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These are some of the latest editions that have kindly been donated to The Cenre For Computing History
The Apple IIc, the fourth model in the Apple II series of personal computers, was Apple Computer’s first endeavor to produce a portable computer. The end result was a luggable 7½ pound notebook-sized version of the Apple II that could easily be transported from place to place. The c in the name stood for compact, referring to the fact it was essentially a complete Apple II computer setup (minus display and power supply) squeezed into a small notebook sized housing. While sporting a built-in floppy drive and new rear peripheral expansion ports, it lacked the internal expansion slots and direct motherboard access of earlier Apple IIs, making it a closed system like the Macintosh. However that was the intended direction for this model—a more appliance-like machine, ready to use out of the box, requiring no technical know-how or experience to hook up and therefore attractive to first-time users.
Our machine has serial no: 2A254-024257 and was kindly donated by Mark Maidment
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The Cambridge Computer Z88 was an A4-size, lightweight, portable Z80-based computer with a built-in combined word processing/spreadsheet/database application called Pipedream, along with several other apps/utilities, such as a Z80-version of BBC BASIC.
The machine was designed by Sir Clive Sinclair and released by his company Cambridge Computer in 1987 (Sir Clive having been unable to market the computer as the Sinclair Z88 after selling Sinclair Research's computer business to Amstrad in 1986).
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The P500 is a member of the Commodore PET-II family of computers. It is a close relative to the Commodore 600 and 700.
While the Commodore 600/700 models were designed as business models with 80 column monochrome video, the P500 was designed as a home computer with 40 column video, featuring the VIC-II chip that was later available in the C64. Because the timing is controlled by the VIC, it is in fact determined by the video standard in use. So the other difference between the 600/700 computers and the P500 is that in the latter, the CPU is clocked with about 1MHz, while the former run with 2MHz.
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The system transferred the content of books from the Gipsy mainframe system used by AA publishing to Quark on Applemac. This was done so that the pages could be run in and made up quickly using stylesheets. This way of doing bookwork was very effective and meant books could be produced much quickerthan having to attach the stylesheets by hand. Date 13/04/1989
The Intermadia is a normal Desktop computer with towers of 4 drives for plus 2 powerpacks for the different discs, it just had a PCI board fitted that made it do the magic. No CRT for this but any will do. I think I have 3in (Amstrad) 3.5 HiDen, 5.25 HiDDen, 5.25 Normal Density. 8inch Normal Density drives plus powerpack
Our system was very kindly donated by Bob Wilson
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SCL (Semi-conductor Complex Ltd), was an Indian goverment enterprise and had built BBC Microcomputers under the name SCL Unicorn Microcomputer in 1985/6.
Serial No. 00077992. Motherboard SCL Unicorn Microcomputer
CPU SCL6502, CPU Clock 2MHz, RAM 32KB
ROM 48KB (16KB + 2 x16KB sideway ROM)
Our PCB was very kindly donated by Mark Cook
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The Panasonic Personal Computer (a lap top really) CF-41 Mk II has a Pentium 75 MHz processor, a 680MB hard drive and 4MB RAM.
The first computer of the CF-41 series was introduced in 1994 and was equipped with the Intel 486DX50 processor and 8 Mb RAMThis model was probably produced in 1995.
It is quite unique in that the keyboard hinges up to give top access to the CD-ROM drive
Our unit is in excellent condition with a model number of CF-41PT64FAE and a serial number of 51KSE20Z81 and was kindly donated by Mark Cook. Thios is complete with manuals, software and soft case
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Original Odhner model 227 Pinwheel calculator
This Original Odhner model 227 Pinwheel calculator manufacture in 1955. This small pin-wheel type mechanical calculator stands 4 3/4" high x 6 1/4" deep x 13" long overall, with its case finished in gray enamel. The calculator has 10 setting levers, 8 places in the revolution counter, and 13 places in the results mechanism. The calculator comes with its original vinyl cover and was donated by Graham Denton
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IBM RS/6000 Model 550L
The RISC System/6000, or RS/6000 for short, is a family of RISC and UNIX based servers, workstations and supercomputers made by IBM in the 1990s. The RS/6000 family replaced the IBM RT computer platform in February 1990 and was the first computer line to see the use of IBM's POWER and PowerPC based microprocessors. RS/6000 was renamed eServer pSeries in October 2000.
Our unit is an IBM RS/6000 Model 550L using RISC with an IBM AIX 3.2.5.1 operating system.
Machine type: 7013, Machine Model 550L, Machiner ID 77
RAM: 192MB
The ASCII Display Station IBM 3151 is a 14-inch diagonal color CRT display (specify green, amber or white screen)
24 lines of 80-132 characters each. Consists of two elements: Display/Logic and Keyboard
Our working model was very kindly donated by Rubicon Computer Systems of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk who since 1976, have been developing and supplying integrated software and technical solutions to a wide range of industries.
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Canon A-200 III HD20
Welcome to the Canon A-200 PC with MS-DOS 3.3. This is a 1980s-vintage machine, having a V20 CPU (running at 4.77 or 8 Mhz), 640k of RAM, a 20-megabyte hard disk, a 360k 5.25-inch diskette drive, and a Hercules mono green screen
All the software is provided on original 5.25-inch diskettes. Manuals and/or books for all the applications are included, as well as those originally supplied with the machine. This machine is fully working and was very kindly donated by Larry Stuart-Jones. This is complete with all software and manuals
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Alfred from Robot City Technology
The 'Alfred' arm made its first appearance in a series of constructional articles in Everyday Electronics magazine in late 1984
The articles were written by Alfred's creator, Alan Green. (It seems the Alfred name was a shortened version of 'Alan's friend' - a name Alan Green gave to his home built robot to impress his six year old daughter and her school friends.) The Everyday Electronics DIY version, as illustrated on the right, used six model servos and was designed to be controlled by a BBC B.
Our 'Alfred' was very kindly donated by Norma & Iain Smith
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ICL Personal Computer Model 30 8120/05
The ICL Personal Computer (ICL PC) started production in 1981. Despite the name, it was a CP/M computer. The ICL PC uses an Intel 8085 for its CPU. It can run either CP/M-80 or M/PM.
We are extremely grateful to Mike Read for his very kind donation.
The machine was purchased in 1982 Mike's late friend Les Teare who worked for ICL as a development programmer who was involved with network development and early work on the "world wide web". Sadly he died before the internet as we know it was introduced. The standard purchase price was £6000 (luckily he was entitled to a staff purchase scheme concession!). However, it was still a price which, in todays terms, would buy several, much more powerful, machines.
It was used to write two text books and several articles with Wordstar 3, which are still on the archive disks in the box of documentation. It went into retirement in the mid 90's as more user friendly GUI systems became available.
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Casio fx-8500G calculator & FA-80 Interface
Casio graphic calculators use a BASIC-like programming language but variable names are restricted to single letters A-Z which are shared by all programs including subroutines which are stored as separate programs. This means there are no local variables, they are all global. These variables are also shared by other functions of the calculator. For example, drawing a graph will overwrite the X and Y values.
Our calculator and Interface was kindly donated by Ian Bygrave
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Anamartic Wafer-Scale 160MB Solid State Disk
In the biggest advance in semiconductor packaging since the original dual in-line package, Anamartic Ltd, the Milton, Cambridge company founded by Sir Clive Sinclair, on the 26th October 1989 unveiled its first product, the 40Mb Wafer Stack.
The Wafer Stack consists of two 6" wafers, each containing 202 1M-bit memory chips, together with proprietary Conlog configuration logic. The memory array is organised in a logical spiral from the outside to the middle of the wafer, and the Conlog logic not only enables the wafer at set-up to be program-med by external software to bypass any chips that failed altogether, but also to use the good parts of chips where only a handful of memory cells are no good
We have an original working unit as welll as a specially framed unit which is shown in the photograph.
This was very kindly donated by Dr Malcolm Williamson and Mrs Margaret Marks
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The system appears to be based on the Burroughs B20 to B26 workstations with the BTOS operating system. For examplethe Burroughs B20 was also sold as the Cnvergent Technologies C20.
Burroughs B25 model was used by Convergent Technologies for the NGEN model.
The NGEN was known to Burroughs users as the B25, to Prime as the "Prime Producer 200", and was included the Intel 80186 CPU chip.
Our Modules include the Central Processor, Hard Disk Unit
Disk Unit, Graphics Card Unit, Graphics Card Unit
Keyboard and Monitor. All complete with the 5 Separate Power Supply Units
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The F10 was a refinement of the Apricot F1 with a hard disc addition to the floppy drive. The cost in 1985 was £2295.00.
8086 at 4.7MHz, ROM 32k, RAM 512k
Monitor 4 colour and Gem Software
They were quite similar to the F1, but included an extra expansion slot, more memory and larger storage capacity : two disk-drives for the F2 and one disk-drive and a 10MB hard-disk for the F10.
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The Victor 9000 (English name: ACT Sirius S1, distributed in the UK by British company Applied Computer Techniques was designed by Chuck Peddle—who had also designed the first Commodore PET—and presented for the first time at the Systems show in Munich, Germany in late 1981. Chuck Peddle used two of his Commodore contacts to set up two subsidiaries in continental Europe. David Deane (France) and Juergen Tepper (Germany) were both ex-Mannesmann Tally whom Chuck had met while negotiating an OEM deal for printers.
The Victor 9000/Sirius S1 ran CP/M-86 and MS-DOS but was not a PC clone. It offered a higher resolution screen as well as floppy drives.
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The first machine, the Lynx 48K, was released in March 1983 as a home computer system to directly rival the Spectrum. The specification was rapidly upgraded to 96K in September 1983, and those who had bought a 48K system could send their machines back to Camputers to have the upgrade installed. This was one of the touted features of the Lynx range - easy expandability. At the same time as the 96K Lynxes made it into the shops, the first Disk Drives were released. These were as stylish as the computer, finished in a business style dark grey, contained their own internal power supplies and had a then-substantial 200 kilobytes of storage capacity.
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The Psion MC-400 runs on an Intel 80C86 processor, uses eight conventional 'AA' (or MN 1500, LR6) batteries, and has not only an inbuilt speaker, but also a microphone. Along one of the sides of the MC-400 standard mini-plug jacks permit headphones and/or an external microphone to connect to the unit. A touch pad just below the unit's display screen emulates the use of a mouse as a pointing device; the screen itself has a matrix 640 pixels wide, by 400 high. The addition of a voice processor module would allow users to record and playback their own diary notes, or to leave dictation for secretarial staff to type. Our model was very kindly donated by Graham Lapwood
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Sinclair Cambridge Programmable
The Sinclair Cambridge Programmable Calculator was also sold in the U.S as the Radio Shack EC-4001. It had an 8 digits red LED display (made by National Semiconductor).
Scientific programmable. Integrated circuits - National Semiconductor MM5799EHY/N and DS7784N
9v (PP3 battery) - a "pregnant" mode because of the bulge on the back, see photograph. 50 mm x 111 mm x 28 mm.
Made in England.
This was originally purchased on the 4th September 1976
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Codenamed Candyfloss, this computer was aimed to compete with the IBM PC-AT. It was a multipost system capable of controlling up to 16 stations.
The Apricot XEN is complete with a badged keyboard
Model Numbers: GCXWS 001069 and 001081
Our unit is the Xen WS (WorkStation) with 1 MB of RAM and no disk drives.
All kindly donated by Mike Vos
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The Amstrad CPC 464 was one of the most successful computers in Europe. More than two million computers were sold. Despite its ordinary characteristics (like those of the Sinclair Spectrum and often less interesting than those of the others like the Commodore 64 or Atari XL/Xe series) or odd features (like video memory or strange floppy disk format), it was very popular because of its really low price and its interesting commercial concept : all peripherals were sold together (like the Commodore PET that was sold years earlier): CPU/keyboard, tape recorder, monitor (monochrome green or colour).
Kindly donated by Kenneth Lawrence
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The Psion MC-400 runs on an Intel 80C86 processor, uses eight conventional 'AA' (or MN 1500, LR6) batteries, and has not only an inbuilt speaker, but also a microphone. Along one of the sides of the MC-400 standard mini-plug jacks permit headphones and/or an external microphone to connect to the unit. A touch pad just below the unit's display screen emulates the use of a mouse as a pointing device; the screen itself has a matrix 640 pixels wide, by 400 high. The addition of a voice processor module would allow users to record and playback their own diary notes, or to leave dictation for secretarial staff to type.
Our model was very kindly donated by Graham Lapwood and has a Serial Number of BBB 100254
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The BBC Domesday Project was a partnership between Acorn Computers Ltd, Philips, Logica and the BBC (with some funding from the European Commission's ESPRIT programme) to mark the 900th anniversary of the original Domesday Book, an 11th century census of England. It is frequently cited as an example of digital obsolescence.
A new multimedia edition of Domesday was compiled between 1984 and 1986 and published in 1986. It included a new 'survey' of the United Kingdom, in which people, mostly school children, wrote about geography, history or social issues in their local area or just about their daily lives. This was linked with maps, and many colour photos, statistical data, video and 'virtual walks'. Over 1 million people participated in the project. The project also incorporated professionally-prepared video footage, virtual reality tours of major landmarks and other prepared datasets such as the 1981 census.
The project was stored on adapted laserdiscs
Our discs together with the BBC Countryside and Eco disks were kindly donated by Keith Bowman together with the original laserdisc player and the BBC Micro
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TRS-80 Microcomputer System Model III
The Model III is basically an upgrade of the Model I, which was released three years earlier. It has the same CPU, but it is faster, has more memory, and the floppy drives hold twice as much data, although the Model I could be upgraded to some of these features.
The major reason for developing the Model III was because the FCC had just instituted new regulations about RF emissions generated by computers and other electronic devices. The Model I was completely unshielded and was unable to pass the emission restrictions.
The Model III system is entirely self-contained. The original Model I had edge-type connectors with ribbon cable connecting the keyboard to the (optional) Expansion Interface, as well as the floppy drives. This type of connection is very unreliable, and led to the occasional system crash or lock-up.
Introduced July 1980
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VIC-20The VIC-20 is an 8-bit home computer. It was made by Commodore Business Machines, with 5 KB RAM and a MOS 6502 CPU. The machine's external design was later used by the Commodore 64 and C16. The VIC-20 was r eleased in Japan in 1980, and in the U.S. and Europe in 1981. The VIC-20 was the first microcomputer to sell one million units. Our unit very kindly donated by Mr Tony Decore and has serial number WGB 122360 and was purchased on the 14th May 1983 
This is a boxed unit and comes complete with: Power Supply Unit, Commodore C2N Datasette Unit Model 1530 boxed with instructions, 16K Rampack (cost at the time £44.95) and Many Vic 20 games
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New Cell
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CGL Sord M5The CGL Sord M5 made by CGL Home Computers, was a Japanese home computer available in 1983. It had keys similar to the Sinclair Spectrum, but with the bottom right corner chopped off.
The processor was a Zilog Z80 , runninng at 3.58 MHz Japan 1982
This was very kindly donated by Mr D Flack and is complete with software, manuals, joystick, cables and Power Supply
Serial No: 23C 0282
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 MBC-1150The Sanyo MBC-1150 Creative Computer has now arrived at The Centre For Computer History.
This has a serial number of 94840290 was very kindly donated by Gordon Willis complete with keyboard (serial number 94840293) cables, disks and manuals and is in excellent condition.
The hardware includes one Z-80A (4MHz) central processing unit. The non-glare CRT displays green characters (80) in twenty five lines.
The standard external interfave is one RS-232C serial port and a Centroniucs (parallel) printer port and was first produced in 1984
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 The ICL Personal Computer (ICL PC) started production in 1981. Despite the name, it was a CP/M computer. The ICL PC uses an Intel 8085 for its CPU. It can run either CP/M-80 or M/PM.
ICL Personal Computer Model 30
Unlike the model 36 this was a Personal Computer as it did not have a facility for further workstations.
Model 30 with a 5 MB hard disc, CP/M O.S.
This is in excellent condition and complete with original monitor, keyboard, manuals and software.
ICL Model 30
Catalogue Serial No - 8120/11
Build Control - 82'1142
Serial No - A04
Monitor
Catalogue No - 6402/00
Build Control Serial No - 2986
We are extremely grateful to John and Jane Brocklehurst for their very kind donation
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Teletype BRPE 20
Mr John Mouncher has very kindly donated two Teletype BRPE 20 High Speed Tape Punch sets. These are electromechanical devices that rapidly punches information into paper tape at speeds up to 110 characters per second (1100 WPM).
This information is received from external control circuits in the form of multiwire electrical pulses and transformed into mechanical motions to feed tape, feed and code holes. The set serves mainly as a self contained unit in a high speed telegraph system.
The basic set components include a base unit, a motor unit, and a tape punch unit. The motor unit and tape punch units are mounted on the base and connected by a set of drive parts. The tape unwinds off a reel mounted on the side of the base and is fed and punched at the front of the punch unit.
These are complete with manuals, parts list and spares.
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IBM model 370/138
The Centre For Computing History are very pleased to accept a donation of an IBM front Control Panel for the model 370/138. This Mainframe computer was introduced on June 30, 1976 and continued in production until November 1, 1983.
This computer could be leased for $8,730 a month with one-half million characters of main memory, and for $11,415 a month with one million characters.
Monthly rental prices were $9,600 and $12,550.
Purchase prices were $350,000 and $435,000.
The IT Department of the Ideal Stelred Group has kindly donated Commodore C286-LT and Compaq SLT/286 portable computers.
We have also received a Research Machines RM 380Z in a black case with disks and manuals.
The system uses the Intel 16 bit 8086 microprocessor at 4.608 MHz and supports 20 bit of addressing (1 megabytes of storage). The system provides high performance devices including four channels of 20 bit Direct Memory Access (DMA, three 16 bit timer counter channels and 16 levels of interrupts. The system supports both ROM (8 KB) and RAM (128 KB) Read/Write memory and contains space for 8 kilobytes EPROM. Dual 8" floppy drives
We have the software and the complete manuals as well as the hardware manufactured February 1983 with a serial number of 0177
This quite unique computer was very kindly donated by Kim Faulkner on the 22nd December 2008
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Processor consists of a Z80 CPU card for the IEEE S-100 Standard Bus which was manufactured by Godbout Electronics, 64K Byte RAM card and a 4 port serial I/O card. The Video Card is a VDB 8024 type. The Keyboard Unit is the AKL SE 82-174-01 type.
The storage Unit 2B consists of two "Flexible Disk Drives" with associated power supply. Control is by a Tarbell Disk Control Card connected to the S-100 bus with a 50 way cable.
This is very unique, we cannot trace that it ever went on Sale. Complete with software and manuals.
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Sinclair PC200
Amstrad's Sinclair PC200 was a radical departure from anything previously produced under the Sinclair label. In effect, it was Amstrad's attempt to tap the market at which the QL had been targeted - the serious user or small businessman on a tight budget. The machine was a severely cut-down PC with an Intel 8086 processor, CGA video card, 512K of memory and no hard disk.
Considering that the PC200's main rivals were the far more capable Atari ST and Commodore Amiga, it is not surprising that the machine was a dismal commercial failure. Today it is extremely rare.
This has been very kindly donated by Kim Falkner
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This is an Acorn Prototype unit based on a RISC PC 700 with a serial no of 72-ACB77-1010004
It is marked on the top of the machine "Prototype only - Not tested by Acorn
We are extremenly grateful to Laurence Van Someren of Aleph One Ltd - http://www.aleph1.co.uk/ for donating this machine togethjer with many other Acorn computers and associatrd books and manuals
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Compaq Portable III/386
Apart from the Compaq logo, the Compaq Portable 386 was externally identical to the Portable III, but the inside was a true revolution in the portable computers field of the time. Its Intel 386-20 processor offered more speed, power and capabilities than ever before.
About the Portable 386, PC Magazine said in its review:
PC Magazine said "Its the hottest thing you can pick up with a handle. At 20 MHz, it outperforms everything else on the market but its deskbound sibling . Yet it's rugged enough for on-the-go computing, takes standard PC cards in an elegantly engineered span-on expansion chassis, and weighs less than 20 pounds. Some folks may not like the styling, but everyone loves the way it performs. "
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DECpc 425SL/e
The DECpc 425SL/e Notebook uses Intel's new i486SL processor, a full- function 25MHz i486 made just for notebooks. You get the functionality of a desktop
PC, with a removable hard disk, expandable memory, a docking connection, and two PCMCIA slots for miniature option cards. The SL's monochrome screen is even upgradable to active matrix color.
It has a pop out trackball on the side for navigation
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Nascom
The Nascom 1 and 2 were single-board computer kits issued in 1977 and 1979, respectively, based on the Zilog Z80 and including a keyboard and video interface, a serial port that could be used for storing data on a tape cassette using the Kansas City standard, and two 8-bit parallel ports.
The inclusion of a full keyboard and video display interface was uncommon in this era, most microcomputer kits at the time only being delivered with a hexadecimal keypad and 7-seg display. In order to keep the cost down, the purchaser had to assemble their Nascom by hand-soldering approximately 3,000 joints on the single circuit board.
We have a wonderful example beautifully constructed from aluminium and wood and all housed in a purpose built case with carrying handles
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GEC 4080
It was in 1968 that the real-time computing interests of AEI, Elliott-Automation, English Electric and Marconi together with those of GEC, were consolidated under Government inspiration into a single company. It traded initially as Marconi Elliott Computer Systems Ltd until registration in its present name of GEC Computers Ltd could be completed.
The 4080 was introduced as a poor man's version of the 4082. Core store was slow, and to gain performance, the 4080/4082 could interleave store accesses, i.e. it could perform simultaneous access to multiple store locations. The 4078 had the store interleaving switched off. It was sold
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