Altos Advert - August 1978

Here is an advert for IMSAI's less well-known VDP-40, the VDP bit standing for "Video Data Processing", whilst IMSAI was a contraction of IMS Associates, Inc, itself standing for "Information Management Sciences"^[1].

It marks something of a departure from the previous - and famous - IMSAI 8080, which was a switches-and-lights interface machine, presumably taking on board the new all-in-one competition in the form of the Commodore PET, Tandy TRS-80 and Apple II that had launched in 1977.

Instead, the VDP was an integrated unit comprising a 9" monitor (the same size as that built-in to the PET), 32 or 64K RAM, an S-100 bus, and two integrated PerSci 5.25" floppy drives.

It came in three versions - the VDP-40 (with 180K disk storage), VDP-42 (400K) and VDP-44 (780K). All used a 3MHz Intel 8085 CPU, which was a second-generation 8080 with a single 5V supply requirement^[2]. They all ran IMSAI's "IMDOS" multi-disk operating system, and weighed in at 65lbs - about 30kg^[3]

IMSAI filed for bankruptcy in October 1979, after a failed attempt to diversify in to computer retailing via its "ComputerLand" outlets. Computerland was eventually taken over by the Fischer-Freitas Company, which had originally started out as a support outfit for IMSAI's computers^[4].

IMSAI seemed to also have been something of a poisoned chalice amongst UK computer dealers as well.

About the same time as it was going bankrupt, one of its UK suppliers - Corner Computing Store in Epsom - was closing down and turning in to a consultancy. It became at least the third company to "fail to make a profit handling [the IMSAI] franchise", although it blamed its closure on the fact that other retailers would "cut the price and run"^[5].

The otherwise-profitable Comart was another that had to abandon IMSAI, returning to Cromemco and North Star instead.