website/content/museum/oki-if-800.md

---
title: OKI IF 800
categories:
- Computers
types:
- Professional Computer
origins:
- Japan
years:
- '1982'
cpus:
- Zilog Z80 A
params:
  name: IF 800
  company: /companies/oki
  company_name: OKI
  specs:
  - label: NAME
    value: IF 800
  - label: MANUFACTURER
    value: OKI
  - label: TYPE
    value: Professional Computer
  - label: ORIGIN
    value: Japan
  - label: YEAR
    value: '1982'
  - label: BUILT IN LANGUAGE
    value: None
  - label: KEYBOARD
    value: Full-stroke keyboard with separated numeric keypad
  - label: CPU
    value: Zilog Z80 A
  - label: SPEED
    value: 5 mHz
  - label: RAM
    value: 64 KB / 128 KB / 256 KB
  - label: VRAM
    value: 192 KB (3 blocks of 64 KB)
  - label: ROM
    value: Unknown
  - label: TEXT MODES
    value: 20 x 25 / 24 x 80
  - label: GRAPHIC MODES
    value: 640 x 400 / 640 x 200
  - label: COLORS
    value: 8\. Also available in monochrome version (8 shades)
  - label: SOUND
    value: 1 voice - 5 octaves
  - label: SIZE / WEIGHT
    value: Unknown
  - label: I/O PORTS
    value: RS232c, light pen, ROM cartridge (20 KB), Tape, 4 x I/O Slots, 3 x accessory slots
  - label: BUILT IN MEDIA
    value: Two 360 KB - 5.25'' FDD. Optional 16 MB H.D. and 6.3 MB removable cartridge
  - label: OS
    value: CP/M
  - label: POWER SUPPLY
    value: Built-in PSU
  - label: PRICE
    value: $4995
  tabs:
  - photos
  - adverts
  photos:
  - title: OKI IF 800
    subtitle: ''
    text: showcased in a french computer shop (Imatic, Neuilly, Paris) in 1982.
    image: null
  adverts:
  - title: 'U.S. AD. (1983) #1'
    subtitle: ''
    text: First advert - January 1983
    image: null
  - title: 'U.S. AD. (1983) #2'
    subtitle: ''
    text: |-
      advert said:

      Our all-in-one BMC IF-800 computer is easier for dealers to sell, customers to buy and OEM to use in their systems...\
      ... You can upgrade to a 16 bit CPU which offers IBM PC compatible MS-DOS and CP/M-86...
    image: null
  - title: FRENCH ADVERT (JULY 1982)
    subtitle: ''
    text: '"A rainbow in your office"'
    image: null
  comments:
  - author: Karl Leaning (Auckland New Zealand)
    date: Sunday 25th March 2012
    text: I was involved in a project to implement TurbDos on these machines. Yes it did have three blocks of video ram, but it was still one bit per bank, per pixel so you still only have 8 colours. The graphics library supplied supported dithering to create a greater colour palette.
  - author: Adrian Pearson (USA)
    date: Wednesday 2nd September 2020
    text: I found a USA advertisement for this BMC computer in a 1981 issue of Byte magazine. https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1981-04/page/n117/mode/2up
  - author: Aleem (Pakistan)
    date: Friday 4th November 2016
    text: When I was with Patfinder computers these were introduced and used for training at Comptrain
  - author: Gary Sharp (Vietnam)
    date: Saturday 2nd April 2016
    text: |-
      Wow, that is a flashback

      I bought 4 of these for the Architecture Faculty of Newcastle University , must be early 1980''s to teach Arch students, Visicalc, Wordperfect $i think$ and basic graphics. I saw them in Japan and when invited to establish a computer studies course asked them to acquire these as they had basic graphics capability and were self contained.

      Then told the maths department we no longer needed their IBM360 and punchcards :)
  - author: Omar Rodriguez (chile)
    date: Wednesday 25th February 2015
    text: HELLO! any posibility to conect to usb or something, we have software in floppy and spectometer sps 1500 with 50 pin entry similar to ide entry. we want to continue using the spectometer. Saludos desde Chile.
  - author: Omar Rodriguez (chile)
    date: Wednesday 25th February 2015
    text: |-
      wath software aply to function in DOS in a ICP AES SPS1500?\
      THANK
  - author: Omar rodriguez (chile)
    date: Thursday 5th February 2015
    text: |-
      can i modernize the pc oki if 800 ex 110 f?\
      i want to fix it\
      send me please everything about this pc\
      than you
  - author: Patrick (Canada)
    date: Friday 17th December 2010
    text: I have one. It was my dad''s. I''ll have to give it a good clean up.
  - author: James Tizard (USA)
    date: Thursday 11th December 2008
    text: |-
      On my first day in my first programming job I was given one of these in its box accompanied by an assembler and two compilers (Pascal $ FORTRAN). My task was to re-write an infra-red imaging and analysis system - and I had a year to do it. For technical documentation I had a blurry printout of the boot ROM.\
      The system had been bought for its colour graphics capability - and it really worked...you had three blocks of RAM for RGB$ from memory I recall it mapped two bits to each pixel - ie 16 colors, or 4 pixels per byte. To get more colors you could simulate 4 bits per pixel to get 128 colours (although many were identical) at half the pixel resolution. Great fun.\
      Mine also had a row of programmable function keys under the monitor, which I used to control the main menu of my imaging system.
  oc_id: 94
  source:
    url: https://web.archive.org/web/20230601001458/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=94
    date: '2023-06-01'
---

This computer had an integrated dot printer which can print on 40 to 132 columns at 120 cps, a 12" color graphic monitor and a dual 5" disc drives. A lot of cards were designed to be placed into the three expansion slots: an 8" disk controler, centronics interface, IEEE488 port, ADC/DAC card or ram expansion (64 or 128 KB).

A bit of trivia: the video card has its own Z80 CPU.

Apparently this computer was marketed by BMC outside Japan.

**Alexander Velin** says :\
There is OKI if 800 model 50, which is based on 8086, has 256 KB ram, spare keyboard, one 8" 560 KB floppy, 7 MB HDD. Mine has a MS DOS 1.15 on it...

More technical information from **Bruce Grant**:\
I serviced IF-800's in the early 1980's.\
The printer was a 7 pin matrix mechanically related to the Oki Microline 82 but largely software driven. It was a frightful device.\
Both colour and monochrome screens were offered, and were excellent. The colour monitor had, as I recall, three seperate banks of 16K of RAM, one for each of the primary colours, providing an early form of 24-bit colour. Power for the main unit was provided through the monitor. Two people were needed to safely carry the colour monitor.\
The floppy disks were made by YE-Data and offered good capacity for the time - in the order of 500KB. They were of the solenoid head loading type and were ponderously slow but generally quite reliable.\
CP/M 2.2 and a standalone version of MS-Basic were supplied. Each system used its own disk format. Sadly, these were not interchangeable. Bitmapped graphics were implemented through the MS-Basic system only, as were the bezel-mounted screen "hotkeys".\
The IF-800 was crippled commercially by appearing on the market at the same time as the IBM PC-XT, which cost slightly less as I recall.\
They were distributed in Canada by Canada Computer of Markham, Ontario.

<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>