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Rml 380z / 480z

mel the bellmel the bell
edited September 2011 in Chit chat
just looking through a book i got back from my dads that ive had since 1983

micro games (patrick bossert and philippa dickinson)

and it mentions this computer and has game listings for it, dont think ive ever heard of it????
certainly never seen one

anybody else?
Post edited by mel the bell on
Professional Mel-the-Bell Simulator................"So realistic, I found myself reaching for the Kleenex King-Size!" - Richard Darling

Comments

  • BiNMaNBiNMaN
    edited September 2011
    mel the bell wrote: »
    just looking through a book i got back from my dads that ive had since 1983

    micro games (patrick bossert and philippa dickinson)

    and it mentions this computer and has game listings for it, dont think ive ever heard of it????
    certainly never seen one

    anybody else?

    yup we had them at high school, a single 380z a black box with a keyboard and a green screen monitor then the school upgraded to about twenty 480z's with cub monitors and a winchester hard drive

    200px-Link380z_computer.jpg

    156_rml_480z.jpg
  • RST#08RST#08
    edited September 2011
    I think this must be referring to the RM-380Z and the 480Z built by Research Machines (RM) in the early 1980s. Both were Z80 based machines. RM, as now, were big players in the education market, and I remember there being a few 380Z's in our local schools. They seem to have been displaced by the BBC Micro, as the latter became hugely popular. I never saw a 480Z, but the 380Z I recall to be a solidly build black computer with a metal rack-mount case. I remember that it felt like a 'proper' computer! You had to load the BASIC from disc, if I remember correctly, and I think (being Z80-based) the native OS was some form of CP/M.

    Nx

    Edit: Binman posted whilst I was typing. So, I've now seen a 480Z!
  • fogfog
    edited September 2011
    when I was in 1st year we had both sorts of RM's shown... moreso the white one.. RM basically box shifted them as they were end of line, going out of date and gave schools a good deal. I wouldn't mind getting both tbh.

    I have what was the NZ version of the school for a time, a easa tb3003 (a clone of the trs 80 mk 1)


    our school replaced them by my 4th year with BBC B's and econet etc.

    college we had RM pc's which were awful :( with a winchester drive that crashed like a ***** .. this is 21 years ago now.. got to a point where most of us bought 8088's or 286's / 386's to compile our cobol and pascal at home in seconds as apposed to via minutes on a slow network.
  • mel the bellmel the bell
    edited September 2011
    ah i only ever remember bbcs and apple 2s at school
    Professional Mel-the-Bell Simulator................"So realistic, I found myself reaching for the Kleenex King-Size!" - Richard Darling
  • fogfog
    edited September 2011
    economics department got an apple lisa and the early box / monitor mac 's IRC also
  • joefishjoefish
    edited September 2011
    Yeah, RM built these things for education in the UK.
    The secondary school my Dad taught at had 380Zs so he once borrowed one for the summer holidays. My first introduction to a strange dialect of BASIC. A friend of his had also got his kids a ZX81, which was the first time I realised that every machine had a different BASIC as I couldn't find half the commands.

    My primary school's first computer was a 480Z. Two of us were picked out of the oldest class to try it out. Again OK, but not much you could do with it apart from type-in BASIC listings from books, etc. Very little software available.

    RM went on to building and supplying hugely overpriced PC-compatibles into schools. They probably still do.
    Joefish
    - IONIAN-GAMES.com -
  • fogfog
    edited September 2011
    joefish wrote: »
    RM went on to building and supplying hugely overpriced PC-compatibles into schools. They probably still do.

    of course they do, because if your in education you have to be est. a certain number of years and other criteria, before you can deal with that sector a lot of the time. (where I worked did education sales of mac's etc also).

    my old uni had a certain brand of PC... oddly / funnily enough a certain relative of said pc company worked at the uni hhmmmm "coincidence" much ?
  • JimmoJimmo
    edited September 2011
    God this takes me back my school had an RML 380Z as well as an Apple II and a couple of ITT 2020s which was an officially licensed Apple II clone with a matt silver case, before they were replaced with BBC model Bs. Hard to believe that Apple did that then seeing as now it would never entertain licensing its patents.
  • StridentStrident
    edited September 2011
    joefish wrote: »
    RM went on to building and supplying hugely overpriced PC-compatibles into schools. They probably still do.

    To be fair to RM a lot of the "value" was in the software bundle and the management program they installed on each PC which, for a primary school especially, took a lot of hassle out of purchasing PCs and meant that they at least had some curriculum-relevant software to get going with.

    But, yeah, they still do... :)
    http://www.rm.com/shops/rmshop/Product.aspx?cref=PD2049493
  • fogfog
    edited September 2011
    Jimmo wrote: »
    Hard to believe that Apple did that then seeing as now it would never entertain licensing its patents.

    they did it later with their power mac's.. computer warehouse used to sell clones.

    http://www.everymac.com/systems/compware/

    I used to work for a CW company at one point.
  • SpexSpex
    edited September 2011
    From what I was told, the RML 380Z machine was "standard issue" to UK schools, if the school could afford them, they brought BBCs as a separate deal.
    I remember playing Star Trek with a bloke who is now a Chess Grand Master on one of these machines. The Klingons got us.....
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