website/content/museum/ice-felix-m18-series.md

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

title	categories	types	origins	years	cpus	params
Ice-Felix M18 series	Computers	Professional Computer	Romania	1975	East Européan version of the Intel 8080	name image company company_name specs tabs forum_thread photos oc_id source M18 series /media/museum/photos/icefelix_m18_system_s1.jpg /companies/ice-felix Ice-Felix label value NAME M18 series label value MANUFACTURER Ice-Felix label value TYPE Professional Computer label value ORIGIN Romania label value YEAR 1975 label value END OF PRODUCTION 1981 label value BUILT IN LANGUAGE None label value KEYBOARD Depending on the video terminal used label value CPU East Européan version of the Intel 8080 label value SPEED Unknown label value RAM 64 KB label value ROM Unknown label value TEXT MODES Depending on the video terminal used, mostly 80 x 25 label value GRAPHIC MODES None label value COLORS Monochrome label value SOUND Unknown label value I/O PORTS Parallel and Seriel label value BUILT IN MEDIA Magnetic tapes or punch cards label value OS M18-ROS and enhanced versions, later CP/M label value PERIPHERALS Serial printer, paper tape and card reader-puncher, magnetic tape drive, label value PRICE Unknown photos 995 title subtitle text image MAIN UNIT The main unit rack holds the system bus ans all the interconnected modules. /media/museum/photos/icefelix_m18_opened_s1.jpg title subtitle text image BROCHURE This picture seems to come from an ICE Felix brochure. /media/museum/photos/icefelix_m18_brochure_s1.jpg 1021 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20221127081650/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=1021 2022-11-27

The Felix M18 business computers family was composed of three members, the M18, M18B and M118GS. They were designed and manufactured in Romania between 1975 and 1981, using the Intel 8080 processor.

The M18 series had a modular structure composed of master and slave modules, interconnected through a common bus. The MASTER-UCB module contained the 8080 microprocessor, an 8 KB EPROM memory, the 8224 clock circuit, the 8228 local bus command circuit and the 8259 interrupt circuit.

An example of slave module was the printer / card puncher-reader port, wich didn't access the system's bus.

The first M18 contained the URS-80.00 main unit and 4 cards (CPU, SYU, PF, EBUS) for EPROM and RAM memory, and the necessary interfaces to connect the following peripherals: console, paper tape reader/puncher, serial printer, punched cards reader, magnetic tape drive and magnetic casette drive.

The Felix M18B had improved modules. The main UCB unit had the memory resources and the interrupts system on a single card. The 32 KB RAM module also was on a single card.

The systems could run three base software packs:
1 - M18-ROS, Resident Operating System,
2 - M18-TOS, Operating system oriented on punched paper tapes and magnetic tapes,
3 - SFDX18, an enhanced version of the M18-ROS and M18-TOS wich contained a monitor (MON18 V1.3), the command interpretor, an I/O subsystem, a supervisor (editor, libraries, linker), and various languages: ASM80 macroassembler, PLM80, FORTRAN80, COBOL80, BASIC, PASCAL80.

The CP/M OS was adapted later, as well as a cross-software pack (M18-CSP) allowing software to be written and simulated on the Felix C-256 family before being transferred to a M18 system through punch cards or magnetic tapes.

The M18 series was manufactured in large series and also sold beyond Romania.
The Central Informatic research Institute of Romania (ICI) also wrote a succesful real-time OS for the M18, as well as an Ethernet-like local network called CAMELEON.

Thanks to Stefan Deli from Romania for information and pictures.