website/content/museum/cromemco-c10.md

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

title	categories	types	origins	years	cpus	params
Cromemco C10	Computers	Professional Computer	U.S.A.	1982	Z80-A	name company company_name specs tabs adverts comments oc_id source C10 /companies/cromemco Cromemco label value NAME C10 label value MANUFACTURER Cromemco label value TYPE Professional Computer label value ORIGIN U.S.A. label value YEAR September 1982 label value BUILT IN LANGUAGE None label value KEYBOARD Full-stroke 61 keys label value CPU Z80-A label value SPEED 4 Mhz label value RAM 64 KB label value ROM 24 KB label value TEXT MODES 80 chars. x 25 lines label value GRAPHIC MODES None label value COLORS Monochrome. 12'' green CRT label value SOUND Beeper label value I/O PORTS Second F.D. unit, Parallel and Serial ports label value BUILT IN MEDIA External 390 KB 5.25'' F.D. unit label value OS CDOS - CP/M label value POWER SUPPLY Built-in Power supply unit label value PERIPHERALS No extensions capabilities label value PRICE $1785 adverts title subtitle text image FIRST C-10 AD February 1983 null author date text Jerry Lopez (Alabama/USA) Saturday 10th December 2011 I worked for Cromemco just before the\ C10 was introduced. I ourchased one\ and used it for a few years.\ It had one Z80 cpu to run both the\ video and the computer part.\ It was shipped to run CDOS,\ Cromemco''s version of C/PM.\ Of course it could also run C/PM. It was used as a smart standalone\ terminal and used with the larger\ S-100 bus machines that ran CROMIX\ the Unix look a like by Cromemco. author date text CRAIG Wednesday 20th July 2011 At the time they were banking on a contract to sell the c-10 to the us post office. author date text Pete Fenelon (UK) Monday 29th December 2003 It was very difficult to tell what Cromemco were trying to achieve with the C10. They'd made their name as a vendor of beautifully-engineered S-100 "crate" systems with excellent graphics boards available, and then came out with this stunted little terminal-lookalike with no graphical abilities at all - just at the point that CP/M was dying. The good point was that the build quality was, by the standards of the day, superb - it was much nicer to use than (say) a Superbrain. It really seemed to be in competition with the Xerox 820, although its relatively low-profile looks probably made it a slightly easier sell into executive/professional environments than the horrible boxy 820... But what it was missing was Cromemco's wonderful colour graphics.... 638 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20230604043552/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=638 2023-06-04

The C-10 is Cromemco's only attempt to step in the market of personal and family oriented computers.

The goal was to compete with Apple II's and IBM PC's in small businesses as they started getting equipped with computer systems.

This standard CP/M based system featured a 12'' screen housing a single motherboard, without extension capabilities (no S-100 bus), a keyboard and floppy drive.

The CDOS operating system (a CP/M variant) came with several business software tools (spreadsheet, word processor, BASIC language).