The Epson QX-10 is a microcomputer running CP/M or TPM-III (CP/M-80 compatible) which was introduced in 1983. It was based on a Zilog Z80 microprocessor, running at 4 MHz, provided up to 256K of RAM organized in four switchable banks, and included a separate graphics processor chip (µPD7220) manufactured by NEC to provide advanced graphics capabilities. In the USA, two versions were launched; a basic CP/M configuration with 64 K RAM and the HASCI configuration with 256 K RAM and the special HASCI keyboard to be used with the bundled application suite, called Valdocs. The European and Japanese versions were like the CP/M configurations. TPM-III was used for Valdocs and some copy protected programs like Logo Professor.
The machine had internal extension slots, which could be used for extra serial ports, network cards or third party extensions like an Intel 8088 processor, adding MS-DOS compatibility.
Its successor, the dual-processor QX-16, added a 16-bit Intel processor enabling it to also boot MS-DOS 2.11. The case of the QX-16 was enlarged to provide enough physical space for an internal hard-drive in contrast to the QX-10's dual-floppy configuration.
VALuable DOCumentS by Rising Star Industries is an obsolete Pseudo-GUI WYSIWYG framework/OS for document creation and management, written as a set of interactive application and system modules which ran only on Epson's QX-10 and QX-16 computers. A version designed to run on the IBM PC was in development when Rising Star closed in 1986.
Valdocs shipped to beta testers circa late 1982. Beta and initial production releases of Valdocs' application modules were written in the Forth programming language while its system-oriented modules (such as E-Mail and disk utilities) were written in Z-80 Assembly Language. Later releases of Valdocs' applications were written in the C programming language.
The initial release of Valdocs included WYSIWYG word processor and spreadsheet applications (with onscreen fonts, an UNDO key, keyboard macros and multiple screen formats), a cardfile database, an E-Mail/communications module, and a desktop manager with an address book, mailing list manager, notepad, spell checker, ValDraw & ValPaint, calculator and more. Chris Rutkowski and Roger Amidon worked on the preliminary QX-10 design; Amidon continued designing software for the QX system after Epson and Rising Star Inc. stopped production. Graphic and other software for the QX-10 and QX-16 were developed by program designers such as Dan Oja and Nelson Donley.
Switching between programs was done by pressing an associated hotkey on the QX-10's keyboard (which was specifically designed to support Valdocs, including an UNDO key) or by selecting a program from a menu the hotkey invoked. The keyboard was referred to as HASCI (Human Application Standard Computer Interface) after the user interface with the same name pioneered by Rising Star Industries.
Valdocs was ahead of its time, but there were three major problems with the QX-10 and QX-16. The computer ran at only 4 MHz and was very slow. Using the TPM system was too complicated for most users, similar to that of raw MS-DOS. Worst of all, Valdocs was written in a forth dialect instead of in assembly language and the system was loaded with bugs that resulted in numerous fatal errors. Users would often spend hours writing a document only to see all of that hard work lost in a system crash. Roger Amidon created a program called QX Cure-all that was designed to recover a lost document, but it worked only about half the time. Amidon created other utility software as well as a bootrom. Even with all of the added improvements, the system was just too slow and flawed to compete with companies such as Apple and Microsoft.