31 Aug
2007
31 Aug
'07
10:18 p.m.
Dear List
Not through any sense of nationality and being a collector of
an American brand anyway. The other day I was pondering life, the
universe and other trivia (programmers do a lot of pondering). When it
crossed the empty acres of my mind that there was very little discussion
of UK designed and manufactured computers. If we exclude ICL -> Fujitsu
and other main frames for now I can only think of a few:
=20
=20
RAIR Black box (I knew them very well as they were a
customer of mine whilst I was at DEC)
Research Machines=20
Acorn
Atom
Newbrain (When I said "What I need is a
NewBrain" everybody agreed )=20
Digico (I worked on those) Had a hand
operated paper tape reader. You pulled the tape through the reader.
=20
Does anybody have examples of these and any I may have missed?
Firstly, a correction. The Atom was an Acorn machine
Other manufacturers :
Memotech (started off making ZX81 peripherals, but made complete
computers later -- the MTX500 and MTX512)
Sinclair (and the related Science of Cambridge and Cambridge Comptuers --
MK14, ZX80, ZX81, Spectrum, Z88)
Torch (started making BBC add-ons, but made some unix workstations, like
the XXX)
Whitechaple Computer Works (MG1 32016-based workstation, Hitec MIPS-based
workstations)
Inmos (made some complete development systems for their Transputer chips.
Was the FEP ever a commercial product?)
Jupiter Cantab (Ace, one of the few machines to have Forth in ROM)
HH (the ill-fated Tiget)
Nascom (and the later Gemini -- Z80-based machines)
Tnagerine (Microtan 6502-based stuff)
Oric (Oric 1, Atmos, etc. A bit like 6502-based Spectrums)
Were AMT (DAP SIMD machines) British?
Diamond (does that count? They made a Z80-based word processor).
As regards what I have (living in the UK) :
Acorn Systems (19" carccages full of Eurocards, 6502 and 6809 based),
Atoms, BBC micros, ACW, Archimedes stuff
Sinclair (etc) MK14, ZX81, Spectrum, QL
Nascom 2, Gemini Galaxy
HH Tiger
Diamond system 5
Torch XXX and XXXX
Whitechapel MG1, Hitech 10
Inmos ITEM, FEP logic cage
Jupiter ACE
RML380Z, 480Z
Memotech MTX500
Oric 1, ATMOS
Probalby others that I've forgotten about
-tony