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

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

title	categories	types	origins	years	cpus	params
AXEL AX-20	Computers	Professional Computer	France	1982	Intel 8088	name company company_name specs tabs photos hardware comments oc_id source AX-20 /companies/axel AXEL label value NAME AX-20 label value MANUFACTURER Axel label value TYPE Professional Computer label value ORIGIN France label value YEAR September 1982 label value KEYBOARD AZERTY full-stroke keyboard with separated numeric keypad, 80 keys\ 8 programmable function keys on the monitor ! label value CPU Intel 8088 label value SPEED 4,77 Mhz label value CO-PROCESSOR Optional 8087 math co-processor label value RAM 64 kb (up to 1 Mb) label value ROM 2 kb label value TEXT MODES 80 x 26 (the two bottom lines are reserved for system messages)\ Character matrix: 8 x 12 label value GRAPHIC MODES 640 x 288 label value COLORS 8 brightness levels (12'' monochrome monitor) label value SOUND Built-in speaker label value SIZE / WEIGHT 42 x 51 38 cm label value I/O PORTS Serial port, Parallel/Centronics interface, expansion bus - 5 slots (optional) label value BUILT IN MEDIA 5.25'' disk-drive - 320 kb (optional) label value OS MS-DOS & CP/M 86 label value POWER SUPPLY Built-in PSU - 65W label value PERIPHERALS Printers, disk-drives, V24 communication card, high resolution card, modem label value PRICE 3918 (France, september 83) photos hardware title subtitle text image MAIN UNIT 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 null title subtitle text image REAR Thanks to [Bertrand Poupeau](http://linewid.free.fr/) for the picture null title subtitle text image MONITOR CONNECTOR 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 null title subtitle text image UNDER THE MONITOR 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 null title subtitle text image DOUBLE EXTERNAL DISKS Twin 5.25" disk-drives - 600 kb each. null author date text rosie duff Tuesday 22nd August 2017 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 date text Stephane Gregoire (Montreal) Saturday 2nd February 2008 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 date text nico (France) Sunday 24th February 2002 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). 557 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20230416215945/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=557 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, under the Matra brand ("M" for Matra ?).
Two years later, an enhanced model was marketed: the AX-25.

Thanks to Bertrand Poupeau for the picture