ICL OPD

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The One Per Desk, or OPD, was an innovative hybrid personal computer / telecommunications terminal based on the hardware of the Sinclair QL. The One Per Desk was built by International Computers Limited (ICL) and launched in the UK in 1984. It was the result of a collaborative project between ICL, Sinclair Research and British Telecom begun in 1981, originally intended to incorporate Sinclair's flat-screen CRT technology.

Rebadged versions of the OPD were sold in the UK as the Merlin Tonto and in Australia as the Telecom Australia Computerphone.

From the QL, the OPD borrowed the 68008 CPU, ZX8301/8302 ULAs, 128 KB of RAM and dual Microdrives (re-engineered by ICL for greater reliability) but not the 8049 Intelligent Peripheral Controller. Unique to the OPD was a "telephony module" incorporating an Intel 8051 microcontroller (which also controlled the keyboard), two PSTN lines and a V.21/V.23 modem, plus a built-in telephone handset and a TI TMS5220 speech synthesiser (for automatic answering of incoming calls).

The OPD was supplied with either a 9-inch monochrome (white) monitor or a 14-inch colour monitor. Both monitors also housed the power supply for the OPD itself. Later, 3.5" floppy disk drives were also available from third-party vendors

The system firmware (BFS or "Basic Functional Software") was unrelated to the QL's Qdos operating system, although a subset of SuperBASIC was provided on Microdrive cartridge. The BFS provided application-switching, voice/data call management, call answering, phone number directories, viewdata terminal emulation and a simple calculator.

The Psion applications suite bundled with the QL was also ported to the OPD as Xchange and was available as an optional ROM pack. Other optional application software available on ROM included various terminal emulators such as Satellite Computing's ICL7561 emulator, plus their Action Diary and Presentation Software, address book, and inter-OPD communications utilities.

We also have a large OPD monitor as well as the more conventional smaller monitor. These together with the OKImate EN3212 thermal printer were kindly donated by John Penn-Simkins.

Manufacturer: ICL
Date: 1985



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Magazines RELATED to ICL OPD in our Library

Item Manufacturer Date
Personal Computer World - December 1984 Dec 1984
DEC User July 1986 Jul 1986

Other Systems Related To ICL OPD:

Item Manufacturer Date
ICL Terminal 2255/1 ICL 1974
ICL Personal Computer Model 30 8120/11 ICL 1981
ICL PERQ 1 Workstation ICL 1981
ICL Personal Computer Model 30 8120/05 ICL 1981
ICL DRS8801 ICL 1983
ICL PERQ 2 T1 Workstation ICL 1983
Designer Prototype ICL OPD ICL 1984
ICL NB386S ICL 1984
ICL Personal Computer Model 36 - 8122/20 ICL 1st June 1984
ICL Perq 3A ICL 1985
BT Merlin Tonto ICL 1985
ICL OPD (Boxed) ICL 1985
ICL DRS M15 ICL 1988
ICL DRS M45 ICL 1988
ICL Fujitsu PCTV ICL March 1995

This exhibit has a reference ID of CH4938. Please quote this reference ID in any communication with the Centre for Computing History.

 

ICL OPD

  Software Archive   [1]
  Peripherals   [3]

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