Transition of platforms in british education 3196

On Sun, 2 Apr 2006 11:37:07 +0100

The Newbrain should have been out more than a year before the Beebon surfaced.

Had it been out on time colour would have been a fairly easy optional extra.

The Newbrain was conceived as a portable - there was an optional battery pack (I don't think Grundy ever made it but there was one thet worked with the prototypes1). The 16 character vacuum flourescent was the best portable display we could manage though - it worked as a window onto the full screen, using it that way wasinteresting-.

For those that wanted cheap there was the Z80 disc pack - probably the most popular and successful Torch product (just the floppies and the Z80 card from the Torch in a slimline box).

I always figured the worst thing about the Communicator was the weight, but then I had to carry them more often than most :) The lightest one was the one on my desk (the No. 1 prototype with no case at all) it was also the hardest of all to move :)

1 Those prototypes - three hand wired1 prototypes were made in the same cases Grundy eventually used, one was stuffed with temperature probes and sat on a test bench where we tried (unsuccessfully3) to wear out the keyboard. The other two went (I hand delivered them) to the BBC for the original filming of the first episodes of the "Computer Program". Later I tried to get copies of the of that filming but it had long since been destroyed.

2 An amazing feat point to point wiring with self-fluxing enamel on square pad board. The Grundy machines were pretty much identical to the prototypes but with PCBs.

3 We did wear out a lot of key caps, several cam wheels and a couple of cam timers.

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