website/content/museum/cromemco-z-2.md

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

title	categories	types	origins	years	cpus	params
Cromemco Z-2	Computers	Professional Computer	U.S.A.	1977	Z80	name company company_name specs tabs photos adverts hardware comments oc_id source Z-2 /companies/cromemco Cromemco label value NAME Z-2 label value MANUFACTURER Cromemco label value TYPE Professional Computer label value ORIGIN U.S.A. label value YEAR June 1977 label value CPU Z80 label value SPEED 4 Mhz. label value RAM RAM and ROM sizes depended of the cards used label value ROM 1 KB Monitor label value TEXT MODES Depends on the video terminal used label value I/O PORTS RS232C and Parallel interfaces label value BUILT IN MEDIA Depends on the version label value OS CP/M label value POWER SUPPLY 8 V. and 18 V. integrated power supply label value PERIPHERALS 21 x S-100 slots label value PRICE Kit : $595 - Assembled : $995 photos adverts hardware title subtitle text image Z2D The most popular Z2 version.\ Expansion options include 512 KB 8" floppy drives, 11 or 22 MB hard disks ans high resolution graphics. null title subtitle text image Z-2 1977 ADVERT Advert said: Cromemco microcomputers are the fastest and most powerful available. They use the Z80 microprocessor which is widely regarded as the standard of the future. So you're in the technical fore with the Z-2 null title subtitle text image Z-2D ADVERT (1977) Z-2D 1977 price list: - Kit version with 1 F.D. drive: **$1495**\ - Assembled version: **$2095**\ - Additional F.D. drive: **$495** null title subtitle text image Z-2H 1980 ADVERT null title subtitle text image SINGLE CARD COMPUTER This all-in-one card offered:\ - a 4 Mhz. Z80 microprocessor\ - 8 Kb. ROM capacity (2716 PROM chips)\ - 1 Kb. on board static RAM\ - 76.800 bauds serial port\ - 24 bits bidirectional parallel I/O\ - 5 programmable timers 1979 price: $450 null author date text Paul Hansknecht (United States) Wednesday 24th October 2018 OK, one last post: The Z-2H still required a floppy disk to boot up CP/M and get the whole thing started. Slow! I eventually figured out a way to use Cromemco''s 32KB E-PROM board and their Bank Switching capability to temporarily swap in the E-PROM board, copy a CP/M image from it to RAM. switch the E-PROM board back out and jump to CP/M''s startup address. Wow, startup was now instantaneous! I should have passed that technique back to Cromemco. :( author date text Paul Hansknecht (United States) Wednesday 24th October 2018 Oops, in my previous post, the Z-2H was announced in 1980, and we acquired one in early 1981, not 1971. author date text Paul Hansknecht (United States) Wednesday 24th October 2018 I was the technical half of a two-man company in the 70s and early 80s. The other guy was the owner, the salesforce, and the money man. Our plan was to build turnkey systems for the "zillions of small companies that could profitably use a micro-computer but didn''t know it". So in the late 70s, we bought a Z-2D kit so I could get started. It had a 4MHz Z-80, 64KB of RAM, 2 DSDD 184KB floppy disk drives, and a Televideo 950(?) terminal! We equipped it with the Cromemco Assembler and their FORTRAN IV Compiler. It was a beast! But oh, those floppy disks! Constantly swapping them in and out... Put in the editor disk (WordStar?) to work on some program. Take it out and put in the Compiler. Take it out and put in the linker. Save the executable to a separate floppy Test it. Repeat till satisfied. We knew most businesses would have a hard time keeping their program and data disks straight, but that was the best we could do. Then in 1971, Cromemco announced the Z-2H! OMG, 10MB! We swooned over the possibilities, and, unbelievably, the money man agreed to buy the add-on kit to convert our Z-2D to a Z-2H! We qualified as a Cromemco OEM at the time, so we got a 20$ or 25$ discount and paid a mere $7,500 (or something like that), and WOW! That completely changed the micro world! I could now "instantly" switch between an unlimited number of programs without touching a floppy disk! And that meant our customers could, too! This truly turned the microcomputer into a viable business solution overnight! author date text Christopher Shubert (USA) Monday 3rd April 2017 I sold "micros" in Atlanta from 1979-1981, and Cromemco was one of the machines we sold. It was a tough sell because, although the Z2 was plainly a quality machine, the prices were substantially higher than other Z100 CP/M machines. The one piece of Cromemco hardware I recall selling was the amazing 10MB hard drive. What a wonder that was - super fast, and super-huge, compared to the standard 512K double-sided 8" floppies! (Then again, the case for the hard drive was gigantic, as well: a full-bay 14" monster!) But oh, the price tag on that hard drive. $10,000! Yes, seriously, someone actually plunked down $10K for 10MB! The guy who bought it was thrilled with the response time and the vast amount of space, but compare $1,000 per megabyte with modern storage costs! author date text Peter Fisk (Essex, England) Friday 25th February 2011 I was part of a team that installed about six of these computers for use in the Health Service for word processing (Wordstar) and data capture. We wrote software to capture data about children''s vaccinations which could\ then be sent via an accoustic modem to a mainframe system. The basic hardware was very reliable, but let down by unreliable external eight inch disk\ floppy disk drives and poor quality modem links. The ''customers''\ hated the data transmission but were happy to replace typewriters with Wordstar. A few lucky ones even got a daisywheel printer! author date text GCG$3 (Bob) (Yorktown, VA) Tuesday 27th April 2010 I remember my excitement when we received our Z-2 during my senior year at El Capitan HS. We finally had an alternative to the school district''s HP2000F Time-Share system. My first project was to hack-together a Z80 version of Pong that I never got to work right. I was heart-broken when I heard it was stolen while I was away to Basic Training in 1979. author date text david wright (louisville, kentucky) Friday 18th February 2005 In 1976 i was on the degsine team for this Cromemco Z2 system i had worked day and night i went without sleep for 15 days it was very very hard i had completed Cromemco Z2 system prototype but at a high price when we fired it up it blew up into a fire that destroyed my 559 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20230528105430/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=559 2023-05-28

The Z2 system was an evolution of the Z1 model. Major change was a new CPU board using a 4 Mhz. Z80 microprocessor. The system, always based on the S-100 bus, proposed 21 connectors for S-100 cards and a stronger power supply able to supply additional peripherals. The front panel didn't offer any switches or control leds. 8080 based software made with the Z-1 model could run on the Z-2 system

The Z2-D (September 1977) version included 64 KB of RAM, one or two 92 KB (then 184 KB) formatted floppy drives and controller card.
The Z2-H system appeared in July, 1980. Using the Z-2 basis but including a 11 MB hard disk, two dual sided floppy disc drives and 64 KB of RAM memory.