website/content/museum/telenova-compis.md

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

title	categories	types	origins	years	cpus	params
Telenova Compis	Computers	Professional Computer	Sweden	1985	Intel 80186	name company company_name specs tabs photos links comments oc_id source Compis /companies/telenova Telenova label value NAME Compis label value MANUFACTURER Telenova label value TYPE Professional Computer label value ORIGIN Sweden label value YEAR 1985 label value KEYBOARD Full-stroke separate keyboard with editing and numeric keypads. Built-in speaker and setup data's label value CPU Intel 80186 label value SPEED 8 Mhz label value CO-PROCESSOR 82720 (Graphic), 8087(arithmetic coprocessor), label value RAM 128 kb or 256 kb, expandable to 768 kb label value ROM Unknown label value TEXT MODES 50 x 25, 80 x 25 label value GRAPHIC MODES 640 x 400 (color), 1280 x 800 (monochrome) label value COLORS Monochrom label value SOUND No sound... label value I/O PORTS 2 x RS232C, Monitor, Tape-recorder, Keyboard, 2 x iSBX-bus, Centronics, Analogue In/Out, Network socket, Graphic expansion slot, floppy disk, light pen label value BUILT IN MEDIA Two 5.25'' disk-drives, optional 10 Mb / 60 Mb external hard-disk label value OS CP/M86, UCSD-p, MS-DOS label value POWER SUPPLY Power supply unit is located in the monitor photos links title subtitle text image THE TELENOVA AND ITS PERIPHERALS null title url text Another Compis page http://www.compis.nu/ Page in swedish with some technical information to download and Compis' links title url text Compis Info! http://compisinfo.googlepages.com/ Preservation of COMPIS with docs, firmware, gallery and software title url text Compis_Lever http://groups.yahoo.com/group/compis_lever/ Yahoo group ! title url text Hogia's PC Museum http://www.hogia.se/pcmuseum/datorer75-84/datorer75-84-sida.htm This museum has a nice page about the Compis (swedish). title url text Telenova Compis page http://WWW.DF.LTH.SE/~pi/compis/ Page in Swedish with some information, online docs and software. title url text Telenova Compis' page http://www.abc80.net/old/ver1/compis/ A page dedicated to the Compis with software, tools and documentation to download (in swedish). author date text Gino Jovannelli (Italy) Tuesday 29th October 2013 I worked in Kristinehamn Telenova (TELI) factory $ builded the Compis computer.\ Disaster! :-/ author date text Anders Hesselbom Saturday 30th June 2012 We used it for programming Comal in ninth grade. If I remember this correctly, it supported libraries and was line number based, so you could damage your library if you used to high line numbers in your program. author date text Kimmo Laitinen (Finland) Monday 15th September 2008 We have used this computer in physics (radioactive measurements) until today (15.9.2008). Computer still works, but geiger dont give readings any more. :( Our students are younger than Compis-computer!! author date text Martin Pålsson (Sweden) Thursday 3rd August 2006 I remember using this computer back in the mid 80's when I went to school. We were exclusively let into the computer room in the school, the computers were bought but there were only one teacher understanding the concept of computers. On the other hand he had build some i/o interfaces so that we could mesure, i think it was voltage.\ This was my first real contact with computers and i stayed on that track... author date text Niklas Carlsson (Sweden) Monday 7th March 2005 When I was in ninth grade, in 1993-94, my school still used the Compis system. We had about 15 workstations hooked up to a server, where the 10 MB harddisk were located. The screens were black/green. We used them to practice wordprocessing, and there were also some simple games that we could play against eachother via the network. The year after these computers were scrapped and replaced with ordinary PC:s. author date text Kalle Raiskila (Finland) Monday 17th February 2003 Hello,\ Out of nostalgia I typed in COMPIS in google anf your site popped up. I read Christer Sjöbloms note saying that COMPIS died beacuse of "lack\ of realism"... Hmm, since it had a 80186 it should have died sometime in the mid 80's (when the 386 was launched).\ I used the COMPIS in the 7th - 9th grades for my very first studies of programming (in COMAL) and making music. This was in 1993-1995. And I must recommend the COMPIS for its ease of use with MIDI synths & samplers. IMHO a COMPIS would still be perfect for programming studies\ at the lower grades at school, and I must ask my younger brother, who now attends the same school, if they still have them ;)\ PS, as you can see from my mail, I'm not even from Sweden (as the COMPIS is) author date text onionkid (sweden) Sunday 1st December 2002 I´ve got a Compis, and might gain access to a Compis 2 which I´ll take some documentary pictures of when I get a digital camera.\ I´ve also got a manual for programming Comal on Compis, and a book of schematics of it. author date text Christian Johansson (Sweden) Saturday 23rd February 2002 I used the COMPIS computer in a mathematics course at high school (Bergaskolan in Eslöv in Sweden) as late as 1989-1990. We used the computer for programming in COMAL. The computer was however obsolete by then and in 1990-1991 the school replaced all COMPIS computers with PCs running Windows. By the way, I want to protest against what Christer Sjöholm writes on the page describing this computer. He says that all influential people in Sweden were socialists before the fall of the iron curtain. I think this is mostly crap. Sweden has always been a western country. There were even people calling Sweden the 51st state of the USA since Sweden was and is one of the most "Americanized" countries in Europe. 358 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20230608090713/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=358 2023-06-08

The Telenova Compis computer was designed to be used in swedish schools. It featured a 80186 cpu and used CP/M 86.

The name "compis" would be a synthesis of the word Computer and the swedish word "kompis", meaning Buddy or mate. It was also a shorting for 'computer i skolan' (computer in school).
The Compis was called Scandis in Norway.

There was a small speaker in the keyboard. On the later models (Compis II) the network identity and other setup-data of the computer were also stored in the keyboard.
Compis II was also capable of running MD-DOS. Some models only had one floppy drive. It had amber monochrome display while the first model had green on black.

Svenska Datorer AB (Swedish Computers AB) went bankrupt shortly after beginning the production of the compis. Further production was taken over by the state-owned Televerket´s company TeleNova that invested large amounts of money in the project.

The following languages were available on disk : Comal, Pascal, Fortran, Cobol.

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Henrik Erlandsson's memories:
This was the computer I grew up with in college in Sweden. Like the Microbee from my high school years, it could be networked. I used that feature to program (in the excellent Pascal compiler, where you could insert assembler code) to my knowledge the first networked Tetris clone, called Fetris. (This was in 1986).
People competing against each other in the computer room caused a lot of loud screams and I remember it actually got some non-nerds hooked on these computers.

There was an excellent word processing package for the Compis which most of the students used for homework assignments. It used the special word processing shortcut keys placed around the arrow keys to great effect.
The computers were networked to a server with a 10 MB (Winchester?) harddisk, of which each student was allotted a 200kb workspace. Wow! :)

We need more info about this computer ! If you designed, used, or have more info about this system, please send us pictures or anything you might find useful.