---
title: Olympia BOSS
categories:
- Computers
types:
- Professional Computer
origins:
- Japan
years:
- '1980'
cpus:
- Intel 8085
params:
  name: BOSS
  company: /companies/olympia
  company_name: Olympia
  specs:
  - label: NAME
    value: BOSS
  - label: MANUFACTURER
    value: Olympia
  - label: TYPE
    value: Professional Computer
  - label: ORIGIN
    value: Japan
  - label: YEAR
    value: '1980'
  - label: KEYBOARD
    value: Full-stroke keyboard, 99 keys, function keys (yellow), arrow keys (green) and a separated numeric keypad
  - label: CPU
    value: Intel 8085
  - label: SPEED
    value: 2.5 Mhz with 8085, 4 Mhz with Z80
  - label: RAM
    value: 64 kb
  - label: ROM
    value: 4 kb
  - label: TEXT MODES
    value: 80 x 28
  - label: GRAPHIC MODES
    value: 640 x 300
  - label: COLORS
    value: Monochrome screen
  - label: SOUND
    value: Beeper
  - label: SIZE / WEIGHT
    value: 50,5 x 58 x 17 cm / 13 kg
  - label: I/O PORTS
    value: Expansion slots (4), Tape (1200 bauds), Centronics, V24/RS232 interface
  - label: BUILT IN MEDIA
    value: 2 x 5.25'' FDD (128k, 256k or 600k), 5Mb hard-disk (Model D & M)
  - label: OS
    value: PROLOGUE, CP/M
  - label: POWER SUPPLY
    value: PSU built-in
  - label: PRICE
    value: 'Boss B : 4040 (France, november 1982)'
  tabs:
  - adverts
  adverts:
  - title: FRENCH ADVERT
    subtitle: ''
    text: ''
    image: null
  comments:
  - author: Udo Willers (Germany)
    date: Sunday 29th March 2020
    text: |-
      Hello,\
      I work at the Jade University and try to rescue this rare computer from my home town. I build a small archive with informations but seek to improve it. A schematic would be great. I also desperatly seek informations about the sussessor the Olympia People. Would love to buy one
  - author: Chris Shaw (UK)
    date: Thursday 8th December 2011
    text: |-
      Olympai Boss.

      Hi. I used to work for Olympia International between 1980 and 1989. If you would like any information on this company, the products or personnel then please contact me at: christophermshaw@aol.com
  oc_id: 95
  source:
    url: https://web.archive.org/web/20221202040219/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=95
    date: '2022-12-02'
---

The Olympia Boss was developed an build in Germany and France (assembled in the Olympia Bueromaschinenwerk, either Wilhelmshaven or Munich). Olympia was Germany's most respected and advanced typewriter and desktop calculator company at that time. But, they couldn't hold the pace of the upcoming office-computer industry and fell back.

Several models were marketed :\
\- **Boss A**: two 5.25" FDD of 128 kb each,\
\- **Boss B**: two 5.25" FDD of 256 kb each,\
\- **Boss C**: two 5.25" FDD of 600 kb each,\
\- **Boss D**: one 5.25" HD of 5Mb and one FDD of 600 kb,\
\- **Boss M** (for Multipost): up to 4 Boss systems can work together and share a total of 20Mb from the four 5Mb hard-disks (4x5=20). - **Boss 2**: Z80A instead of the Intel 8085.

It was sold with a monochrom monitor and a dot matrix printer. It runs under Prologue or CP/M, and was delivered with MicroSoft Basic 5.21 and BAL. BAL is a programming language which looks like Basic and Cobol rolled together. It is associated always with the Prologue OS and allows files management. A few other languages were available : Fortran 80, Cobol 80, Pascal MT+ and assembler.

By patching the CP/M System the machine could read any standard or non-standard CP/M formatted disk up to 720 KB, even 3.5'' disks were easily pluggable. This way user could import/export data and programms from/to any CP/M based computers, even the very popular Amstrad/Schneider CPC series.

**Steve Spring**, who was technical project manager for the Boss at Olympia's UK division in Marylebone, London for eight months at the time it was launched, reports :\
The existing sales staff in Olympia did not have the first clue what they were dealing with, totally failing to understand the fundamental difference between the type of post sales support required for an electric type writer and that required for a PC (and in those fledgling days life was a lot simpler!!!).

**Erik van Asperen** reports :\
I've been a programmer for years using BAL, and it's definitively a (Business) BASIC dialect. The only language constructs resembling COBOL are variable structures known in COBOL as redefines and filedescriptors. But I guess these are language features also known in other languages under different names. BAL certainly is not COBOL as I used to program in both languages. In the early nineties a BAL version (then already rechristened ABAL) for DOS and UNIX was available.