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"Mark Metzler wrote: I was in WalMart last night, and I swung by the Electronics area. I was curious as to how much a replacement drive would cost me for my PC at home, which has a 17gb drive in it. They had a 80gig drive sitting on the shelf next to the surge suppressors for $70. Never mind that it comes with the software to copy everything to the new drive. So I stood there trying to do the math on what it would cost to equate that volume of storage with ST506 drives at $1995.00 a pop. My head started hurting, so I rounded the ST506 to $2000. It would take 16,000 ST506’s to reach the memory of the drive in WalMart (again sitting on the shelf, not behind a locked cabinet). At $2000.00 a pop, it would cost me $32,000,000.00. Now that would have been a nice sale, but would have been stolen by Jim Scharffe or Mike Daniel. Here is another perspective. If stacked on top of one another, they would be as tall as a 667 story building. If from sea level, they would stack high enough to top the tallest building in Downtown Denver. If sold with a cabinet and power supply, Josef Rabinowitz would be retired. "

"Ohmigod! I'm reminded of when I worked for Heath Kline at Priority One Electronics in Chatsworth...and before that for Galaxy Computers in Woodland Hills when the Commodore 64 was introduced! We thought it huge compared to the Timex Sinclair...."

"We both have been into computers since 1970's & currently own 6 OSBORNE's in working condition. Although we use DOS now, we miss cpm & how actually FAST it was compared to Windows. We miss dBase. Append as well instead of Access now. We still have data on 5 1/4" discs we need to put into the dos machines we use now. Sorry to hear you are leaving the business - we certainly hope you find a buyer who will keep the collection intact! Best to you & your wonderful efforts!"


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Processor Technology
Processor Technology
Processor Tech SOL-20 with Helios
Processor Tech SOL-20 with Helios

Processor Technology Sol-20 wth Helios Disk System The Sol-20 computer was made by Processor Technology in the 1977 and it was considered the most “elegant and best designed computer” of the early systems. A prototype of the SOL-20 was the cover story of the July, 1976 issue of Popular Electronics. Bob Marsh, co-founder, also appeared on the Today Show demonstrated the Sol-20 playing a video game. The SOL-20 was introduced in June 1976 at the PC'76 Computer Conference. The SOL-20 was designed by Lee Felsenstein, who also was one of the founders of the Community Memory Project, the Homebrew Computer Club from 1975-86, and also designed the Osborne 1 and other micro computers. Features: 8080 CPU, 2Kb ROM operating system on a plug-in “Personality Module”, 1Kb of RAM (note: the ROM operating system boots with no additional memory), 64x16 line video display with hardware scrolling, cassette tape I/O, RS-232 serial port, parallel port (not PC compatible, but can be adapted to support most PC printers), 85-key Keytronics keyboard, 5-Slot S-100 bus card cage Out of the box the Sol-20 was just a smart terminal, but functional with it’s ROM-based(Solos) operating system ). By simply adding an S-100 memory card and floppy disk controller it became a real computer capable of running CP/M disk operating system, or PTDOS, the Processor Technology system. The Helios disk system and “PTDOS” were Processor Technology’s disk solution. The market at that time was using CP/M, and PTDOS/Helios were never really accepted. (both of which used wierd hard-sector diskettes). The 8" Persci drives were also plagued with reliability problems and failure.   Helios is an enclosure and power supply for dual Persci (Peripheral Sciences) 8" floppy disk drives. At the time the Helios was very attractve compared to other disk subsystems.The Persci drive was the fastest floppy ever built using a state-of-the-art 1 msec voice coil. However is was over-priced at $1500, unreliable and Persci eventually went out of business.   The controller for the Helios was a 2-card set. It used DMA (direct memory access), which was way ahead of it’s time, and hard sectored disks, neither of which were common for that era. There was also a Processor Tech newsletter published called 'SOLUS'. This computer is now in a new museum and not part of our collection.  

SPECIFICATIONS:
NAME   Processor Tech SOL-20 with Helios
MANUFACTURER   Processor Technology
TYPE   home and business computer
ORIGIN   USA
YEAR   1977
LAST RUN 
QUANTITY BUILT  12,000
OPERATING SYSTEM small BASIC on tape initally then repalced by 8K BASIC
CPU   8080
SPEED  
RAM   8Kb
ROM   2Kb
TEXT MODES  
GRAPHIC MODES  
I/O PORTS  
POWER SUPPLY  
PRICE  


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