or color video monitor, two
double-density floppy disk drives, and four S-100 bus
slots for add-on boards.
The Z-110 was a "low profile" unit, with the CPU, drives,
and keyboard as one cabinet and a separate video
monitor.
The Z-120 was styled an "all-in-one" system, with the
CPU, drives, keyboard and 12 inch monitor in one
cabinet.
Both the Z-110 and the Z-120 could run CP/M-85 on the
8085 CPU (which in turn could run the 8-bit CP/M
software written for the Intel 8080) and CP/M-86 and MS
DOS on the 8086 CPU. The hardware architecture of the
16-bit side was not 100% compatible with the IBM PC, so
it was not a complete clone. However, it sold well to the
U.S. Department of Defense as a transitional machine,
providing compatibility with both 8-bit and 16-bit
systems.
Canon CX-1
1982
The Canon CX-1 was a Japanese microcomputer
marketed in the United States by Canon U.S.A., Inc., of
Lake Success, New York. The Canon CX-1 utilized the
6809, 8-bit microprocessor, came with 64K of RAM, four
expansion slots, 84 key keyboard, green monochrome
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display screen, and two floppy disk drives.
The 12 inch green screen supported two levels of
intensity at the same time, providing boldface type
display capability. The screen also displayed a
continuous time display clock in the upper right hand
corner of the screen. The Canon CX-1 ran the MCX
operating system (Monitor Program for CX-1), which had
some similarities to CP/M.
The whole unit was self-contained in its own cabinet, 21
by 25 by 13 inches. It was marketed primarily as a
business computer and sold for $4,995. (1982)
Franklin ACE 1000
1982
Franklin Computer Corporation of Pennsauken, New
Jersey, produced a series of Apple compatible
microcomputers in the early 1980's. They were later sued
by Apple Computer and forced to stop producing Apple
compatible machines.
Franklin ACE 1000. The ACE 1000 came with 64K
memory and was hardware and software compatible with
the Apple II. It ran VisiCalc, DB Master, Desktop Plan and
other Apple compatible software. It was available in 1982
and sold for about $1,495.
Dragon 32
1982
The Dragon 32 microcomputer was introduced in 1982
by Dragon Data, a subsidiary of Mettoy, a UK company.
The Dragon 32 was based on the Motorola 6809
microprocessor chip and had 32 Kb of memory. One of
Dragon's successful outlets was the UK chain store
"Boots." By 1983, about 40,000 Dragon 32's had been
sold. Dragon Data became the largest privately owned
company in Wales. By May of 1983, a 64K upgrade board
was available for the Dragon. By August, the Dragon 64
became available in the U.S.
Hyperion
1982
Dynalogic-Info-Tech Corporation of Ottawa, Canada,
produced the Hyperion personal computer.
The Hyperion was an IBM compatible machine, based on
the 8088 processor. It came with 256K RAM, 8K ROM,
and a 7 inch amber display monitor. It also came with a
320K floppy disk drive and an optional second drive.
The Hyperion had a detachable keyboard and built-in 300
baud modem.
Toshiba T100
1982
Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. is an
independent operating company owned by Toshiba
America, Inc., a subsidiary of the $35 billion Toshiba
Corporation since 1965. Toshiba Corporation is a world
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leader in high technology products with 128 major
subsidiaries worldwide.
Toshiba produced a variety of microcomputers,
including some of the early, pre-1983 models.
The T100 microcomputer utilized the Z80
microprocessor, flat liquid crystal display (LCD), had
64K of RAM, 32K of ROM, and 16K of video RAM. The
system ran CP/M and came with WordStar and dBase II.
Associate
1982
Data Tech Industries of San Leandro, California
produced the Associate microcomputer.
The Associate came with 64K RAM, 2K PROM, 720K
floppy disk, and was based on the Z80A 4MHz
processor. The Associate came with the keyboard, CPU,
disk drives and monitor all in one unit. It ran the CP/M
operating system, included a 10 function key pad and 2
serial ports.
The Associate sold for $3,450. (1982)
Commodore P128
1982
The P128 was introduced in 1982. It came with 128K
memory and could display 40 columns by 25 lines and
an optional high resolution graphics display. It also had
an optional Z80 plug in board which allowed the P128 to
run the CP/M Plus operating system. It was based on the
6509 processor, and featured built in music and sound
synthesizers. It sold for under $1,000.
SB-80
1982
Colonial Data Services Corporation of Hamden,
Connecticut, produced a variety of microcomputer
components and systems.
The SB-80 utilized the Z80A microprocessor, CP/M
operating system, had 64K RAM, dual 8-inch floppy disk
drives, 2 serial ports, 2 parallel ports, and optional hard
disk. It sold for about $2,425 in 1982.
Commodore 64
1982
The Commodore 64 used the 6510, 8-bit processor and
the Commodore operating system. It came with 64K
RAM, four programmable function keys, and could
interface with a TV or video monitor. Options included
Commodore disk drives and CP/M operating system,
optional CP/M cartridge and Z80 processor, printer,
cassette and modem. Available software included
BASIC, a variety of games, and VICTERM
communications software. It cost about $199 for a basic
system, up to $599 with more options.
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Franklin ACE 1000
1982
Franklin Computer Corporation of Pennsauken, New
Jersey, produced a series of Apple compatible
microcomputers in the early 1980's. They were later sued
by Apple Computer and forced to stop producing Apple
compatible machines. The ACE 1000 came with 64K
memory and was hardware and software compatible with
the Apple II. It ran VisiCalc, DB Master, Desktop Plan and
other Apple compatible software. It was available in 1982
and sold for about $1,495
Apple Lisa
1983
The Lisa("Local Integrated Software Architecture")
The Lisa was designed to utilize a graphical interface
and a mouse. It was under development in 1980 and was
released in 1983. The Lisa 2/5 (Apple) used the MC6800,
16/32 bit processor and the Lisa OS or MAC OS
operating systems. It came with 512K of RAM. Variously
equipped, the Lisa sold for $5,000 to $10,000.
Apple did not allow third party companies to develop
software for the Lisa. This fact and its relatively high
price tag contributed to its lack of success in the
marketplace. An improved version, the Lisa II, was
released in 1984.
Eagle Computer
1983?
Eagle Computer of Los Gatos, California, produced
microcomputers. Eagle Desktop Computers came in
several models. The Eagle computers were based on the
Z80A microprocessor and ran CP/M.
Models included the Eagle I, Eagle II, Eagle III, Eagle IV
and Eagle V. The Eagle IV and V models included a hard
disk. They were available by 1983.
Columbia CDP-PC
1983
The Columbia CDP-PC was based on the 8088
microprocessor and could use an optional Z80A
processor. It came with 128K RAM, upgradable to 1 MB.
The CDP-PC was plug compatible with the IBM PC's
expansion cards. It also came with two floppy diskette
drives and an optional hard disk drive. It sold for less
than the IBM PC, and was a good cost alternative. It
came without monitor or keyboard (1983).
Columbia Portable VP Computer
1983
The Columbia VP weighed about 32 pounds, used the
Intel 8088 processor, two 320 K floppy disk drives, and
came with 128K RAM (expandable to 256K), a 9 inch
black and white monitor and keyboard. It could run both
DOS and CP/M. It sold for about $2,995 in 1983. It was 18
inches by 16 inches by 8 inches.
Access portable PC.
1983
Access Matrix Corporation of San Jose, California,
offered the Access portable PC. The Access utilized a Z80A microprocessor and ran CP/M-80. It came with 64K
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RAM, two 5-1/4 inch floppy drives, a 7 inch CRT display
(80 characters by 24 lines), ran on AC power and sold for
$2,495. Its size was 16.5 inches by 10.8 inches. It was
available by 1983 and weighed about 33 pounds
IBM introduces IBM PC XT
1983
DMS-3/F Fox
1983
The DMS 3/F Fox was a 30 pound portable PC running a
Z-80A microprocessor and CP/M 2.2 operating system. It
came with 64K RAM, two 5-1/4 inch floppy disk drives,
and a 9 inch CRT display screen (80 characters by 25
lines). Its dimensions were 17-1/2 by 14-3/4 by 7-3/4
inches. It sold for about $3,995.
Compal Electric Briefcase
1983
The Compal Electric Briefcase was a portable computer,
running the Z-80A microprocessor and CP/M-80
operating system. It came with 64K RAM, two 5-1/4 inch
floppy drives, a 9 inch CRT display and weighed about
26 pounds. It measured 9 by 20 by 15 inches and sold for
about $1,995 (1983).
DEC Rainbow
1983
The DEC Rainbow 100 B, used the 8088, 16-bit processor
and either CP/M or MS-DOS operating systems. The
Rainbow monitor could display 132 columns instead of
the traditional 80 columns. It cost about $3,495 (1983).
DEC Professional 300 Series
1983
DEC produced the DEC Professional 300 Series
computers which were designed for business
applications. The DEC 350 was compatible with DEC's
larger computer systems and sold for about $5,000
(1983). The DEC 325 was slightly smaller and was
designed to be used in a network environment. The DEC
325 sold for about $4,000 (1983).
Chameleon
1983
Seequa Computer Corporation of Annapolis, Maryland,
produced the Chameleon personal computer. Seequa
Chameleon "Both Worlds of Processing." The
Chameleon utilized the 16 bit, 8086 microprocessor and
ran MS DOS as well as Z80A software under CP/M.
The Chameleon came with 128 K RAM expandable to 256
K, dual 160 K diskette drives, monitor and keyboard. It
was available in 1983 for $1,995.
Cromemco System 1
1983
The System 1 was based on the Z80-A processor and
came with 64K RAM and 780K of disk storage. It came
with eight S-100 card expansion slots to allow for easy
upgrading. It ran CDOS (Cromemco Disk Operating
System) similar to CP/M. It was designed for business
applications and was available in 1983 for about $4,000.
CompuPro System 816
1983
CompuPro of Hayward, California, produced
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microcomputer systems and components.
The CompuPro System 816 utilized the IEEE-696/S-100
bus and could be configured with a variety of operating
systems, including CP/M, CP/M-86, concurrent CP/M-86,
MP/M-86, CP/M-68K, CP/M 8-16 and MP/M 8-16. The
System 816 offered optional hard disk drive and could
run C, Pascal, Forth, Basic, COBOL, PL/1, FORTRAN 77
and other programs. The System 816 was available by
1983.
DOT 3000B
1983
The DOT 3000B was a portable computer, running the
8088 processor, MS-DOS and having 128K to 704K RAM.
It came with two 3.5 inch floppy disk drives and a 5 by 9
inch CRT display screen. The DOT 3000B could run on
AC power (110 or 220 volts) or an optional battery pack.
It weighed about 31 pounds and measured 18 by 14-3/4
by 7-1/2 inches, and sold for about $4,344 (1983).
The ADAM Computer
1983
The Adam Computer was made by Coleco Industries,
Inc., of New York. The Adam used a Z 80A, 8-bit
processor and CP/M operating system. The Adam used
80K of memory, expandable to 144K, and supported
color. It came out in about 1983 and sold for $749. It
went out of production in 1985.
North Star Advantage
1983?
The North Star Advantage used the Z80Z, 8-bit processor
and CP/M. It cost $2,600 in 1983.
1983
Athena Computers and Electronics Systems of San Juan
Capistrano, California, produced the Athena I portable
computer.
Athena I Portable
The Athena I used the NSC-800 microprocessor and ran
CP/M-80. It came with 64K RAM, 1 Mb RAM disk, optional
5-1/4 inch floppy disk, LCD type display screen (80
characters by 4 lines). It ran on AC power or batteries,
weighed about 15 pounds. Its size was about 3-1/8
inches by 11-7/8 inches by 14-1/2 inches. It sold for
about $3,950. (1983)
HeadStart
1983
The Intertec HeadStart microcomputer was announced
in 1983 and appeared at the 1983 Comdex convention in
Las Vegas.
Arcadia 2001
1983
Emerson Radio Corporation of Secaucus, New Jersey,
produced the Arcadia 2001 home video game system.
The Arcadia was a relatively low cost system designed
to compete with the popular Atari computer systems.
The Arcadia was available by 1983. It connected to a
television set and came with about 25 different video
game cartridges.
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Atari 1200XL
1983
Atari announces the 1200XL home computer
Acorn Electron
1983
Acorn Electron single board computer, released in 1983
with 16K, sold for $199 UK Pounds
Basis 108
1983
Basis, Inc., of Scotts Valley, California, distributed the
Basis 108 microcomputer. The Basis 108 was designed
to be both Apple II and CP/M compatible. The unit came
in an aluminum case with detached 128 key keyboard,
numeric keypad, parallel and serial printer interfaces,
and could interface with an RGB color video monitor
(NTSC or PAL).
Casio FP-200
1983
The Casio FP-200 was a portable PC, running a
proprietary CPU. It weighed about 4 pounds, came with
8K RAM, expandable to 32K, had a cassette interface, a
20 character by 8 line LCD screen, and utilized a built-in
electronic spreadsheet. It ran on AC power or batteries,
and sold for $499 (1983). It was about 12-1/2 inches by 21/4 inches by 8-1/2 inches.
Casio FP-700P
1983
The Casio FP-700P was a portable, running a proprietary
CPU. It weighed about 4 ounces, came with 2K RAM, had
a cassette interface, a 20 character by 1 line LCD screen,
and utilized built-in programs for math, science and
finance tasks. It ran on AC or batteries, and sold for $99
(1983). It was a tiny 6-1/2 by 2-3/8 by 3/8 inches.
Commodore CBM 8032
1983
The Commodore CBM 8032 came with 32K memory
expandable to 96K. It used an 80 column by 25 line video
display. The CBM 8032 is the business version of the
PET 4032. It sold for just under $2,000 in 1983.
Casio FP-801P
1983
The Casio FP-801P was a portable, running a proprietary
CPU. It weighed about 9 ounces, came with 2K RAM, had
a cassette interface, a 20 character by 1 line LCD screen,
and utilized built-in programs for math, science and
finance tasks. It ran on AC or batteries, and sold for
$149.95 (1983). It was 6-7/8 by 3-1/2 by 3/4 inches in size.
It also ran Casio BASIC.
Apple IIe
1983
The Apple IIe was one of Apple's most successful
computers. It was manufactured for almost 10 years.
BBC Micro
1983?
BBC Micro Systems made the BBC Micro (models A and
B) in the early 1980's. The BBC Micro B came with 32K
memory and sold in the UK for 399 pounds. It was
primarily designed for home and educational use.
North Star Horizon 8/16
1984?
The North Star Horizon 8/16 microcomputer system
could handle up to eight individual users, and could
support both 8 and 16 bit applications. The Horizon 8/16
ran TurboDOS, and was also compatible with CP/M-80,
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CP/M-86 and MP/M.. The North Star Advantage 8/16 came
with an 8088 microprocessor and a 5 Mb hard disk drive.
It sold for $5,499.
Apple Macintosh
Laser 200
Dell Computers
1984
The Apple Macintosh used the 68000, 16/32-bit
processor and MAC OS. The Macintosh was released in
1984 and sold 250,000 units in the first year. 500,000
units had been sold by mid-1986. It sold for $2,495.
1984?
Computers for All made the Laser 200 microcomputer.
The Laser 200 came with 4K of RAM, ran Basic and sold
for 70 pounds (UK). It came without a monitor.
1984
Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Dell
Computer Corporation. Michael Dell got his hands on his
first computer when he was in his seventh grade
advanced math class. He was involved, and successful
with, various marketing and sales concepts since the
age of 12. Dell saw that the demand for personal
computers was higher than some businesses could
handle. He began buying PCs wholesale, adding
components, and reselling them. He enrolled at the
University of Texas at Austin in 1983.
By the end of his freshman year, he was making $50,000
per month selling personal computers to local
businesses and others. On May 3, 1984, he formed Dell
Computer Corporation. In the first month of operation,
sales amounted to $180,000. Dell began selling its own
brand name, "PC Limited" which it registered in Texas in
February 1984.
By October 1991, Dell Computer Corporation was listed
in Fortune Magazine as one of America's 100 fastest
growing companies. Michael Dell was the youngest CEO
of a company to ever earn a ranking on the Fortune 500.
AT&T introduces the AT&T 6300 PC
1984
IBM introduces the PC AT
1984
Commodore SX-64 portable computer
1984
-Sinclair QL microcomputer.
1984
Amiga 1000
1984
CGL M5
1984?
Commodore SX-64 portable computer from Commodore
Japan
The Amiga 1000 was introduced in 1984 as the first
multi-tasking, graphical user interface microcomputer. It
could run AmigaDOS and supported color graphics and
sound.
Computer Games Limited made the microcomputer in
the early 1980's. It came with 20K RAM and sold in the
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UK for 150 pounds.
Amiga 1000 is introduced by Commodore
1985
Intel announces the 80386DX microprocessor
1985
Sinclair ZX Spectrum+ microcomputer
1985
Acorn BBC Master 128
1985
Acorn BBC Master 128, 6510 processor, released in 1985
Atari 520ST
1985
In January 1985, Atari introduced the 520ST computer,
which had the ability to support word processing,
spreadsheets, video games, and music. It was the first
home computer built to incorporate the MIDI (musical
instrument digital interface) standards. The 520ST was
very successful and Atari's financial position improved.
Acorn BBC Master 512
1986?
6512 processor, 512 K RAM, runs CP/M
Acorn BBC Master Compact
1986?
3.5 inch floppy drive, color monitor
Atari 1040ST
1986
Atari 1040ST. Atari went public in 1986, raising over $54
million in new capital. Atari then released the 1040ST
computer, with additional technical advancements. In
1987, Atari began shipping its MEGA computers, which
had increased graphics and music capabilities. In 1988,
Atari purchased and then sold the Federated Group of
electronics stores.
Intel Microprocessors
Brief descriptions of some of the early popular Intel microprocessors used
in microcomputer systems.
Intel 4004* Microprocessor Chip
In 1969, Intel Corporation began work on a project to develop a set of chips
for a series of high-performance programmable calculators for Busicom, a
Japanese company. Marcian E. "Ted" Hoff, who had joined Intel in 1968, is
assigned to the project. Ted Hoff, along with Federico Faggin, Stan Mazor
and others developed a design that included four chips.
The four chip combination included a central processing unit chip (CPU), a
read-only memory chip (ROM), and a random access memory chip (RAM),
and a shift-register chip for input and output (IO). This design was the first
microprocessor chip, which Intel named the 4004.
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The Intel 4004 was one-eighth of an inch wide by one-sixteenth of an inch
long and contained 2300 metal-oxide semiconductor transistors (MOS). Its
computing power was equal to the giant 18,000 vacuum tube ENIAC built in
1946.
The Intel 4004 could execute 60,000 operations per second. Masatoshi
Shima, of Busicom, designed the logic for the chip. Shima later joined Intel.
Intel sold Busicom the processor design for $60,000, but later bought back
the design rights when Stan Mazor and Ted Hoff lobbied for the many other
potential uses of the 4004 chip.
Intel 8008* Chip and the Intel 8080* Chip
The 8008 was an 8-bit microprocessor chip and was introduced in April
1972. Designers were Ted Hoff, Federico Faggin, Stan Mazor and Hal
Feeney.
An even greater achievement was the 8080 chip, introduced in 1974. The
8080 had 10 times the performance of the 8008 chip and could execute
290,000 instructions per second. It had 64 bytes of addressable memory,
and sold for $360 per chip. It quickly became an industry standard.
Designers included Mazor, Faggin and Masatoshi Shima.
Intel 8748* Microcontroller
Intel Corporation introduced the 8748 microcontroller in 1976. The 8748 is
essentially a computer on a chip, containing its own central processor,
EPROM, data memory, on-chip peripherals and input/output functions.
The 8748 "microcontroller" is designed to control events in real-time, while
a "microprocessor" is designed to manipulate large amounts of data. The
8748 project team included Hank Blume, Gene Hill, Mark Holler, Mike
Melloch, Dave Stamm, Dave Budde, Howard Raphael and Bob
Wickersheim. The 8748 became the most widely accepted 8-bit
microcontroller architecture in the world.
Intel 8086* Microprocessor
The 8086, announced by Intel Corporation in 1978, had 10 times the
performance of the 8080 chip announced in 1974.
The 8086 established a new 16-bit software architecture. The project team
included Bill Pohlman, Bob Koehler, John Bayliss, Jim Mckevitt, Chuck
Wildman, Steve Morse and others. Motorola introduced the 68000 chip a
year later, which directly competed with the 8086. By 1984, however, the
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8086 chip was outselling the 68000 by approximately 9 to 1. The 8088 chip
was released in 1981.
Intel 80286* Microprocessor
In 1982, Intel Corporation released the 80286 microprocessor chip. At the
time of its introduction, the 80286 microprocessor has three times the
performance of any other 16-bit chip on the market. The 80286 offered onchip memory management, making it suitable for multitasking operations.
Intel's project leader for the 286 is Gene Hill. Intel also released the 80186
chip, which was an improvement over earlier Intel chips. The 80186 design
team was lead by Dave Stamm.
Intel 80386* Microprocessor chip
The Intel 80386 is a 32-bit microprocessor containing over 275,000
transistors on a single chip. The 80386 (commonly known as the "386
chip") could handle four million operations per second and handle memory
up to four gigabytes (4,294,967,296). The 386 was also compatible with
Intel's earlier processor line for the IBM PC and compatibles and could run
software designed for those processors as well. The 386 chip brought
desktop personal computing power to a new level. John Crawford was the
architecture manager for the Intel 386 and the Intel 486 microprocessors,
and co-manager of Pentium microprocessor development.
Intel 80486* Microprocessor chip
In 1989, Intel Corporation announced the 80486 chip, a highly integrated 32bit microprocessor combining 80386 compatibility, RISC-style CPU, 80387
math co-processor compatibility, 8-Kilobyte on-chip cache and built- in
multiprocessing support. The 80486 has a reported capability of holding
1.16 million transistors and is about four times faster than the 80386
processor. Initial uses of the 80486 chip will be for LAN servers and highend workstations.
John Crawford was the architecture manager for the Intel 386 and the Intel
486 microprocessors, and co-manager of the Pentium microprocessor
development. The most common varieties of the 80486 chip are the 486SX
(25Mhz), 486DX (33Mhz), and the 486DX2 (66Mhz).
Intel PentiumMicroprocessor
In 1993, Intel announced the Pentium chip. The word "Pentium" comes
from the Greek root word "pentas" meaning "five." The Pentium is the
80586 chip.
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The Pentium is a 32-bit chip with superscalar design, and is estimated to be
two times faster than the 486DX2 (66MHz) chip. The Pentium uses dual
pipelines to allow it to process two separate instructions in a single cycle.
The Pentium has a 64 bit bus interface, an eight bit code cache, an eight bit
data cache, and branch prediction memory bank. Don Alpert was the
architecture manager of the Pentium, John Crawford was co-manager. The
Pentium is a CISC-based (complex instruction set computer) chip
containing 3.3 million transistors.
In November 1995, Intel released new and faster Pentium Pro
microprocessor, with speeds of over 150 MHz to 200 MHz
By 1996, 200 Mhz microcomputer systems were available on the market.
By 1999, 700 Mhz and above became available.
In March 2000, Intel announced the 1GHz microprocessor.
MSX Microcomputer Technology
MSX is an old Z80-based family of home computers which appeared in 1982 as an attempt
to establish a single standard in home computing similar to VHS in video. They were
popular in Asian (Korea, Japan) and South American (Brazil, Chile) countries as well as in
Europe (Netherlands, France, Spain) and former Soviet Union, but they are virtually
unknown in USA. Although MSX standard quietly died to year 1988, the world got to see
MSX2, MSX2+ and TurboR extensions of it.
The MSX standard has been designed by a company called ASCII in Cooperation with
Microsoft which provided a firmware version of its BASIC for the machine. Because this
BASIC version was an extended version of MicroSoft Basic, it was called "MicroSoft
eXtended BASIC". This explains the name "MSX". The system thanks his name to the builtin BASIC. The MSX machines were produced by such giants as Sony, Yamaha, Panasonic,
Toshiba, Daewoo, and Philips. The only MSX model ever sold in USA appears to be an early
SpectraVideo machine. (for an example of a Spectravideo, click here.)
In spite of its sad history, MSX is a very nice computer, especially useful for educational
purposes which is clearly indicated by example of the Soviet Union. Russian Ministry of
Education bought hundreds of MSXes (and later MSX2s) grouped into "computerized
classroom systems" of 10-16 machines connected into a simple network.
Hardware-wise, MSX represents a hybrid of a videogame console and a generic CP/M-80
machine. The MSX machine is based on the Z80 CPU , running at 3.58MHz in the base
model. The clock frequency has been doubled in the TurboR. The video subsystem is built
around a TMS9918 or TMS9928 VDP chip also used in Texas Instruments' TI-99/4
computers, ColecoVision, and Coleco Adam. In the later MSX models this chip was been
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upgraded to V9938 (MSX2) and V9958 (MSX2+ and TurboR). The latest version of it is V9990.
The audio system is handled by AY-3-8910 chip by General Instruments, same as the one
used in Sinclair ZXSpectrum128 audio. AY-3-8910 provides 3 channels of synthesized
sound, noise generation, and two general purpose parallel IO ports which are used for
joysticks and some other things in the MSX design. Due to their hardware structure, MSX
machines were perfectly suitable for games and there is a lot of good games either written
or ported to them.
Nowadays, there exist a lot of expansions on the MSX system, such as the Moonsound
card, based on OPL4, the GFX9000 card, SCSI interfaces, etc.