title, categories, types, origins, years, cpus, params
title
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types
origins
years
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Canon AS-100
Computers
Professional Computer
Japan
1982
Intel 8088
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AS-100
/media/museum/photos/canon_as100_1.jpg
/companies/canon
Canon
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value
NAME
AS-100
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MANUFACTURER
Canon
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TYPE
Professional Computer
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ORIGIN
Japan
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YEAR
october 1982
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KEYBOARD
Full-stroke keyboard with function keys, arrow keys and numeric keypad. 98 keys. Characters repetition.
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CPU
Intel 8088
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SPEED
4.7 Mhz
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CO-PROCESSOR
optional Intel 8087 (math. co-processor)
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RAM
128 KB (up to 512 KB)
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ROM
4 KB (boot)
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TEXT MODES
80 x 25 - character matrix : 9 x 7
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GRAPHIC MODES
640 x 400 (8 colours)
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COLORS
27 colours
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SOUND
Built-in speaker
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SIZE / WEIGHT
keyboard: 48 x 18,5 x 3,2 cm - 2.2 Kg / monitor: 40 x 34,4 x 43 cm - 19,5 Kg / 5.25'' disks: 8 x 34,4 x 37 cm - 6,3 Kg
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I/O PORTS
2 x RS232c, 1 x Centronics
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BUILT IN MEDIA
optional 5.25
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OS
CP/M 86, MS-DOS, HAI
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POWER SUPPLY
Built-in PSU, 120 W
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PERIPHERALS
memory expansions (128, 256 or 384 KB), Intel 8087 math. co-processor, real time clock, video card, expansion board (RS232, parallel, communication & hard-disk interfaces)
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COMPLETE SYSTEM
/media/museum/photos/canon_as100_3.jpg
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AS-100
Colour monitor, ink jet printer, 8" floppy disks unit & jog dialer.
/media/museum/photos/canon_as100_2.jpg
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FRENCH ADVERT
"Canon AS-100. Programmed to succeed."
/media/museum/pubs/canon_as100_pub_1.jpg
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david
Thursday 26th May 2022
I think this is a computer I had. They were used for POS systems in Mobil petrol stations in Australia. They were _completely impossible_ to get into, the system is snapped into place and then fixed with blind screws in three sections.
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allez (USA)
Tuesday 3rd August 2021
Hi Ron , do you still have the canon AS-100 for sale ? thanks
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Günther (Austria)
Monday 6th July 2020
Hey, I am getting an AS-100 with 8" Disk drives. Unfortunately it comes without disks/software, and I managed to find only 5.25" CP/M-86 disk images. Anybody here who could provide me 8" boot disks (either CP/M-86 or MS-DOS) or images of the 8" boot disks? It would be great to get the device running...
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Ron Mileham (Australia)
Monday 22nd June 2020
I have a Canon Computer system for sale. It comprises: 1 x Monitor Model AS-100. 1 x Tower Model AS-1350. 1 x Printer Model AS-1250. All Circa 1982-4.
It has been stored carefully and is in very good condition. I last saw it working a few years ago and had a DOS disc for it, but can''t find it now. If you contact me, I will send you pics.
Not sure what the asking price should be, but I know there are very few still around. It would be perfect for a computer museum or as props for older movies.
Let me have your offers. I can ship them from Australia. You can have someone local to come and look at them in Melbourne also.
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ibrahim (germany)
Thursday 28th November 2019
An interesting exhibit. I would like to buy the Canon AS-100. Does anyone know what the Canon AS-100 costs?
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George C (USA - Va)
Friday 15th February 2019
I was a Canon Dealer from 1983 to the late 90s. The AS-100 was the first personal computer we sold. Software was limited but we has some success selling these for general accounting applications. We had our most success with the ATHENA. I ended up tossing three AS-100 in the dumpster but they were all in working order. We built a cabinet with wheels about the size of a small refrigerator which allowed us to transport the AS-100 to prospect sites. Can''t believe we did that.
@Rich Trying to contact you. See you on Linkedin, I think.
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Rich Shealer (USA)
Wednesday 1st May 2013
@Patrick - I actually have a copy of Canon BASIC that was used with the Canon Athena one of their early IBM compatibles. A copied it to a CD years ago so I should be able to find it.
In the US it came out with both operating systems. The Canon Basic worked with CPM/86 and the MS-DOS had GW-Basic. I wrote a magazine accounting application on the dual 8" disks in Canon Basic. CPM/86 had a bug that caused PIP (CPM copy) to corrupt files of over 64K in size. That burned me pretty badly. Switched to disk copying until they patched it.
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Patrick Sweetman
Tuesday 2nd October 2012
I would really like a copy of the Canon BASIC for DOS. The CP/M-86 version would also be of interest.
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Patrick Sweetman (New Zealand)
Tuesday 2nd October 2012
I worked on one of these machines until 1983, developing commercial software to be bundled with hardware sales. This was before the advent of hard discs, so these machines were floppy-only. From memory the large dual floppy drives retailed for over NZ$10000.
Initially it came out only with CP/M-86, with a version of MSDOS being produced later. Many of the MSDOS programs were the same ones from CPM-86 with a wrapper that converted the interrupt calls from CP/M to DOS.
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Chris (NJ/USA)
Wednesday 12th September 2012
I need docs and software for the Canon AS-100. Also looking for spare machines. rampaginggreenhulk$at$yahoo$dot$com
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pietro (italia)
Tuesday 22nd November 2011
scusate, ma che lavoro facevano i vostri padri? negli anni 80 un computer costava parecchio. non parliamo poi di 4.
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Don (USA)
Saturday 24th September 2011
I have one of these... it''s been in storage for umpteen years and want to try to get it running and then a new home for it. Where can I get disks and a refresher on how it works?
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Joe (Illinois)
Sunday 19th June 2011
I had one of these back in the ''80s - my parents bought me one for Christmas when I was in middle school. Mine had the color display with color printer on top and ran MS-DOS v1.25 bundled with SuperCalc and WordStar processor (man I used to have those Ctrl codes down pat!). It was my first PC and started a life-long love of computers. After a long time, it finally gave up the ghost and ended up in parts.
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John Blanchard (Melbourne Australia)
Sunday 17th April 2011
My father had 4 of these computers that he had bought in new in the mid 1980''s and 3 ran up to DEC 2010. Each weighed a heap but the quality both inside and out was awesome. We called Canon Australia to see if they wanted them for historic reasons and was rudely told that Canon never made computers! Unfortunately they now reside at the local tip.
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James
Friday 19th March 2010
The AS-100 had a graphic chip. I guess the NEC 7220 but I am not sure. It was dead slow: you could see it drawing lines starting at one end, to then progress to the other end. I ended up writing my own assembly library to do graphics on it.
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Chris (New Jersey)
Friday 7th October 2005
Nothing to contribute. I am looking for one of these. Thanks.
The AS-100 is a 16-bit professional computer based on the Intel 8088 CPU. It has 128 KB RAM, built-in speaker, optional 8087 math co-processor and real time clock. The whole system (monitor + disks + keyboard) weights more than 30 Kg! The AS-100 is not a real IBM compatible system. It can use MS-DOS as its Operating System but that's all.
The computer can display 25 lines of 80 columns, or 640 x 400 pixels, with 8 colours from a total of 27. The character matrix consists of 9 x 7 pixels. There are 128 ASCII characters, and more user re-definable ones. Display attributes are inversed, underlined, wide, blink and masked. The computer was delivered with a monochrome or colour monitor (both 30 cm wide).
Different optional drives could be connected:
- one or two 5.25" FDD units, DS/DD, 640 KB each, 250 ms average access time, 250 KB/s average transfer rate
- from one to four 8" FDD unit, DS/DD, 1.2 MB each, 200 ms average access time, 500 KB/s average transfer rate
- 8.2 Mb Winchester hard disk
All the disks can be combined as follow: two 5.25" units + two 8" units + one hard disk, or, four 8" units and one hard disk.
Some expansion options were available:
- daisy-wheel (A-1200 & A-1250) and ink jet (A-1210) printers
- memory expansion cards (128, 256, and 384 KB)
- Intel 8087 math co-processor
- real time clock
- video card
- expansion interfaces (RS232, parallel, communication and hard-disk)
Several software packages were bundled or available separately: Canobrain (Canon database & data sheet), DBase II, Datastar, Infostar, Calcstar, Wordstar, Spellbinder, Spellstar, Wordmaster, and Gesmail. Several different languages were available, as well: Assembler, GW Basic, Canobasic, Pascal UCSD, Fortran, and Cobol.
The AS-100 does not use any mouse but an innovative jog dialer (see picture).
Simon Schoonens's memories:
Progressing from the CX-1 (see the CX-1's Mini-forum) this machine was another step forward for me. 640K floppies... and yes as shown on this picture 1.2Mb floppies (massive disks) Not too often sold though as a 10 Mb hard drive became available pretty soon. The interface to the floppies and hard disk was SCSI (quite advanced for the time).
It was modular and could even boot from the hard disk. I believe the implementation of MS-DOS was quite poor - we tried it but quickly settled on CPM-86 as it was more powerful. Our software was readily converted form CX-1 to the AS-100.
It had a serial interface and later on there was even a network option (quite crude and which never quite worked) We never sold much of the colour screens mainly the monchrome (green). I worked with it until 1984/85 and then moved to ICL's It was a very popular machine and we sold many.
I still have a complete floppy disk based system in good working order. They were very heavy. The one I have here worked on a daily basis from 1983 to around 1998 with the customer buying up old floppy disks from everywhere to keep it going. I remember the floppy disks were over $A100 per 10. A very reliable machine.
Cees Vos reports to us:
I think the printer on top of this system is the 3852-2 from IBM (made by Canon). It was used with the 3270 terminals and the IBM PC and PS-2 series of PCs.
Shalroth reacts:
The printer is, for my money, Canon PJ-1080A. I had one of these for a while. It was an early colour inkjet with parallel and optional serial interfaces. It used a tricolour cartridge and seperate black cartridge. These were essentially just ink pouches in acrylic cases, with rubber hoses leading to the outside of the case that were punctured inside the printer. If you planned to stop using the printer for any length of time, you were supposed to cap the cartridges using a lever under the paper cover, and hasd to use the same lever to uncap and prime the ink lines (Which you did by pumping the same lever!). In use it was a very quiet but slow printer because it could only form one row of pixels at a time. It also had a very low resolution (about 120 DPI I believe). It was badged and resold in the UK by Integrex for use with the Acorn RISC-OS machines!!!
yann64andClaude Opus 5.5
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