Cromemco Advert - January 1977
From Byte - The Small Systems Journal
Cromemco Z-1: This is the industry's most powerful microcomputer
This advert is for a Z80-based machine on an S-100 bus, similar in form to many of the computers of the time such as the Intel-based IMSAI 8080, which is not surprising as it was an IMSAI chassis with Cromemco innards[1].
It makes claim to be the most powerful micro available - indeed the 4MHz clock speed of the Z80A it used was nominally quite high for the time.
It's not always a like-for-like comparison with the clock speed other processors. The Commodore PET and Apple II, which would be announced during this year, ran 6502 processors at only 1MHz, however due to differences in the way the two CPUs worked this was roughly equivalent to at least a 2.5MHz or 3MHz Z80.
The Z-1 retailed for $2,495, or about £18,700 in 2025 and was Cromemco's first machine. It was originally released in August 1976.
Cromemco had formed after Roger Melen had purchased the second Altair 8800 off the production line for his friend Harry Garland to work with. The two of them had already been working together since 1970 writing articles for Popular Electronics[2].
They built several add-ons for the Altair before coming up with an advanced (for the time) graphics card called the "Dazzler"[3], which proved so popular that they incorporated Cromemco - named after their halls of residence at Stanford University, Crothers Memorial - in order to sell it together with their other add-ons.
The Dazzler apparently found a home driving US TV weather forecast graphics for much of the 1980s.
Date created: 01 July 2012
Last updated: 08 October 2025
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Sources
Text and otherwise-uncredited photos © nosher.net 2025. Dollar/GBP conversions, where used, assume $1.50 to £1. "Now" prices are calculated dynamically using average RPI per year.
