Cromemco
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Cromemco was a Mountain View, California microcomputer company known for its high-end Z80-based S-100 bus computers in the early days of the home computer revolution. The company began as a partnership in 1974 between Harry Garland and Roger Melen, two Stanford PhD students. The company was named for their residence at Stanford University, Cro(thers) Mem(orial), a Stanford dormitory reserved for graduate students. Cromemco was incorporated in 1976. The first product released by Cromemco was the Z-1 in August 1976. [1] The Z-1 came with 8K of static RAM and used the same chassis as the IMSAI 8080 but featured the Z80 microprocessor rather than the IMSAI computer's Intel 8080 chip. [2] The Z-1 was succeeded by the Z-2 in June 1977, which featured 64K of RAM and the ability to run CDOS, a variant of the CP/M operating system. [3] The Z-2 also added a parallel interface in addition to an RS-232C serial port and no longer included the large panel of switches that had been part of the Z-1 model. In 1978, Cromemco released the System Three. The System Three was capable of running both FORTRAN IV and Z80 BASIC programming languages. The System Three was designed for multiuser professional use and included a CRT terminal, printer and the main computer unit. [4] [5] In 1979, Cromemco released CROMIX, the first UNIX-like operating system for microcomputers. [6] CROMIX initially ran on Cromemco's Z80-based System Three and would later run on Cromemco systems using the Motorola 68K family of microprocessors. At its peak in 1983, Cromemco employed over 500 people and had annual revenues of US$55 million. The company was wholly owned by Garland and Melen until it was sold to Dynatech in 1987 as a supplier to their Colorgraphics Weather Systems subsidiary. The European division of Cromemco reorganized as Cromemco AG and is still in business.
Brochures and AdvertisementsEminent Cromemco Personnel
Systems
PeripheralsCards
Innovations
Software ComponentsThis sections lists in some detail the system level software components used in Cromemco Systems
SUDSThe Software Update Service was a fee based subscription offering. After purchase of your software a SUDS subscription enabled you to obtain software updates usually supplied on 5.25 or 8 inch diskette together with a comprehensive update reference. See alsoExternal links
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![[4]](http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/crom/s3p1.jpg){kind=link}
