website/content/museum/thorn-emi-wren.md

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

title	categories	types	origins	years	cpus	params
THORN EMI WREN	Computers	Transportable	United Kingdom	1984	Zilog Z80 A	name company company_name specs tabs adverts comments oc_id source WREN /companies/thorn-emi THORN EMI label value NAME WREN label value MANUFACTURER Thorn EMI label value TYPE Transportable label value ORIGIN United Kingdom label value YEAR 1984 label value KEYBOARD Full-stroke keyboard with 5 function keys and arrow keys, 67 keys label value CPU Zilog Z80 A label value SPEED 6 MHz label value RAM 64 kb (up to 256 kb) label value VRAM 32 kb label value ROM 8 kb label value TEXT MODES 80 x 25 / 40 x 25 label value GRAPHIC MODES 512 x 256 label value COLORS monochrome built-in display label value SIZE / WEIGHT 235 x 420 x 470 mm / 12 kg label value I/O PORTS Centronics, RS232c, Winchester Hard Disk, Paddle (2), Modem socket, RGB video output label value BUILT IN MEDIA Two 5.25'' built-in disk-drives (190k each) label value OS CP/M label value POWER SUPPLY Built-in PSU label value PRICE £1,000 (UK, april 84)\ 2881 (France, october 84) adverts title subtitle text image PROUD ! This authentic picture show a proud owner of a Wren transportable computer ! It looks like it bought it 5 minutes ago as he doesn't really know from which side to handle it... null title subtitle text image U.K. AD (APR. 86) null author date text george baker (United Kingdom) Saturday 29th January 2022 Hi It seems I need to provide contact details since the forum does not forward, mobile telephone number is 07928 483938 text only I wont pick up a call. G author date text george baker (United Kingdom) Saturday 29th January 2022 Hi I in Manchester England and found a Wren transport bag a couple of weeks ago full of stuff. I would like to see it united with a Wren if someone has a suitable bag to hold the stuff currently in it. I had 2 wrens, bought as insurance salvage because they stopped working around 1988. In the workshop they were always coming back because they stopped working, The under side of the unit hit your leg and buckled shorting out the MoBo. My workshop fix was a sheet of insulator. We sold a News Agents package with them as IIRC a turn key solution. G author date text Martin Underwood (England) Tuesday 11th May 2021 Ian (London, UK) "Do you still have the audio digitiser schematic and software to share or to purchase? I am also interested in the RGB to PAL card." I''m afraid I don''t have the schematics. I *may* have the circuit boards somewhere, but it''s quite likely that I got rid of them when the Wren itself stopped working, or during a house move. Even knowing which ICs I''d used would probably help you a bit. The RGB-to-PAL interface was a design I saw in an electronics Magazine. I''ll have a quick look through my things and see if by any chance I can find the circuit boards, but I''m not confident :-( author date text Petr Tuesday 18th August 2020 Hello Wren fans, I do believe you might be interested into Jerry Walker youtube channel where he is repairing 3 pieces of old Wren computers and is trying to reverse engineering not just schematics but also a firmware. And maybe you could help him with some info? Here is link to one part of series\ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v$_4cUNDc_ong Regards,\ Petr author date text Ian (UK) (United Kingdom) Sunday 12th July 2020 Greetings again to all in the Forum! Have a working Wren but unfortunately boot disc is corrupted and system will not boot to screen. Can anyone send me a physical copy of a boot disc by post to London UK? Have a full set of other software to exchange. Keen to correspond with other Wren users and enthusiasts to discuss and exchange software, schematics and hardware ideas etc. Please text me on (+44)7710 095902 for e-mail details. Cheers! author date text Ian (United Kingdom) Wednesday 1st July 2020 Hi Harry, thanks for posting. Yes, I can get both of your computers repaired at fairly low cost. Can you post your e-mail and I will communicate with you directly. This mini-Forum does not automatically forward/redirect messages. Do you have any software to exchange? Anyone on the forum have any cool vintage hardware for this Wren and more importantly software to run? Cheers, Ian author date text Dan (UK) Tuesday 19th May 2020 I think I used to use one of these back in 1990 for exercising floppy disk drives. It used to run some program for exercising different makes of drive and also used to show an "oscilloscope" output showing the amplitude of the signal from the heads when a test diskette was used in the drive$ this allowed alignment to be performed. Anyone else know of these being used for this purpose or have I got this mixed up with something else? author date text harry (uk) Thursday 30th April 2020 I noticed that Ian from London mentioned he could get these Wren ''s repaired is that still an option? I have two of these not working? can you pass him my details if possible? author date text Ian (London, UK) Monday 27th April 2020 Hi Martin, great to know that you have one of these machines and that you were interested in I/O interfacing. So am I, and I have built a lot of hardware interfaces e.g. ROM cards, 8255 PIA boards, ADCs and DACs. I am eager to interface to the Wren. Do you still have the audio digitiser schematic and software to share or to purchase? I am also interested in the RGB to PAL card. I have got a working Wren Executive which my friend and I have repaired and restored. More importantly, the boot disc has been corrupted and I wondered if I could perhaps borrow your''s to make a duplicate and flux copy? I can also arrange to have your Wren repaired. Cheers! author date text Adrian (UK) (United Kingdom Hampshire) Wednesday 5th February 2020 I had a Wren and used it for producing a club magazine using the "Perfect Suit" of software supplied as a package with the machine.\ The magazine was voted as one of the best club mags at the time.\ I sold it to a collector - am I sad saying I wish I still had it to play with.\ The implementation of BBC basic was fairly sound and I also used for Packet Radio as a licensed UK radio ham - it was ideal for that. author date text Martin Underwood (East Yorkshire) Friday 27th September 2019 I bought a Wren - I remember driving up to Transam''s shop off Gray''s Inn Road to collect it and an Epson RX80 dot-matrix printer. I decided I could afford the RAM upgrade from 16 KB to 256 KB, but not the optional 5 MB HDD. I can vouch for the Wren being *heavy* and then need to change arms several times when carrying it. I used it at university for writing project reports. I also built an RGB-to-PAL board for driving a colour TV, and an I/O board which connected to the HDD connector and allowed analogue-to-digital and digital-to-analogue converters to be converted: somewhere I have a file containing Dire Straits'' "Brothers in Arms" track digitised from LP, as an exercise. It worked until a few years ago, but when I was about to move house I could not get it to boot: it was a hardware problem because it never got as far as spinning the boot floppy. I''ve just found a listing of a BASIC program that I wrote which contained embedded Z80 code which sorted an integer array considerably faster than doing it in BASIC - or even in Turbo Pascal. It was a long job debugging that code because any error in Z80 usually resulted in the Wren locking-up and having to be rebooted. author date text Chris (UK) Wednesday 20th May 2015 Great to see so many posts for the Wren. I would love to see any schematics or service information for this great little computer. author date text Mr N B Bell (uk) Sunday 16th November 2014 Hi I have a Thorn EMI WREN in good working order.Also has its ts Mannuals and software ...Nice old pc author date text Steve (Norway) Friday 30th May 2014 Interesting... I was the hardware support specialist at Wren computers... I found this during a "nostalgia hunt". The computer was very advanced for its time, but, as people have pointed out, plagued by problems. The primary issue was the case itself. The design was very poor and EXTREMELY vulnerable to shock damage. There were quite a few sharp angles in the case mouldings that created weaknesses. I cannot remember how many units we repaired, sent back to the customer , and which were returned again with cases that had been damaged in transit. I remember testing out new packaging (+ possibly a slightly modified case?) by $ping boxes off a desk.\ (Corner $s, side $s, flip $s and so on). I cannot remember with certainty if the design of the case was modified to try and make it less prone to stress damage, but I am pretty sure that the design of the case was modified slightly. Also during manufacturing, we were unlucky enough to have batches of logic chips where the propagation times were all at the maximum specified values.. Units build using these chips often suffered from "amnesia".\ There was a lot of discreet logic involved in the RAM refresh circuitry, with bad propagation times through a number of logic gates all adding up, the memory refresh was unreliable.\ This was a difficult problem to find, and quite costly for Wren. The computers designer (from Transam Microsystems) used a lot of time tracking this problem down. I took one home a few times, and had to swap arms several times on my way to the tube station. They were pretty heavy to haul around. author date text Mike (UK) Friday 10th June 2011 This Computer was assembled at the Thorn EMI factory in Treorchy South Wales. Only about 1000 were made before Wren went bust and many companys were left holding the parts for the other 9000 units that were part of the first production run. It was very advanced for its day and the software package was very good quality and comprehensive for that era. Quality control was a major issue which certainly delayed production and caused a few financial problems for Wren. It might just have been too far advanced a concept for the time.... Great Computer though!! author date text Webmaster Tuesday 19th May 2009 Hi Thanks for the info!\ Don''t hesitate to send us more information about your experience with this system so that everyone can read it. Regards author date text Brendan Owen (UK) Tuesday 19th May 2009 Although the Wren computer was manufactured at Thorn EMI in Feltham, they were a subcontractor to Wren Computers Ltd. Wren was a joint venture company between Transam Microsystems (www.transam.co.uk) and Prism (who distributed computers for Sinclair). I led the team at Transam that designed the computer and implemented the software. Transam have recently been aquired by Eurodata Systems. author date text KasunagiX (USA) Saturday 25th January 2003 7" monitor?, the largest then i've ever seen in a Luggable machine. 257 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20230530112840/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=257 2023-05-30

The Wren was one of the last "laptop" CP/M computer. It can be described as a combined personal computer and Teletext terminal. It weights more than 12 Kg !

This Computer was assembled at the Thorn EMI factory in Treorchy South Wales. Only about 1000 were made before Wren went bust and many companys were left holding the parts for the other 9000 units that were part of the first production run.

It was very advanced for its day and the software package was very good quality and comprehensive for that era.

Although the Wren computer was manufactured at Thorn EMI in Feltham, they were a subcontractor to Wren Computers Ltd. Wren was a joint venture company between Transam Microsystems (www.transam.co.uk) and Prism (who distributed computers for Sinclair). Transam have recently been aquired by Eurodata Systems.

The Wren was sold with several good softs : Perfect Calc, Perfect Writer, Perfect Filer, Executive Desktop (agenda, phone directory, note-pad, etc.), the popular BBC Basic (the same as the Acorn BBC or the Electron) and a communication application. Indeed the Wren has a built-in modem and is Prestel (english videotex) compatible. But it can also be used to automaticaly dial phone numbers stored in a directory.

The whole system looks quite strong and robust. When transported, the whole monitor and drive assembly slides over the keyboard. The 7" built-in screen is monochrome but it is also possible to connect the WREN to an external RGB monitor. The two disk-drives (40 tracks) can stored 190k each. Weird fact : the drives LEDs light up when one of the floppies is selected but don't light off when this drive stop to work...

Quality control was a major issue which certainly delayed production and caused a few financial problems for Wren. It might just have been too far advanced a concept for the time....