website/content/museum/seattle-computer-gazelle.md

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

title	categories	types	origins	years	cpus	params
Seattle Computer Gazelle	Computers	Professional Computer	U.S.A.	1979	8088 then 8086	name image company company_name specs tabs adverts links comments oc_id source Gazelle /media/museum/photos/seattlecomp_gazelle_system_1.jpg /companies/seattle-computer Seattle Computer label value NAME Gazelle label value MANUFACTURER Seattle Computer label value TYPE Professional Computer label value ORIGIN U.S.A. label value YEAR November 1979 label value END OF PRODUCTION 1983 label value BUILT IN LANGUAGE None label value KEYBOARD Serial video terminal label value CPU 8088 then 8086 label value SPEED 8 Mhz. label value CO-PROCESSOR None label value RAM 128 KB expandable up to 896 KB label value ROM Unknown label value TEXT MODES 80 chars. x 25 lines label value COLORS None label value SIZE / WEIGHT Unknown label value I/O PORTS 3 x Serial (19200 bauds), 1 x parallel ports label value BUILT IN MEDIA 2 x 8'' 1.25 MB F.D. drives label value OS SCP-DOS (will became MS-DOS 1.0, then 1.25) label value POWER SUPPLY Integrated constant-voltage power supply unit label value PERIPHERALS Up to 18 x S-100 boards - 8'' Winchester disk label value PRICE $5995 adverts links title subtitle text image U.S. ADVERT (1982) The Gazelle was a huge computer compared to the personal computer sizes of the time, so large that it has casters on the cabinet for moving it! /media/museum/pubs/seattlecomp_gazelle_pub_1.jpg title subtitle text image 8086 VERSION In september 1982, Seattle Computer provided the 8086 version of the Gazelle with a free set of software: Microsoft MS-DOS, GW-Basic and the Perfect Writer word processor. /media/museum/pubs/seattlecomp_gazelle_pub_2.jpg title url text Origins of MS-DOS http://www.patersontech.com/Dos/ Several links related to MS-DOS birth and Tim Paterson story author date text Achim Baqué (Germany/USA) Saturday 29th January 2022 Hi, I do preserve and collect vintage computers. Please contact me (Contact via my website) if you have the computer ‚Gazelle‘ to offer author date text Chris (USA) Tuesday 19th February 2013 Anyone know where I can find one... author date text Chris (USA) Tuesday 19th February 2013 Anyone know where I can find one... author date text Bill Mills (Oklahoma) Monday 9th April 2012 I use my rack mount gazelle all the way up to 1989. I still have it and as far as I know it still runs. Been saving it to pass down to my kids. It has a color graphics board, 16 ch AD/DA, 1MB SRAM, 5MB HD, 8086 with math CPU''s, 2x8" Floppies, Borland Pascal and MS Basic, assembler, Word and the first MS spreed sheet. author date text Ryan Brown (San Jose, CA) Friday 22nd April 2005 Gazelles aregood! I have one that is half broken because i have put so many upgrades on its new 200 gb HD. Hope it lasts! author date text Stewart Marshall (Pacific NW) Sunday 25th January 2004 Hello, nice to see something about the wonderful old Gazelle. The Gazelle was a great computer. For many years, even after normal PC computers were popular, the Gazelle was one of the few DOS machines that would address more than 1 meg of RAM. Microsoft ran one of their big compilers on a Gazelle right up to about 1990 and the machine is still in their museum I think. My Gazelle had a serial card in it and three Televideo 925 terminals tied to it for multiple users. It will no longer boot and has a problem with the logic on the CPU Support board. I will get around to fixing it one of these days! Anyway, good luck to the forum and my Best Wishes to any other Gazelle owners. Stewart Marshall 614 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20230331121919/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=614 2023-03-31

Even if you've never heard of this massive computer, the Gazelle is truly a historic computer. Neither because it was one of the first 8088, then 8086 based computer, nor because this Gazelle is propably the heaviest 8088 system ever built, but because it was the computer Tim Paterson wrote DOS for, the first DOS operating system that became later MS-DOS 1.0 when Microsoft bought the rights to DOS from Tim's company, afterwards.

See in the "Internet Links" section various links about Tim Paterson and origins of MS-DOS.

The Gazelle was a S-100 bus based system, engineered to be fast, reliable and expandable. Eighteen S-100 boards could be installed in the case, as well as an additional 8" Winchester hard disk. The Constant-voltage power supply provided clean and constant power, even under brownout conditions. It also allowed reliable operation in a noisiest electrical environment.

The Gazelle was discontinued in 1983, and Seattle Computer continued to manufacture more standard PC compatible systems.