website/content/museum/xerox-6085.md

title, categories, types, origins, years, cpus, params

title	categories	types	origins	years	cpus	params
Xerox 6085	Computers	Professional Computer	U.S.A.	1985	Xerox Mesa	name image company company_name specs tabs forum_thread adverts oc_id source 6085 /media/museum/photos/xerox_6085_system_s1.jpg /companies/xerox Xerox label value NAME 6085 label value MANUFACTURER Xerox label value TYPE Professional Computer label value ORIGIN U.S.A. label value YEAR 1985 label value END OF PRODUCTION 1989 label value BUILT IN LANGUAGE None label value KEYBOARD 95 key Typewriter style with 20 funtion keys and numeric keypad label value CPU Xerox Mesa label value SPEED 8 MHz label value CO-PROCESSOR Unknown label value RAM 1.1 MB up to 3.7 MB label value VRAM Unknown label value ROM Unknown label value TEXT MODES Bit-map characters label value GRAPHIC MODES 880 x 697 dots label value COLORS Monochrome label value SOUND Yes, see below label value SIZE / WEIGHT Unknown label value I/O PORTS 2 serial ports label value BUILT IN MEDIA 5.25 floppy drive, 10 to 80 MB HDD label value OS Xerox ViewPoint label value POWER SUPPLY Built-in power supply unit label value PERIPHERALS Unknown label value PRICE From $4995 adverts 1025 title subtitle text image XEROX RANGE, AUGUST 1985 /media/museum/pubs/xerox_6085_pub_s1.jpg 1052 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20230608082628/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=1052 2023-06-08

The Xerox 6085 was the successor of the revolutionary Xerox Star, first commercial computer to use a graphical user interface (GUI) with the familiar desktop, icons and a mouse.

The 6085 series was offered in models for network, remote (linked by Ethernet) and stand alone operation. The main unit was founded upon Xerox's Mesa 8 MHz processor which had 256 auxiliary registers and executed 48-bit-wide instructions. It also used an 80186 as an auxiliary processor.

The basic system came with 1.1 MB of memory, expandable up to 3.7 MB, a 10 to 80 MB hard disk drive, two serial ports and a 15-inch high-resolution monochrome display. An optional card allowed the 6085 to run MS-DOS software.

The operating system and GUI interface was called ViewPoint. It also came from the Star. It was written in a language developed at Xerox PARC in the 1970's and also called Mesa. This strongly-typed and structured high-level language, would have a large influence on future well known languages like Pascal or C.

Two improved versions were launched afterwards, the 6085-II with an almost twice as fast processor, and the XPIW (Xerox Publishing Illustrator's Workstation), basically a 6085 workstation with a scanner.
Sadly, like the Alto, the 6085 didn't meet a large success in spite of numerous vanguard concepts, mainly because the Xerox marketing policy was, at the time, above all directed towards copiers rather than computers.

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David Lowy was part of the field technical and marketing support team:
There were four peripherals available for the 6085. A Tape Drive for backup (using a cartridge). A Xerox 4045 Laser Printer/Copier (When sold together, it was called a Documenter). A Xerox 7650 flatbed scanner. And lastly a PC Option card that added a 386 class processor along with MS DOS to enable running MS-DOS applications.

About the sound capabilities, Edward T. Weeden specifies:
I was part of the original team working on the release of the Xerox 6085 PCS (Professional Computer System). I was scanning your description of it and noted that you do not know if it was sound-capable. It was. As a matter of fact, I programmed many tunes and sounds for it in the Xerox proprietary programming language called CUSP. This thing would play sound in sequence. For example, if you were doing something which took up buffer/time, you could click on the bell icon on your desktop and the bell sound (whatever tune you had in the icon properties) would sound in sequence, after the other stuff was done!...