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---
title: ADVANCE TECHNOLOGY Advance 86
categories:
- Computers
types:
- Professional Computer
origins:
- United Kingdom
years:
- '1983'
cpus:
- '8086'
params:
name: Advance 86
image: /media/museum/photos/advance_advance86_1.jpg
company: /companies/advance-technology
company_name: ADVANCE TECHNOLOGY
specs:
- label: NAME
value: Advance 86
- label: MANUFACTURER
value: Advance Technology
- label: TYPE
value: Professional Computer
- label: ORIGIN
value: United Kingdom
- label: YEAR
value: December 1983
- label: BUILT IN LANGUAGE
value: Advance Basic (and GW Basic on disk)
- label: KEYBOARD
value: |-
Full-stroke keyboard with 10 function keys and numeric keypad, 84 keys\
Quite similar to the IBM PC keyboard
- label: CPU
value: '8086'
- label: SPEED
value: 4,77 Mhz
- label: RAM
value: 128 Kb, up to 256 Kb
- label: VRAM
value: 16k
- label: ROM
value: 64k
- label: TEXT MODES
value: 40 x 25, 80 x 25
- label: GRAPHIC MODES
value: 320 x 200, 640 x 200
- label: COLORS
value: '16'
- label: SOUND
value: Beeper
- label: I/O PORTS
value: 4 expansion slots (IBM compatible), 2 x 16-bit slots, monitor (composite) and TV video outputs, RS232, Centronics, Joysticks, cassette interface, lightpen
- label: BUILT IN MEDIA
value: 2 x 5''1/4 disk-drives (360k each)
- label: OS
value: MS-DOS
- label: POWER SUPPLY
value: Built-in PSU
- label: PERIPHERALS
value: 10Mb hard-disk, RAM expansion boards
- label: PRICE
value: |-
86A : £399 (UK, july 84)\
86B : £1499 (UK, july 84)\
86B : 2744 (France, 85)
tabs:
- photos
- adverts
- docs
photos:
- title: ADVANCE 86B GOLD !
subtitle: ''
text: |-
This special model was meant to be the prize of a contest organized by BMI, a french distributor, in 1984.
Notice the main case with a wide trap-door to store the keyboard, and the upper case with the two disk-drives.
image: /media/museum/photos/advance_advance86_gold.jpg
- title: ADVANCE 86B
subtitle: ''
text: Notice the two superposed cases that could be separated by pulling off the plastic ventilation grids.
image: /media/museum/photos/advance_86_system_1.jpg
- title: KEYBOARD HOUSING
subtitle: ''
text: |-
The lower case features a housing allowing the keyboard to be stored when not in use.\
The power switch and keyboard DIN plug are located in front of the case.
image: /media/museum/photos/advance_86_front_1.jpg
- title: INSIDE LOWER CASE
subtitle: ''
text: |-
Picture is taken from the bottom side of the case. Actually, the components normally face the keyboard housing.\
The lower case contains its own power-supply unit and all the necessary components and interface connectors to run a basic PC system. Programs could be read/saved to a cassette tape. However, a programming language in ROM is missing.
**(1)** Keyboard connector\
**(2)** Switching power supply\
**(3)** 256 KB RAM memory area. The first 128 KB bank chips are soldered, others (optional) are socketed\
**(4)** RF modulator allowing a TV set to be used as a video display\
**(5)** All the Ferranti custom chips are equipped with a cooler\
**(6)** BIOS EPROM chips (2 x 8 KB)\
**(7)** Connections to the upper case I/O board\
**(8)** 8086 processor and socket for an optional 8087 coprocessor
image: /media/museum/photos/advance_86_mainboard_1.jpg
- title: INSIDE UPPER CASE
subtitle: ''
text: |-
The upper case contains mass-storage devices and an expansion board featuring four standard PC slots and two custom slots.
**(1)** Connections to lower case mainboard\
**(2)** Floppy disc controller card\
**(3)** Multi I/O card featuring 384 KB RAM, Serial and Parallel ports\
**(4)** 2 x 360 KB Shugart half-size 5.25" FDD\
**(5)** Second switching power supply unit\
**(6)** Serial RS232 connector
image: /media/museum/photos/advance_86_top_1.jpg
- title: BACK SIDE
subtitle: ''
text: |-
**(1)** RF/TV and composite video outputs\
**(2)** First Serial RS232 connector\
**(3)** RGB video output\
**(4)** Parallel/Printer DB25 connector\
**(5)** Joystick DB15 connector\
**(6)** Second Serial and Parallel port from the Multi-IO card\
**(7)** Tape recorder DIN plug
image: /media/museum/photos/advance_86_back_1.jpg
- title: ADVANCE 88B
subtitle: ''
text: |-
This (poor) picture shows the advance 88D. It had a 20 MB hard drive, absolutely the bees knees at the time, and came with 640K RAM, again top of the range.
Unfortunately they all suffered overheating problems, so a kit was introduced which consisted of eight stick on aluminium heat sinks together with a tube of glue.
The Perfect software was bundled free of charge, and made an excellent package. Made by Advance Computers, run by a chop called Sami Masri in North London. Board also made by Ferranti. A very good value at the time.
Thanks to **Keith Reynolds** for this information.
image: /media/museum/photos/advance_advance86_white.jpg
adverts:
- title: ENGLISH ADVERT (1984)
subtitle: ''
text: |-
English advert for the 86A model.
Thanks to Tony Mattson for this picture
image: /media/museum/pubs/advance-86a_pub_1.gif
- title: ENGLISH LEAFLET
subtitle: ''
text: ''
image: /media/museum/pubs/advance_86_engleaflet_1.jpg
docs:
- title: ADVANCE 86 USER MANUAL
url: null
cover: /media/museum/docs/couvs/advance86_user_manual.jpg
text: |-
**ADVANCE 86 USER MANUAL**\
written by Advance Technology
 compiled/archived by Øystein De Lumeau\
 type of document : PDF\
 source : www.old-computers.com
comments:
- author: Bob Eager (UK)
date: Friday 20th April 2012
text: |-
I had one of the very early ones (initially without heatsinks on the Ferranti ULA chips). They were fitted on an engineer visit.
I fitted a hard disk to mine, and the top power supply overheated regularly. I always had to run it with the lid off!
It wasn''t totally IBM compatible. Because it used an 8086, with a 16 bit data path, extra logic was needed to make the 8259 interrupt controller respond on the correct ports. They didn''t do this, so where a real IBM compatible would use ports 20 and 21, the Advance only used even numbered ports$ in this case, 20 and 22. Any software that programmed the interrupt controller would not work correctly.
Advance provided a conversion program that (mostly blindly) changed 21 to 22 in executables files. Not a success. I did it by code inspection with DEBUG, and was usually successful.
- author: Ramon Zarat (Canada)
date: Wednesday 7th April 2010
text: |-
@Micah B. Haber
"Internally" refers to the processing word width. In this case, 16bit words can be computed at each cycle. But it takes nearly twice as long as computing an 8bit words, save some overheard because the process is inherently serialized. That''s why 16bit computing is only marginally faster than 8bit. 16bit real advantage is for bigger address space, not speed.
On the other hand, "Externally" refer to the bus the CPU use to communicate its information to and from the system, including RAM. A 16bit bus can effectively carry twice the information of an 8bit bus and thus, is twice as fast, because here we are talking about parallel communication.
While it''s true a 16/16 system is not twice as fast as an 16/8 system, the 8bit bus of the 16/8 setup can seriously bottleneck the 16 bit CPU in some scenario. We should say then the 16/8 is slower than the 16/16, not the other way around. Todays 32 and 64bit CPU have external bus much wider than their internal address space /processing width and are not directly comparable to the 16bit CPU era.
- author: David Martin (Crewe, UK)
date: Friday 10th November 2006
text: |-
The 86B was my first introduction to the 'PC' world after a string of home computers. It did everything an IBM junior did but was cheaper and had the 'perfect suite' of software too, which was actuall pretty good for it's day.
I remember it would regularly crash when it got warm because of poot contacts between the A and B boxes - ended up soldering the ribon cables into place to fix the damn thing once and for all!
If my memory serves - these were only available through the WHSmiths stores in the UK. Not ideal marketing as Smiths weren't big in the home or business computer markets at the time.
- author: Dave (United Kingdom)
date: Thursday 12th August 2021
text: The Advance 86a was the first machine I worked on when I started my career in programming, I remember when saving to tape if you accidentally didn''t have the record button down you could not interrupt the save process and would have to wait 2 minutes for it to complete before trying again. I also recall the coiled keyboard cable acted as a receiver for radio waves from cab drivers where occasionally loads of random characters would appear on the screen. We were writing software for WH Smiths to sell with it. I vaguely remember the machines getting withdrawn due to a lawsuit between IBM and Ferranti..
- author: digitalhippy (bristol, UK)
date: Tuesday 30th August 2011
text: |-
I still have one of these, its huge, all plastic though. Yes only marketed though WHSmiths, but what a price £1000 for everything !! 360k disk wow!\
It got me through college into a career in IT in the City and now an Architect, although I have bought a few computers ever since! I keep thinking about taking it out of the store and putting an old Mac mini inside the case!
- author: James Griffin (Australia)
date: Saturday 23rd October 2010
text: The Advance 86 was sold in Australia re badged as a Dick Smith Challenger , the first and cheapest available in AUSTRALIA at the time ,
- author: EPDM (BE)
date: Wednesday 23rd June 2010
text: |-
From Mr. Martin''s post I presume the cases where connected through ribbon cables. Are there any more details how this was?
Where there openings provided or did you have to open up the case to attach the cables?
- author: Jim Campbell Andrew (UK)
date: Sunday 13rd April 2008
text: Hi - just reading your page on the Advance 86 machines. One thing you don't mention (and I'm \_fairly\_ sure is correct) is that they were only sold through the WH SMiths chain of newspaper/magazine/book stores in the UK.
- author: Micah B. Haber (Nashua, New Hampshire)
date: Saturday 10th March 2007
text: |-
"but had a different CPU, the 8086 which was a true 16-bit processor. It could thus compute twice as fast for a much lower price !"
This is incorrect. An 16-bit internally and 16-bit externally CPU is not going to be inherently twice as fast as a 16-bit internally and 8-bit externally CPU. Doubling the bits does not double the performance, as can been seen in the current transition from 32-bit to 64-bit x86 CPUs.
oc_id: 507
source:
url: https://web.archive.org/web/20230604031851/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=507
date: '2023-06-04'
---
The Advance 86 was an early IBM PC compatible system conceived by Advance Technology (UK) and built by Ferranti (well known for its military products, and the [ZX-81](/museum/sinclair-zx-81/)custom chip).\
It was intended to appeal to the home user and to small businesses. It had the same features as the IBM PC (360 KB disks, identical graphic resolution) but had a different CPU, the 8086 which was a true 16-bit processor, for a much lower price !
The Advance 86 was totally IBM PC compatible, from the keyboard, the disks, the resolution, to the expansions which could be used with the Advance through four IBM-compatible slots.
In fact, the Advance 86 was first conceived as a home-computer (model **86A**) and was later upgraded with a ''new box'' housing the two disk-drives, the expansion slots and thus the IBM compatibility features (model **86B**). This is why the model 86B is composed of two main cases, the smallest one being the original one (86A) which houses the main board and has a wide trap-door to store the keyboard when not in use.
Back in 1984, the Advance 86 was one of the few professional systems to work without any fan thanks to its dual power supply unit, making work more pleasant. However, a fan was later added into the lower case.
The Advance 86B was sold with four professional software packages: Perfect Writer, Perfect Speller, Perfect Calc and Perfect File. This bundle had everything a new user needed to start, and it was great value as it all came free with the computer !
A 10 MB hard-disk was quickly sold in option, as the disks had a low capacity (360k), like the IBM PC.\
A kit form was also available at a reduced price for self build.
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