website/content/museum/comart-communicator.md

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

title	categories	types	origins	years	cpus	params
COMART Communicator	Computers	Professional Computer	United Kingdom	1979	Z80-A	name image company company_name specs forum_thread oc_id source Communicator /media/museum/photos/comart_communicator_system_1.jpg /companies/comart COMART label value NAME Communicator label value MANUFACTURER Comart label value TYPE Professional Computer label value ORIGIN United Kingdom label value YEAR 1979 label value BUILT IN LANGUAGE None label value KEYBOARD Serial video terminal label value CPU Z80-A label value SPEED Unknown label value RAM 64 KB label value TEXT MODES Depends on the video terminal used label value I/O PORTS 2 x Serial RS-232 label value BUILT IN MEDIA 2 x 5.25'' floppy disc drives - 190 KB, 390 KB or 790 KB each label value OS CP/M label value POWER SUPPLY Built-in power supply unit label value PERIPHERALS S-100 boards label value PRICE $3500 742 759 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20230608143122/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=759 2023-06-08

Comart was the computer system group that took over the Byte Shop/Computerland chain when it had financial difficulties in the late 70s. They were a large company distributing North Star systems, and similar equipments. The Communicator was their first effort in distributing a British-made system.

The Communicator is a S-100 bus system based around a main chassis with a 10-slot-mother-board. The system had 64 KB of RAM and came with three variations of dual floppy disk drives.

Several S-100 boards were available. They offered Viewdata/Prestel capabilities, or 18.7 MB hard disk, with 13.4 MB cartridge backup.

The system ran CP/M operating system. A smaller system called the Educator, with networking facilities, was also available.

Chris Coggins adds:
The Communicator was upgraded over several years until the Communicator was given multi-user capability by running MP/M80 but finished off running Intel 386 processors with 512 KB RAM running CCP/M86. Hard disk had grown to 40MB Rodime drive.

David Broad sold Comart to Kode International and 2 years later it lefts it's Cambridgeshire factory and moved to Swindon. The Company went downhill, dropped the S-100 bus to use standard PC architecture but eventually closed.