Z80s From the ’80s Had Futuristic Design
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Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Ever heard of a Dutch company called Holborn (literally, born in Holland)? We hadn’t either, but [Bryan Lunduke] showed us these computers from the early 1980s, and we wondered if they might have appeared in some science fiction movies. They definitely look like something from a 1970s movie space station.
The company started out tiny and only lasted a few years. The Holborn 9100 looked like a minicomputer and, honestly, other than the terminal, looks more like an air conditioner or refrigerator. While it was a Z-80 system, it was clearly aimed at business. The processor ran at 3.5 MHz, there was 72K of RAM that could expand to 220 K — a whopping amount for the early ’80s. They also could accept loads of 8-inch floppies. It even had a light pen, which seems exotic today but was actually fairly common back then.
When we heard you could go to 220 K of memory, we assumed it used a version of CP/M or MP/M that understood bank switching. Nope. They developed their own multiuser operating system. The OS was totally in ROM, so finding out any details about it is difficult.
Their next computer was a cheaper version that only supported two terminals, the Holborn 7100. There were only 200 9100 systems sold (or at least, claimed to be sold), and presumably fewer of the stripped-down model.
By 1982, CP/M was rising, and the company realized that its OS was not catching on. That led to the Holborn 6100 which was a CP/M machine that could handle 192K of RAM. Same mod terminal, but a much smaller box that could pass for a floppy disk NAS today. They sold about 100 of these computers.
The next computer was to be the 6500, but the company filed for bankruptcy before any of them could be shipped. The bankruptcy proceedings revealed that the company had actually sold only 50 units of the 9100 and 7100 combined! They also had about $7 million in debt.
The post has lots of pictures, ads, and even an internal shot of one of the devices. You can imagine with 50 units in the wild, there is little left of the Holborn computers today. But if you happen to run across one, you should definitely rescue it!
Old computers are like actors. Some are remembered, and some are forgotten. Despite looking like a minicomputer, a typical mini of that era would have had a bitslice CPU, not a Z80.
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