Cromemco (was Re: S-100 bus specs) (fwd)

Cromemco, a company that cares! Here's a reply I received from them this morning in reply to the message I sent yesterday questioning their history: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 12:35:55 +0100 To: 'Sellam Ismail' <dastar(a)ncal.verio.com> Subject: RE: Cromemco (was Re: S-100 bus specs) E-Mail From: Werner Salmen Cromemco GmbH Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-Strasse 4 D-61350 Bad Homburg Germany Tel.: Int + 49 6172 967860 Fax: Int + 49 6172 304519 To: Sellam Ismail Attn.: Email: dastar(a)ncal.verio.com @ cc: Ref.: Your E-Mail of March 18 Date: March 19, 1999 Subj.: Cromemco Dear Sellam, thank you for visiting Cromemco's homepage and also for your input, which was very much appreciated. You know, marketing occassionally tends to express things in their own wording. We shall release a next version of our homepage in April. I think, obvious errors should then be corrected. However, it is always nice to talk to people who used ( some still do !) the Cromemco computers from the 80's. Many of them still like the stuff, although from nowadays point of view they look pretty antique. Believe it or not, we just worked on fixing the Y2K problem in Cromix, and it was a lot of fun. The company Cromemco itself did change, as you may have learned form our webpage. The new businesses are now mainly in Europe, and we do a lot in parallel and massively parallel computing, still comitted to Cromemco's mission: "Tomorrow's computers today". I wish you a nice weekend and remain with Best regards, Cromemco Werner Salmen -----Original Message----- From: Sellam Ismail [SMTP:dastar@ncal.verio.com] Sent: Thursday, March 18, 1999 11:36 PM To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers Cc: webmaster(a)cromemco.com Subject: Re: Cromemco (was Re: S-100 bus specs) On Thu, 18 Mar 1999, Sellam Ismail wrote: Their history seems a bit revisionist, and in some cases downright fradulent. This is from the History section of their web site: 1975 First supplier of complete micro computer systems (based on Z-80) Call me stupid but the Z80 wasn't even invented yet: July 1976 The Apple I computer board is sold in kit form, and delivered to stores by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Price: US$666.66. [46] [218] [593.350] Paul Terrell orders 50 Apple computers from Steve Jobs, for his Byte Shop. [266.213] *****Zilog releases the 2.5-MHz Z80, an 8-bit microprocessor whose instruction set is a superset of the Intel 8080. [32] [202.168] (early 1975 [9]) (1975 [556.11]) (1975 December [346.257]) Micom Data Systems ships its first product, the Micom 2000 word processing computer. [615.99] Source: Chronology of Events in the History of Microcomputers http://www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/comphist/comp1971.htm And then there's: 1976 Development of the industrial standard S-100 Bus IEEE 696 First of all, I hope they don't intend to mean they invented the S-100 bus. That goes to Ed Roberts. And as far as I know, the IEEE696 standard wasn't ratified until 1982. December 1982 Pepsi-Cola president John Sculley first visits Apple Computer. [745.62] Tabor demonstrates a 3.25-inch floppy disk drive, the Model TC500 Drivette. Unformatted capacity is up to 500KB on a single side. [444.72] Amdek releases the Amdisk-3 Micro-Floppy-disk Cartridge system. It houses two 3-inch floppy drives designed by Hitachi/Matsushita/Maxell. Price is US$800, without a controller card. [444.70] Satellite Software International ships WordPerfect 2.0 for DOS, for US$500. [330.108] (v2.2 in October [502.49]) *****The IEEE Standards Board passes the IEEE 696/S-100 bus standard. [443.278] Digital Research announces CP/M+. [443.431] Atari issues a US$55 rebate on the Atari 400, dropping its retail price to under US$200. [713.268] Texas Instruments extends its US$100 rebate on the TI 99/4A to April 1983. [713.268] Apple Computer becomes the first personal computer company to reach US$1 billion in annual sales. [46] Source: Chronology of Events in the History of Microcomputers http://www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/comphist/comp1981.htm Then there's this: 1979 First multi-user operating system CROMIX (UNIX derivative) First multi-user operating system...what? On a micro? Maybe. Sheesh. These guys are as bad if not worse than Tandy and their self-aggrandizing history. (Is it obvious I have too much time on my hands these days? Oh well, someone's got to keep the record straight.) cc: webmaster(a)cromemco.com Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------ Don't rub the lamp if you don't want the genie to come out. Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0 See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details! [Last web site update: 02/15/99]