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OLD-COMPUTERS RESTORATION SITE
A reuploaded version of all that which was once hosted at old-computers.com, which is now inaccessible.
Archive by Hal at Holopleather.
DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION 300 SERIES
In conceiving the Professional 300 series, DEC designers decided that new machines must be able to perform several tasks at once, apply the same user interface, communicate efficiently and use the same software as Digital's popular microcomputers. These personal computers were really desktop-sized versions of the PDP-11, one of Digital's popular minicomputer. Both models shared the PDP-11 instruction set and memory management. Both had an operating system based on Digital's RSX-11M+. For the user, this meant that software applications developped for more than 500,000 PDP-11 and VAX systems were candidat for easy migration to a desktop personal computer. The members of DEC 300 Pro series were the 325 (two 5.25" disk drives, 400 KB each, and 1 expansion slot), the 350 (one 5.25" disk drive, 10 MB hard disk and 5 expansion slots) and the 380. The 325 and 350 used the F-11 CPU running at 13.33 MHz (the external clock actually ran at 26.66 MHz). The 380 used the J-11 CPU About the number of colours: the three planes gave 8 colors at one time by referencing an 8 entry palette.Each entry in the palette could be programmed for one of 256 colors (by setting RGB values). The internal card cage had space for up to 6 options total, and the base 350 system with EBO used four. The base 380 system used two. A Z80 card was available and allowed to use CP/M as the OS. The operating systems which ran on it were P/OS (which was a variation of RSX), RT-11 and a variation of Unix called Venix. P/OS and Venix are freely available nowadays. RT-11 is still licensed software and is still being developed and maintained. These systems were originally sold as standalone units, but were later incorporated into the VAX 8000 series as the system “Console”.
ITT 3030
The ITT 3030 is a modular system with several options available. The original CPU for example is a Z80A, but a 8086 CPU board was available... More floppy disk drives and hard disks (5, 10 and 15 MB) can be added. The average access time of the hard-disks is 170ms, and the transfer rate 600 kb/s. It is also possible to add up to two 8" disk drives in addition to the original 5''1/4 disk-drives. They can be simple-sides/simple-density (256k) and are thus compatible with the IBM 3740 format, or double-sided/double-density (1024kb). Two monitors were proposed. A greenich monochrome one (80 x 24), and a color one being able to display 512 x 512 pixels and 16 colors. But these monitors could also be replaced with a TV. The ITT 3030 works under CP/M, MP/M or BOS. It was delivered with CP/M and user documentations. The following software were sold with the machine : CP/M, Microsoft Basic 5.0, Cobol, Fortran, Pascal (UCSB), Mailmerge and Supersport. Were also available : Calcstar, Wordstar, Datastar and many professional software (for doctors for example). The ITT-3030 was in fact conceived by Standard Electric Lorenz, a subsidiary of ITT RFA.
FORTUNE 32:16
When the 32:16 was launched, Fortune Systems Corp. advertised that it was the first integrated Unix-based system for $5000. Actually, the cheaper version was a single floppy disc, single user system that was never sold. A practical small business multiuser configuation, called System 10, and including a 10 MB hard disk and 512 KB of RAM costed about $9000. The system could support up to 4 four-port serial terminal controllers and several other peripheral controllers: storage modules, Parallel interfaces, high resolution graphic board and Ethernet network board. The keyboard was a close cousin of the Wang word-processing system one. Keys was well arranged and color coded. The system came with different hard-disk storage options, 5, 10, 20 or even 70 MB on latest models. The Fortune 32:16 was a true multiuser multitasking Unix based system offering services that was a length ahead over CP/M's. However, both Unix and Fortune was new to most of the dealers and users. Fortune offered them training courses in hardware, operating system and application software. A wide range of high quality business application software was available, as well as programming languages, like a very extended BASIC able to convert code written in other BASICs (AppleSoft, MBASIC, CBASIC, TRS-80 BASIC), PASCAL, FORTRAN 77, COBOL and, of course, C language. The 32:16 was also built and sold in France by Thomson under the name of Micromega 32