Processor Technology

Processor Technology Corporation
	6200 Hollis Street in Emeryville, California, site of Processor Technology Corporation's former headquarters
Industry	Computer
Founded	April 1975; 50 years ago in Berkeley, California
Founder	Gary Ingram; Bob Marsh;
Defunct	May 1979; 45 years ago
Fate	Dissolved

Processor Technology Corporation was a

I/O boards including a video display module.^[3]

Popular Electronics magazine wanted a feature article on an intelligent computer terminal and Technical Editor Les Solomon asked Marsh and Lee Felsenstein to design one. It was featured on the July 1976, cover and became the Sol-20 Personal Computer.^[4] The first units were shipped in December 1976 and the Sol-20 was a very successful product.^[5] The company failed to develop next generation products and ceased operations in May 1979.^[6]

History

Bob Marsh,

gun stock manufacturer.^[7]

Processor Technology manufactured approximately 10,000 Sol-20 personal computers between 1977 and 1979. All Processor Technology products were available either fully assembled, or as

Compact Cassette. One side of the tape was recorded in CUTS format, and the other side was Kansas City standard

format. Gary Ingram and Steven Dompier wrote the original software utilities. Lee Felsenstein wrote the original user manuals as a contractor.

Standards

Processor Technology also designed several S-100 bus boards. The boards were meant to be compatible with the circuits of Sol-20.

The Video Display Module 1 (

memory-mapped I/O for high performance, and also included hardware support for scrolling. The VDM-1 Video Board was a great improvement over using a teletype machine or a serial attached terminals, and was popular for owners of other S-100 bus systems such as the IMSAI 8080

.

Another popular product was the CUTS Tape I/O Interface S-100 board. The CUTS board offered standard interface for saving and reading data from

cassette tape, supporting both the Kansas City standard format, as well as their own custom CUTS format. Lee Felsenstein was key participant of the development of Kansas City standard format, the first cross-system data transfer standard for microcomputers

.

Products

Computers
- Sol-PC — Single circuit board only without case or power supply; available as fully assembled or as kit form
- Sol-10 Terminal Computer — Stripped-down model without 5 slot S-100 backplane; available as fully assembled or as kit form
- Sol-20 Terminal Computer — Includes 5-slot S-100 backplane; available as fully assembled or as kit form
  - Sol-20 price 1976 approximately $5000 CND with extra 16K card
S-100 bus boards
- VDM-1 — Video Display Module Board
- 3P+S — Input/Output Module 3 Parallel plus 1 Serial Board
- 4KRA — 4K Static Memory Board
- 8KRA — 8K Static Memory Board
- 16KRA — 16K
  DRAM
  memory board
- 32KRA-1 — 32K DRAM memory board
- CUTS — Tape I/O Interface Board, CUTS format and Kansas City standard format
- 2KRO — EPROM memory board
- Helios II Disk Memory System
- GPM — General Purpose Memory, ROM board held CUTER Monitor Program
Software
- SOLOS — operating system
- CUTER — monitor program and cassette tape loader.
- ASSM — 8080 assembler
- BASIC/5 — 5K BASIC programming language
- Extended Cassette Basic (8K) — BASIC Interpreter
- FOCAL programming language
- ALS-8
- PTDOS — operating system for use with the Helios II Disk Drive
- EDIT — 8080 Editor
- 8080 Chess — Chess Game
- TREK-80 — Star Trek Themed Game
- GamePack 1 — Collection of Games - Volume 1
- GamePack 2 — Collection of Games - Volume 2

Works cited

ISBN 0-07-135892-7
.

Veit, Stan (1993). Stan Veit's History of the Personal Computer. Alexander, North Carolina: WorldComm Press.
ISBN 1-56664-030-X
.

References

^ Freiberger (2000), 61-63
^ |Marsh, Robert (July 1975). "4KRA (4096 x 8 RAM) Static Memory Module". Homebrew Computer Club Newsletter. 1 (5). Menlo Park, CA: 2.
^ "Make a Giant of Your Minicomputer". Byte. 1 (14). Peterborough NH: Byte Publications: 72–73. October 1976. A Processor Technology advertisement showing a motherboard with eight add-in boards.
^ Marsh, Robert; Lee Felsenstein (July 1979). "Build the SOL Intelligent Computer Terminal". Popular Electronics. 10 (1). Ziff Davis: 35–38.
^ Veit (1993), 131-148
^ Freiberger (2000), 153-155
^ Lundin, Leigh (2011-10-09). "An Apple Today". Technology. Orlando: SleuthSayers.org.
^ Processor Technology (November 1975). "8800 Hardware". Byte. 1 (3). Peterborough, NH: Green Publishing: 75. Processor Technology advertisement. The VDM-1 Video Display Module for the Altair computer generated 16 lines of 64 characters on a black and white TV. Kit price was $160, assembled $225. The Cromemco TV Dazzler first appeared in the April 1976 issue of Byte

External links

[1] Freiberger (2000), 61-63

[4KRA_RAM-2] |Marsh, Robert (July 1975). "4KRA (4096 x 8 RAM) Static Memory Module". Homebrew Computer Club Newsletter. 1 (5). Menlo Park, CA: 2.

[PT_Ad_Oct_1976-3] "Make a Giant of Your Minicomputer". Byte. 1 (14). Peterborough NH: Byte Publications: 72–73. October 1976. A Processor Technology advertisement showing a motherboard with eight add-in boards.

[Marsh_1976-4] Marsh, Robert; Lee Felsenstein (July 1979). "Build the SOL Intelligent Computer Terminal". Popular Electronics. 10 (1). Ziff Davis: 35–38.

[5] Veit (1993), 131-148

[6] Freiberger (2000), 153-155

[SS1-7] Lundin, Leigh (2011-10-09). "An Apple Today". Technology. Orlando: SleuthSayers.org.

[Byte_Nov_1975-8] Processor Technology (November 1975). "8800 Hardware". Byte. 1 (3). Peterborough, NH: Green Publishing: 75. Processor Technology advertisement. The VDM-1 Video Display Module for the Altair computer generated 16 lines of 64 characters on a black and white TV. Kit price was $160, assembled $225. The Cromemco TV Dazzler first appeared in the April 1976 issue of Byte

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