website/content/museum/philips-p2000c.md

---
title: Philips P2000C
categories:
- Computers
types:
- Portable
origins:
- Netherlands
years:
- '1983'
cpus:
- 2 x Z80A
params:
  name: P2000C
  company: /companies/philips
  company_name: Philips
  specs:
  - label: NAME
    value: P2000C
  - label: MANUFACTURER
    value: Philips
  - label: TYPE
    value: Portable
  - label: ORIGIN
    value: Netherlands
  - label: YEAR
    value: '1983'
  - label: BUILT IN LANGUAGE
    value: None
  - label: KEYBOARD
    value: Full stroke 93 keys with function and arrow keys and numeric keypad
  - label: CPU
    value: 2 x Z80A
  - label: SPEED
    value: 4 MHz.
  - label: RAM
    value: 64 KB up to 320 KB
  - label: VRAM
    value: 32 KB
  - label: ROM
    value: Unknown
  - label: TEXT MODES
    value: 80 chars. x 25 lines
  - label: GRAPHIC MODES
    value: 512 x 256 dots
  - label: COLORS
    value: Monochrome - Green phosphore CRT
  - label: SOUND
    value: Beeper
  - label: SIZE / WEIGHT
    value: 15 Kg.
  - label: I/O PORTS
    value: External floppy drive, SCSI port for connection to up to 7 hard drives, external terminal, external monitor, Serial, Parallel printer, expansion card
  - label: BUILT IN MEDIA
    value: 2 x 160 KB 5.25'' single side floppy drives - Later 2 x 640 KB
  - label: OS
    value: CP/M 2.2
  - label: POWER SUPPLY
    value: Built-in power supply unit
  - label: PERIPHERALS
    value: 8088 'CoPower', IEEE-488 cards, Internal Hard disk up to 10 MB (about $5000)
  - label: PRICE
    value: about $3000 in Holland
  tabs:
  - photos
  - adverts
  photos:
  - title: CLOSED
    subtitle: ''
    text: The keyboard is fastened on the top of the case with the clips of the shoulder strap
    image: null
  - title: BACK SIDE
    subtitle: ''
    text: |-
      **(1)** SCSI connectors for connection to up to 7 hard drives\
      **(2)** External terminal connector. Requires optional hardware\
      **(3)** External composite monitor\
      **(4)** Serial connector\
      **(5)** Parallel printer connector\
      **(6)** Expansion card housing
    image: null
  - title: MANUALS SET
    subtitle: ''
    text: |-
      Extensive ducumentation includes:\
      \- P2000C operator and reference manuals\
      \- CP/M manuals from Digital Research\
      \- CalcStar and WordStar manuals\
      \- Advanced GWBASIC programming manual
    image: null
  adverts:
  - title: UK ADVERT (JULY 1984)
    subtitle: ''
    text: ''
    image: null
  comments:
  - author: Jim Goldenberg (USA)
    date: Wednesday 12th May 2010
    text: I was recruited by Philips to Vienna in 1980 and was responsible for getting the development of the P2000C started as an engineering development with my boss Herr Firster. Product Management had us developing the P2000B businees desktop using UCSD Pascal P-Code and was very slow. Engineering did the P2000C without Product Management support, that is, an end-around development to get a successful product to market. The dual Z-80 prototype graphics really got us the managemet backing we needed.
  - author: Lucian (Romania)
    date: Sunday 3rd January 2021
    text: 'I am looking for a mint p2000c with the 8088 CoPower board or the CoPower board separate. Most grateful to whom can help! email: lpopescu07@gmail.com'
  - author: Oreste (Austria)
    date: Tuesday 16th July 2019
    text: Hi. By July 2019 there ist very Mint pc2000c in Sale in willhaben.at (Austria eBay) with loads in Disks ....
  - author: Günther (Austria)
    date: Sunday 23rd September 2018
    text: |-
      Hi all,\
      I am collecting all kinds of vintage computers. My Philips collection includes several P2000T, one P2000M with monitor $ disk drive unit, a P2500 (P2000B) with monitor and disk drives, two P2000C and the 8250 MSX machine. All of them are working and I have some software for them. Unfortunately I am missing the original CPM disks for the P2500. It would be great if someone could share the software, e.g. in Imagedisk or Teledisk format with me.
  - author: Adrian Wallaschek (Deutschland)
    date: Monday 21st March 2016
    text: |-
      I own two of these beauties. I studied the external monitor connector, but I have absolutely no idea, how to get this connected to any monitor neither new nor old nor a converter.

      Any clue?
  - author: Ziemowit Jankowski (Sweden)
    date: Monday 30th April 2012
    text: |-
      Hello,

      While digging through my cellar I discovered that I probably have one complete P2000M and P2000B (aka P2500). The P2000M has both BASIC and UCSD 4.0-something cartridges to it. The P2000B was probably booted off the floppies, if I remember that right. I loved the P-system implementation on those machines, asit was quite fast - at least compared to the compatition of that time.
  - author: SusanB (New York/US)
    date: Thursday 22nd September 2011
    text: I worked for Philips Information Systems in NYC as a marketing support representative from 1981-1985. I still have the MS-DOS version, OEM''d by Compaq that I bought, in about 1983, at a discount when it was being discontinued. That thing is heavy! I remember upgrading it to the full 512K RAM. It has been in storage for a long time. The keyboard was lost many years ago, but I still have the boot disks!
  - author: Ian Gregson (UK)
    date: Sunday 3rd April 2011
    text: |-
      Hi\
      I have a Philips P2000C, It is fully working.\
      I have many disks\
      BUT no boot disk.\
      Can any one please supply me with one.\
      I would love to get this old beauty working\
      iain.gregson@gmail.com

      Hope you can help
  - author: M. Jansen (Netherlands)
    date: Thursday 24th February 2011
    text: |-
      I also still own a p2000c, which is also still working today. First it was gonna thrown away, it was outside,for 2 days covered in plastic, in the rain. I couldnt resist to take it back in. a day later i turned it on, and it started up right away.. Very strong computer, and im showing it to the " younger " generation sometimes.\
      About the sound, it does have a tiny build-in speaker, but it doesnt go further then just saying " beep " .
  oc_id: 846
  source:
    url: https://web.archive.org/web/20230529174924/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=846
    date: '2023-05-29'
---

In the early 80's Philips produced a series of business/home microcomputers generically known as the P2000 series. There were five different lines developed over the few years the machines were produced: the P2000T, P2000M, P2000B (later called P2500), P2000C and finally the Yes, a MS-DOS machine. The weird thing about these different machines was that they were all incompatible with each other.

The P2000C, was probably the most advanced of the P2000 series and the early portable from Philips. It was a heavy luggable computer. In fact, users didn't pick it up and carry its 15 kg unless they really had to! Also as with almost all early portable machines it was not battery powered but mains only.

With its twin Z80 processors - the second was dedicated to I/O - the P2000C was one of the faster CP/M system, faster than most of the PC's of the day for several professional applications. Furthermore, it could run MS-DOS software thanks to an optional 8088 'CoPower' card.

Its two 160 KB 5 1/4" floppy disk drives (later 2 x 600 KB) were able to read almost all the widely used CP/M disk formats like those of Osborne and Kaypro.

---

More information from **Peter A Forbes** (UK):\
We have three of these machines around, one was our main computer for a number of years, and we bought the PC upgrade board which enabled MS-DOS 2.61 (I think) to run.\
The floppies were great and very high capacity for the day, and the machine also came with utilities to convert disk formats from CP-M to MS-DOS, very useful!\
The drives could write quite a few formats if I remember correctly. The internal program came with the machine to do this.\
Printer port was serial, we used the big Philips (Sweden) 300 series 18-needle printers and still have them. They were very heavy-duty models which could crunch continuous stationery out at high speed. The printers had built0in fonts which were software selectable or could be selected by a rotary switch on the printer control panel.\
Back to the P2000-C, Morgan Computer Co in London were selling these off cheaply, just as the last of the Philips adverts were running in the press. Although heavy, they were well made and we never had a problem. We occasionally get one out to dig up some old data off the disks which still hold data.\
Programs supplied with ours were: Wordstar, Calcstar, A graphics package, CP-M, MS-DOS, Datastar.\
They were convection cooled, so no fans and very quiet. The Hard disk option was a 10mb unit with a SASI (Shugart Asscociates System Interface) and that was about £1000!\
We have full documentation for these units, including the CP-M manuals and the books on the machine hardware. They were built in Vienna, at least mine all were and the books are all Philips, Vienna.

**Jürgen Sattler** (Germany) also has a P2000-C:\
I own a P2000C which is still working today. Here are some additional information: The coprocessor board could be used in two different modes, the so-called P2000-C mode with 800 KB disk format, and the IBM-PC mode whereby PC programs which didn't access to the video RAM (e.g. DBase II or WordStar) could run. The board had 512 KB of RAM. Under the provided MS-DOS 2.11, the original P2000 RAM could be used as a RAM disk. With the CP/M 2.2 OS (640 KB floppy disk format) the following programs were provided at that time: Open ACCESS with data base, calculation and text processing, ABASIC, TTY, Dataplot+. The price in Germany was about 2600 Euros (DM 5000).

<table> <tr> <td></td> <td>We need more info about this computer ! If you designed, used, or have more info about this system, please send us pictures or anything you might find useful.</td> <td></td> </tr> </table>