website/content/museum/axel-ax-20.md

---
title: AXEL AX-20
categories:
- Computers
types:
- Professional Computer
origins:
- France
years:
- '1982'
cpus:
- Intel 8088
params:
  name: AX-20
  image: /media/museum/photos/axel_ax20_1.jpg
  company: /companies/axel
  company_name: AXEL
  specs:
  - label: NAME
    value: AX-20
  - label: MANUFACTURER
    value: Axel
  - label: TYPE
    value: Professional Computer
  - label: ORIGIN
    value: France
  - label: YEAR
    value: September 1982
  - label: KEYBOARD
    value: |-
      AZERTY full-stroke keyboard with separated numeric keypad, 80 keys\
      8 programmable function keys on the monitor !
  - label: CPU
    value: Intel 8088
  - label: SPEED
    value: 4,77 Mhz
  - label: CO-PROCESSOR
    value: Optional 8087 math co-processor
  - label: RAM
    value: 64 kb (up to 1 Mb)
  - label: ROM
    value: 2 kb
  - label: TEXT MODES
    value: |-
      80 x 26 (the two bottom lines are reserved for system messages)\
      Character matrix: 8 x 12
  - label: GRAPHIC MODES
    value: 640 x 288
  - label: COLORS
    value: 8 brightness levels (12'' monochrome monitor)
  - label: SOUND
    value: Built-in speaker
  - label: SIZE / WEIGHT
    value: 42 x 51 38 cm
  - label: I/O PORTS
    value: Serial port, Parallel/Centronics interface, expansion bus - 5 slots (optional)
  - label: BUILT IN MEDIA
    value: 5.25'' disk-drive - 320 kb (optional)
  - label: OS
    value: MS-DOS & CP/M 86
  - label: POWER SUPPLY
    value: Built-in PSU - 65W
  - label: PERIPHERALS
    value: Printers, disk-drives, V24 communication card, high resolution card, modem
  - label: PRICE
    value: 3918 (France, september 83)
  tabs:
  - photos
  - hardware
  photos:
  - title: MAIN UNIT
    subtitle: ''
    text: |-
      This is the main unit without its monitor which plugs on top of the unit through a special connector. When the monitor is connected it can not be moved in any direction :-(

      Thanks to [Bertrand Poupeau](http://linewid.free.fr/) for the picture
    image: /media/museum/photos/axel_ax20_2.jpg
  - title: REAR
    subtitle: ''
    text: Thanks to [Bertrand Poupeau](http://linewid.free.fr/) for the picture
    image: /media/museum/photos/axel_ax20_rear.jpg
  - title: MONITOR CONNECTOR
    subtitle: ''
    text: |-
      This is the monitor connector on the top of the main unit. It's a flat connector which plugs into the slot of the monitor itself.

      Thanks to [Bertrand Poupeau](http://linewid.free.fr/) for the picture
    image: /media/museum/photos/axel_ax20_monitor-connector.jpg
  - title: UNDER THE MONITOR
    subtitle: ''
    text: |-
      We can spot here the slot which fits with the connector found on the top of the main case.

      Thanks to [Bertrand Poupeau](http://linewid.free.fr/) for the picture
    image: /media/museum/photos/axel_ax20_monitor-under.jpg
  hardware:
  - title: DOUBLE EXTERNAL DISKS
    subtitle: ''
    text: Twin 5.25" disk-drives - 600 kb each.
    image: /media/museum/hardware/axel_ax-20_disks.jpg
  comments:
  - author: rosie duff
    date: Tuesday 22nd August 2017
    text: whne I was younger my father had bought me one of these as a award for cleaning the kitchen (I know good award) but it was actually very efficient.
  - author: Stephane Gregoire (Montreal)
    date: Saturday 2nd February 2008
    text: |-
      My father brought me one around 1987... It came with a bootable floppy with an operating system similar to DOS (the boot loader was contained into a file called AXEL.SYS). Commands such as DIR, COPY,REN worked fine.

      I also had Microsoft Basic (MBASIC) on the boot disk.
  - author: nico (France)
    date: Sunday 24th February 2002
    text: I just wanted to say that the Axel AX-20 looks very familiar to me. When I was younger, In the year 90 or so, I was learning to code in Turbo Pascal on a clone of this system. It was made by MATRA and was called MAX-20 (M was for Matra I guess while AX-20 was the name of the system).
  oc_id: 557
  source:
    url: https://web.archive.org/web/20230416215945/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=557
    date: '2023-04-16'
---

This french mono-bloc system had no great success. It was however a nice designed system with its 8 function keys mounted directly onto the monitor (like with some Hewlett-Packard systems). The idea was interesting, because the function of each key was dynamicaly displayed right above it, but it becomes tiring to have to lift an arm to reach these keys...

The AXEL-20 can display 640 x 416 pixels with 8 different level of brightness. The system has it own character set (128 ASCII characters, upper and lower case). The user character generator is only optional. In fact many features are optional; real-time clock, disk-drive, expansion bus, V24 card, modem, graphic card...

The AXEL-20 is not IBM PC compatible at all. It can only read IBM disks with a special software tool.

The OS and languages available were MS-DOS, CP/M, Fortran, Basic, Pascal and Cobol. Software amng others: Dbase II, Multipla, Wordstar.

The AX-20 was marketed as the [MAX-20](/museum/matra-max-20/), under the Matra brand ("M" for Matra ?).\
Two years later, an enhanced model was marketed: the [AX-25](/museum/axel-ax-25/).

Thanks to [Bertrand Poupeau](http://linewid.free.fr/) for the picture