ABC 800
keyboard DIN-7 |
The
Models
ABC 800
The ABC 800 came in a monochrome version with amber text on a brown background with an 80 character wide screen, and a color version with 40 characters. The main board is integrated with the keyboard, much like the Amiga 500. However, the ABC computer has a very sturdy metal chassis.
Storage is usually two
Luxor advertising asked, "Who needs
The ABC 800 computer was also sold by Facit under the name Facit DTC.[3]
ABC 802
The ABC 802 is a compact version with 64 KB RAM where 32 KB is used as a RAM disk. The main board is integrated with a 9"
ABC 806
The ABC 806 is a version with main board, screen (DA-15) and keyboard (DIN-7) as separate units. It has 164 KB RAM where 128 KB is used as a RAM disk, as well as more advanced 512x240x16 graphics.[3]
Performance
In order to see how the ABC 800 would compare to other contemporary personal computers, in 1982, the Swedish magazine MikroDatorn used the Rugg/Feldman benchmarks of eight short BASIC programs (BM1 - BM8) defined by the American Kilobaud Magazine and routinely used by the British magazine Personal Computer World for testing new machines.
The result was that ABC 800's semi-compiling BASIC interpreter turned out to be faster than most other BASICs used in popular machines, especially when integer variables are used, the results for some well known computers were as follows (times in seconds):
BM1 BM2 BM3 BM4 BM5 BM6 BM7 BM8 ABC 800 (integer) not measured - see ABC 80 for approximate numbers ABC 800 (single precision) 0.9 1.8 6.0 5.9 6.3 11.6 19.6 29 ABC 800 (double precision) 1.2 2.2 10.0 10.6 11.0 17.8 26.4 144 IBM PC 1.5 5.2 12.1 12.6 13.6 23.5 37.4 35 Apple III 1.7 7.2 13.5 14.5 16.0 27.0 42.5 75 VIC-20 1.4 8.3 15.5 17.1 18.3 27.2 42.7 99 ZX81 in "fast mode" 4.5 6.9 16.4 15.8 18.6 49.7 68.5 229
As seen from the table, the ABC 800 was approximately twice as fast as the IBM PC on
ABC 800 character set
ABC 800 character set, as described on the user manual[7]
See also
References
- ^ "empty" (PDF). 091209 pc-museum.com
- ^ "Luxor Product Information pdf" (PDF).
- ^ a b c d "Luxor ABC 800 series". oldcomputers.com.
- ^ Rautiainen, Sami (2020). "Luxor ABC 800 serie". www.devili.iki.fi. Retrieved 2023-09-10.
- ^ a b c "RigPix Database - Vintage home computers (Except IBM PC's and their clones) - Luxor ABC-800". www.rigpix.com. Retrieved 2023-09-10.
- ^ "Starring the Computer - Luxor ABC 800". www.starringthecomputer.com. Retrieved 2023-09-10.
- ^ Rautiainen, Sami (2020). "Luxor ABC800 Käyttöohje: Liitteitä - Näppäinkoodit merkki/grafiikkamuodossa (ASCII-taulukko)". Welcome to my home.