8 Nov
2001
8 Nov
'01
6:09 a.m.
The problem with Cromemco was that they were sort of in between the
mini-market and the
mirco-market, in both performance and price. I remember getting chewed out
by my sales
manager for telling a customer, at the store worked in, that Cromemco was
the best mirco-
computer. It was true at the time but we had no way of getting those
systems in quantity.
There was really no wholesale market for them or at least one that we
could get into.
He told me to push the SOL's which we had plenty of.
Eric
M H Stein wrote:
Speaking of Cromemco, did you know (according to their
literature) that
aside from naming the S-100 bus, they also developed:
-The first Z-80 micro
-The first multi-user micro
-The first Unix-like OS for a micro (Cromix)
-The first micro with a Winchester HD
-The first complete system with 16M/50MHD for <$50,000
-The first micro color graphics system
-The first micro addressing memory >64K
-The first micro with IBM RJE communication
-The first intelligent micro I/O interfaces with a CPU on I/O card
-The first micro implementation of I/O channel processors
-The first micro to boot from ROM without front panel switches
-The first self-programming EPROM card
-The first micro with error-correcting memory
-The first graphics system with hardware stenciling (whatever that is)
-The first micro graphics system capable of sync'ing to a TV broadcast
-The first micro with integrated floppy disks
And that in 1987 an XXU equipped system was almost twice as fast as a
VAX 11/780, which cost over four times as much as the largest Cromemco
system at the time.