Cromemco

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Cromemco was a Mountain View, California microcomputer company known for its high-end Z80-based S-100 bus computers in the early days of the home computer revolution.

The company began as a partnership in 1974 between Harry Garland and Roger Melen, two Stanford PhD students. The company was named for their residence at Stanford University, Cro(thers) Mem(orial), a Stanford dormitory reserved for graduate students. Cromemco was incorporated in 1976.

The first product released by Cromemco was the Z-1 in August 1976. [1] The Z-1 came with 8K of static RAM and used the same chassis as the IMSAI 8080 but featured the Z80 microprocessor rather than the IMSAI computer's Intel 8080 chip. [2] The Z-1 was succeeded by the Z-2 in June 1977, which featured 64K of RAM and the ability to run CDOS, a variant of the CP/M operating system. [3] The Z-2 also added a parallel interface in addition to an RS-232C serial port and no longer included the large panel of switches that had been part of the Z-1 model.

In 1978, Cromemco released the System Three. The System Three was capable of running both FORTRAN IV and Z80 BASIC programming languages. The System Three was designed for multiuser professional use and included a CRT terminal, printer and the main computer unit. [4] [5]

In 1979, Cromemco released CROMIX, the first UNIX-like operating system for microcomputers. [6] CROMIX initially ran on Cromemco's Z80-based System Three and would later run on Cromemco systems using the Motorola 68K family of microprocessors.

At its peak in 1983, Cromemco employed over 500 people and had annual revenues of US$55 million. The company was wholly owned by Garland and Melen until it was sold to Dynatech in 1987 as a supplier to their Colorgraphics Weather Systems subsidiary. The European division of Cromemco reorganized as Cromemco AG and is still in business.

Contents

[edit] Brochures and Advertisements

[edit] Eminent Cromemco Personnel

  • Dr Harry Garland - President of Cromemco
  • Dr Egon Zakrajsek - author of Cromix Plus
  • Ed Lupin - XXU Card Designer
  • Herb Lewis - Senior Engineer at Cromemco
  • Leigh Thomas - writer of Cromix a Users Guide
  • Professor Roger Melen - Cromemco cofounder
  • Richard Moore - Chief Executive officer Cromemco
  • Roger Sippl and Laura King - who built ISAM and Report Writer as Cromemco employees, and left to Informix
  • Roy Harrington - writer of Z80 Cromix
  • Laura King - of later Informix fame

[edit] Systems

  • Cromemco Z-1
  • Cromemco Z-2H
  • Cromemco C10
  • Cromemco SCC
  • Cromemco System Zero
  • Cromemco System One
  • Cromemco System Two
  • Cromemco System Three
  • Cromemco System CS100
  • Cromemco System CS200
  • Cromemco System CS300
  • Cromemco System CS400

[edit] Peripherals

  • Cromemco 3101
  • Cromemco 3102
  • Cromemco Maximizer

[edit] Cards

  • 4FDC Floppy Disk Controller
  • 4KZ 4KB Dynamic Memory
  • 4PIO 4 Port IO Interface
  • 8PIO 8 Port IO Interface
  • 16FDC Floppy Disk Controller
  • 16KPR Eprom Board
  • 16KZ Dynamic RAM
  • 64FDC Double Density Floppy Disk Controller
  • 64KZ 64KB Dynamic RAM
  • 256KZ 256KB Dynamic RAM
  • BIART Communications Processor
  • Bytesaver 8K PROM Programmer
  • D+7A IO Digital and Analog IO
  • DAZZLER TV Colour Graphics
  • DPU Dual Processing Unit
  • ESDC ESDI and SCSI Device Controller
  • IOP Input Output Processor
  • PRI Printer Interface
  • OCTART 8 channel Communications Processor
  • SDI Graphics Interface
  • STDC Intelligent ST506 Winchester Disk Controller
  • TUART Twin Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter
  • WDI Winchester Disk Interface
  • XMM Memory Management
  • XMU HighSpeed Memory Management
  • XPU Dual Processor Unit
  • ZPU Zilog Z80A Processing Unit
  • XXU 68020 Dual Processor Unit

[edit] Innovations

  • Bank switching
  • Cromix a UNIX like Operating System running on a Z80 Processor
  • Dual processing
  • Pagingless Operating System
  • Persci Voice Coil Drives
  • Wide bus

[edit] Software Components

This sections lists in some detail the system level software components used in Cromemco Systems

[edit] SUDS

The Software Update Service was a fee based subscription offering. After purchase of your software a SUDS subscription enabled you to obtain software updates usually supplied on 5.25 or 8 inch diskette together with a comprehensive update reference.

SUDS notes

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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