31 Aug
2007
31 Aug
'07
8:09 a.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:
RAIR Black box (I knew them very well as they were a
customer of mine whilst I was at DEC)
Research Machines
Acorn
Atom
Newbrain (When I said "What I need is a
NewBrain" everybody agreed )
Digico (I worked on those) Had a hand
operated paper tape reader. You pulled the tape through the reader.
Does anybody have examples of these and any I may have missed?
Rod Smallwood
31 Aug
31 Aug
11:25 a.m.
Rod Smallwood wrote:
Newbrain (When I said
"What I need is a
NewBrain" everybody agreed )
I have a Newbrain here.
Digico (I worked on
those) Had a hand
operated paper tape reader. You pulled the tape through the reader.
I have a sales brochure for the Digico, and I have a vague recollection
of a lab at Essex University which was full of these machines, for the
machine-level programming course.
Does anybody have examples of these and any I may have
missed?
How about all the Sinclairs (ZX80, ZX81, Spectrum, QL), and later
the Amstrads (CPC464, CPC664)? Then there's my old UK101, a UK copy
of the Ohio Scientific Superboard. And how about the rarer ones
like the H&H Tiger, the Elan, or the MK14?
--
John Honniball
coredump at gifford.co.uk
1:18 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:
RAIR Black box (I knew them very well as they were a
customer of mine whilst I was at DEC)
Research Machines
Acorn
Atom
Newbrain (When I said "What I need is a
NewBrain" everybody agreed )
Digico (I worked on those) Had a hand
operated paper tape reader. You pulled the tape through the reader.
Does anybody have examples of these and any I may have missed?
AFAIK it was the Acorn Atom, predecessor of the BBC Microcomputer
Then there was my choice, the NASCOM and the oher 80-BUS machine by Gemini
Not forgetting Sinclair
Richard
2:29 p.m.
On 31/08/2007 13:18, Richard Smith wrote:
For some reason I can't see Richard's original post, but here's a few I
have or remember:
Tangerine (the Microtan)
Transam (the Tuscan)
Torch
U-micro
Dragon
ACT/Apricot
Amstrad
Cambridge Computer (Sinclair by another name, made the Z88)
Science of Cambridge (another Sinclair company, made the MK14)
Jupiter (the Ace)
Tatung (the Einstein)
Oric (offshoot of Tangerine, made Oric-1 and Atmos)
Camputers (the Lynx)
Memotech
and if you count handhelds there are a few more, such as Psion, and
Microwriter (the AgendA).
The Atom was made by Acorn, as was the System range, the BBC Micro range
and Electron, the ABC range, the Archimedes range (and the related
members like A540, R140, R260, Phoebe, etc) and a few OEM machines.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
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:
RAIR Black box (I knew them very well as they were a
customer of mine whilst I was at DEC)
Research Machines
Acorn
Atom
Newbrain (When I said "What I need is a
NewBrain" everybody agreed )
Digico (I worked on those) Had a hand
operated paper tape reader. You pulled the tape through the reader.
Does anybody have examples of these and any I may have missed?
AFAIK it was the Acorn Atom, predecessor of the BBC Microcomputer
Then there was my choice, the NASCOM and the oher 80-BUS machine by Gemini
Not forgetting Sinclair 
3:43 p.m.
On 31/08/2007, Pete Turnbull <pete at dunnington.plus.com> wrote:
For some reason I can't see Richard's original
post, but here's a few I
have or remember:
Nor could I ?!
Only other one I can think of, and whom I had brief dealings with, is
Baydel - they made pdp-11 based systems, then later, lots of cool
cards for PCs.
I also used some "microfive" 8088 based multi-user systems - not sure
where they originated from, though knowing my bos, they were possibly
British..
6:45 p.m.
On 31/08/2007, Pete Turnbull <pete at
dunnington.plus.com> wrote:
Wasn't that the ICL "One-per-desk" machine?
Richard
For some reason I can't see Richard's
original post, but here's a few I
have or remember:
Nor could I ?!
Only other one I can think of, and whom I had brief dealings with, is
Baydel - they made pdp-11 based systems, then later, lots of cool
cards for PCs.
I also used some "microfive" 8088 based multi-user systems - not sure
where they originated from, though knowing my bos, they were possibly
British.. 
7:27 p.m.
New subject: Before submitting to ebay...
Before I put this on Ebay, I'd prefer to offer it to the mailing list to
see if someone has an interest in purchasing:
DEC Professional 350 w/ monitor & keyboard.
TONS of software and original manuals...
WARNING!!! Lots of pictures, not low-bandwidth friendly:
http://209.94.123.106/ebay/pro350/
Curt
10:18 p.m.
New subject: Before submitting to ebay...
Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
Before I put this on Ebay, I'd prefer to offer it
to the mailing list to
see if someone has an interest in purchasing:
DEC Professional 350 w/ monitor & keyboard.
TONS of software and original manuals...
How much in $$$ were you thinking ?
9:55 p.m.
Pete Turnbull <pete at dunnington.plus.com> wrote:>
For some reason I can't see Richard's original
> post, but here's a few I
have or remember:
Tangerine (the Microtan)
Transam (the Tuscan)
Torch
U-micro
Dragon
Wasn't the Dragons (Dragon 32 & Dragon 64) made by a Welsh company? (Still
British, but I don't know anything about the computers other than their name)
ACT/Apricot
Amstrad
Weren't the Amstrad's called Schneiders in some European country(s)?
Cambridge Computer (Sinclair by another
name, made the Z88)
Science of Cambridge (another Sinclair
company, made the MK14)
Jupiter (the Ace)
Tatung (the Einstein)
Oric (offshoot of Tangerine, made Oric-1 and > Atmos)
Camputers (the Lynx)
Memotech
and if you count handhelds there are a few
more, such as Psion, and
Microwriter (the AgendA).
The Atom was made by Acorn, as was the
System range, the BBC Micro range
and Electron, the ABC range, the Archimedes > range (and the related
members like A540, R140, R260, Phoebe,
etc) and a few OEM machines.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
Regards,
Andrew B
aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk
10:13 p.m.
On 31 Aug 2007 at 21:55, Andrew Burton wrote:
Cambridge Computer (Sinclair by another
name, made the Z88)
Vic Gerhardi, of Rakewell Ltd. and the author of a few Z88 books is a
friend. I think I still have a couple of his books, but alas, not a
Z88. :(
Vic is one of the few people I know of who use DataStar (under
emulation, of course) for their primary business contacts database
manager.
Cheers,
Chuck
11:48 p.m.
woodelf wrote:
Andrew Burton wrote:
> Wasn't the Dragons (Dragon 32 & Dragon 64) made by a Welsh company?
Yes, that's correct. Dragon Data, of Swansea.
That was a Color Computer clone from the UK is all I
know.
Both the TRS-80 Color Computer and the Dragon-32 were derived from
the same Motorola application note for the 6883 SAM (Sequential
Address Multiplexer) chip. The SAM was very closely matched
to the 6847 video chip. Shame that the design was so poor that
the 6809E processor had to be run well below its rated speed.
The Color Computer and the Dragon-32 differ in the area of the
printer port. One is serial, the other parallel (I forget which
is which).
--
John Honniball
coredump at gifford.co.uk
1 Sep
1 Sep
1:05 a.m.
John Honniball wrote:
woodelf wrote:
Although later managed by GEC (I've got both a D32 and a grey-cased GEC-built
D64). I believe a few machines made it to the US too, but the name of the US
reseller eludes me at the moment.
I'm sure we've missed lots of stuff off the list, but I don't fancy sifting
'results' to avoid repeating what's already been mentioned :-) I know the last
time I did this exercise it came out at around 30 different manufacturers [1],
and that was without poking around for the more obscure stuff...
[1] Not sure we've had BCL, HLH or Control Universal yet, for instance.
Looking at the advertising section of old 80's computer mags, it's always
fascinating just how many UK companies there were churning out machines. Was
the same true in the US? It always seems to be the same few big names that get
mentioned, but maybe that's because that's all that has survived, or because
their popularity keeps them in the spotlight.
Andrew Burton wrote:
> Wasn't the Dragons (Dragon 32 & Dragon 64) made by a Welsh company?
Yes, that's correct. Dragon Data, of Swansea.
31 Aug
31 Aug
10:32 p.m.
On 31/08/2007 21:55, Andrew Burton wrote:
Pete Turnbull <pete at dunnington.plus.com>
wrote:>
Wasn't the Dragons (Dragon 32 & Dragon 64)
made by a Welsh company? (Still British, but I don't know anything about the computers
other than their name)
Yes, that's right. Nice simple little 6809-based micros, in their own way.
Weren't the Amstrad's called Schneiders in
some European country(s)?
The later Amstrad PCs were, in Germany, but not the earlier ranges.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
11:35 p.m.
Wasn't the Dragons (Dragon 32 & Dragon 64)
made by a Welsh company?
(Still British, but I don't know anything about the computers other than
their name)
Yes. The Dragon 32 was based on the same Motorola Application Note (for
the 6883) as the Tandy Color Computer, anf is a very similar machine.
Although for some inexplicable reason, the BASIC tokens are differnntly
ordered, so a binary BASIC program from a Dragon won;t load on a CoCo and
vice versa...
The main differece between the hardware of the Dragon and the CoCo is the
printer port. There were 3 PIA lines left over once the necessary signal
had been taken for the sound, cassette port, keyboard, VDG control, etc.
As er all know, the CoCo used them for a bit-banged RS232 port. On the
Dragon, they were the Strobe, Busy and ACK lines of a Centronics port.
The data for that came from the 8 keyboard scan lines (one port of a
PIA), suitably buffered. There was no problem with the dual use of this
port, the machine didn't try to read the ekybaord inptus when it was
sending a character to the printer, and the printer ignored the keyboard
scan 'data' because there was no Strobe signal along with it.
The Dragon 64 has (not surpisingly) twice as much RAM, and also a real
hardware RS23 port, based IIRC on the 6551.
Amstrad
Weren't the Amstrad's called Schneiders in some European country(s)? 
3 Sep
3 Sep
3:21 a.m.
Hi,
Tangerine (the Microtan)
....
Oric (offshoot of Tangerine, made Oric-1 and Atmos)
I'm 99% sure that Tangering = Oric. ISTR that they changed their name from
Tangerine to Oric when they launched the Oric 1?
Also, I'm certain I remember seeing "Tangerine" etched on the PCBs of the
Orics I used to own.
Transam (the Tuscan)
They produced at least one other (8080 based) machine prior to the Tuscan,
but for the life of me I cannot remember what it was called; like the Tuscan
it appeared as a build it yourself series in ETI.
Memotech
Originally a maker of add-ons for the ZX-81, RAM packs etc. Great machines
IMHO.
TTFN - Pete.
5:21 a.m.
I'm 99% sure that Tangering = Oric. ISTR that they
changed their name from
Tangerine to Oric when they launched the Oric 1?
Yes, I believe that is correct.
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- Everything you think you know is wrong. -- Jack Chalker --------------------
7:52 a.m.
On 03/09/2007 05:34, Fred Cisin wrote:
That's "Orac" :-)
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
I'm 99%
sure that Tangering = Oric. ISTR that they changed their name from
Tangerine to Oric when they launched the Oric 1?
. . . but does it have the true personality of the Oric computer on
Blake's 7?
6:07 p.m.
Ensor wrote:
Ah, the "Triton"! I knew it would come back to me. :-)
Quite by chance I stumbled across an ETI magazine today which announced the
system on the front cover as the "ETI Triton"; I didn't have time to read
the
article itself, but found some more literature which said that the designer
created the machine for "Transam and ETI", as though it were some sort of
joint venture.
I've set the magazine to one side at the museum; I'll have to have a proper
read of the article when I get chance.
Transam (the Tuscan)
They produced at least one other (8080 based) machine prior
to the Tuscan, but for
the life of me I cannot remember what
it was called.... 
10 Sep
10 Sep
10:11 a.m.
On Monday 03 September 2007 18:07:20 Jules Richardson wrote:
Quite by chance I stumbled across an ETI magazine
today which announced the
system on the front cover as the "ETI Triton"; I didn't have time to read
the article itself, but found some more literature which said that the
designer created the machine for "Transam and ETI", as though it were some
sort of joint venture.
Well they did that with Powertran a lot. In particular, the Powertran
synthesizers and effects were published as ETI articles. I really really
wanted a Transcendent 2000 when they came out first and I was just a little
geeklet. Many years (>20) later, I got hold of one that a friend of mine had
been given and had never got to work properly. A quick Goooooooooogle turned
up scans of the original ETI article pages, with the construction and setup
details and circuits.
Gordon
4 Sep
4 Sep
12:25 a.m.
Hi,
IIRC, the Tiger was also a Tangerine design (although made by HH
electronics).
Tangerine (the Microtan)
....
Oric (offshoot of Tangerine, made Oric-1 and Atmos)
I'm 99% sure that Tangering = Oric. ISTR that they changed their name from
Tangerine to Oric when they launched the Oric 1? Memotech
Originally a maker of add-ons for the ZX-81, RAM packs etc. Great machines
IMHO.
31 Aug
31 Aug
4:56 p.m.
On 31 Aug 2007 at 8:09, Rod Smallwood wrote:
RAIR Black box (I knew them very well as
they were a
customer of mine whilst I was at DEC)
One of my customers back then was really pushing the RAIR BB on this
side of the pond. Nice machine, though he never got me to buy one.
Cheers,
Chuck
11:18 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
1 Sep
1 Sep
1 a.m.
On 31/08/2007 23:18, Tony Duell wrote:
Whitechaple Computer Works (MG1 32016-based
workstation, Hitec MIPS-based
workstations)
Ah, that's the one I was trying to remember. I know someone who has
one, or perhaps two.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
10:33 a.m.
Pete Turnbull wrote:
On 31/08/2007 23:18, Tony Duell wrote:
And:
(from Jim Austins collection) : Elliot & Ferranti
Psion (organiser etc.)
Whitecross (WX9xxx & later). Massively parallel transputer (and later
x86) SQL machines. Doesn't do much without a Sun frontend but the
machine itself was designed & manufactured in the UK. Sadly, the
transputers it uses are ST rather than Inmos. I have one as a pet :-)
Flite (68K training systems). Still going too!
Does British Olivetti count? I once had a BCS2??? machine.
Strangely, I don't recall anything from Ireland. With a lot of IT
compnies now having a large presence there it strikes me as strange.
Whitechaple Computer Works (MG1 32016-based
workstation, Hitec
MIPS-based workstations)
Ah, that's the one I was trying to remember. I know someone who has
one, or perhaps two.
3 Sep
3 Sep
11:56 p.m.
>> Whitechaple Computer Works (MG1 32016-based
workstation, Hitec
>> MIPS-based workstations)
>
> Ah, that's the one I was trying to remember. I know someone who has
> one, or perhaps two.
Indeed you do -- me.
I have a complete MG1 (with original mouse, monitor, etc, it even has the
ISA slot backplane in it). I also have a Hitec, but not in the original
case. The Hitecs have a motherboard that's the same form factor as a
PC/ZT motherboard (nad which use a PC/AT PSU). The board contains the
disk controllers (floppy, SCSI, ST412), serial ports, keyboard
interfcace, etc. There are 8 slots at the normal spacing. 3 ISA slots,
and 5 DIN41612s. The latter take the processor card, video card, and RAM
cards. I have a complete machine, and many spare boards, but it's in a PC
tower case.
Psion (organiser etc.)
Whitecross (WX9xxx & later). Massively parallel transputer (and later
x86) SQL machines. Doesn't do much without a Sun frontend but the
machine itself was designed & manufactured in the UK. Sadly, the
transputers it uses are ST rather than Inmos. I have one as a pet :-)
What's the difference?
Flite (68K training systems). Still going too!
SOmewhere I even have their 68000 cross assembler ROM for the BBC micro...
-tony
4 Sep
4 Sep
9:21 a.m.
(from Jim
Austins collection) : Elliot & Ferranti
I thought we were excluding larger machines.
Whitecross (WX9xxx & later). Massively parallel transputer (and later
x86) SQL machines. Doesn't do much without a Sun frontend but the
machine itself was designed & manufactured in the UK. Sadly, the
transputers it uses are ST rather than Inmos. I have one as a pet :-)
What's the difference? 
1 Sep
1 Sep
1:22 a.m.
NIMBUS NIMBUS NIMBUS
--- Rod Smallwood
<RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk> wrote:
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:
RAIR Black box (I knew them very well
as they were a
customer of mine whilst I was at DEC)
Research Machines
Acorn
Atom
Newbrain (When I said
"What I need is a
NewBrain" everybody agreed )
Digico (I worked on
those) Had a hand
operated paper tape reader. You pulled the tape
through the reader.
Does anybody have examples of these and any I may
have missed?
Rod Smallwood
____________________________________________________________________________________
Sick sense of humor? Visit Yahoo! TV's
Comedy with an Edge to see what's on, when.
http://tv.yahoo.com/collections/222
9:45 p.m.
of this I was aware
--- Pete Turnbull <pete at dunnington.plus.com> wrote:
On 01/09/2007 01:22, Chris M wrote:
____________________________________________________________________________________
Got a little couch potato?
Check out fun summer activities for kids.
http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=oni_on_mail&p=summer+activities+for+k…
NIMBUS NIMBUS NIMBUS
Made by Research Machines, though.
3:27 a.m.
Hi,
RAIR Black box
RAIR was a British company???? You learn summat new every day!
You can also add the "Mimi" from "British Micro" to that list.
We had a lab full of them at Leicester Polytechnic when I was there. I
believe they ran CP/M but I can't verify that since the course I was on used
the Superbrain lab....
TTFN - Pete.
6098
days inactive
6108
days old
35 comments
18 participants
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aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk -
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classiccmp＠memory-alpha.org.uk -
coredump＠gifford.co.uk -
curt＠atarimuseum.com -
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julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk -
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RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk -
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