Hotel Microsystems Advert - August 1987

It's often said that the rise of cheap commodity PCs and affordable networking killed off the multi-user system, but it's still here in 1987 in the form of Hotel Microsystems' Minstrel 4.

Hotel Microsystems - or HM Systems PLC as it was now known - appeared to originate from a division of reseller Guestel, which - clue's in the name - specialised in micro systems for hotels.

Its first product - the Minstrel (later Minstrel 1) was a fairly straight-up Z80-based multi-user system on an S-100 bus, which made a thing out of its compatibility with North Star's systems.

The Minstrel 4 of the advert maintains the multi-user approach, but it's on steroids - although each Minstrel computer could host up to 16 users - with their own dedicated processors - they could themselves be networked with other Minstrels to offer up to 4080 simultaneous users, and a frankly surreal 4080 printers.

It was first released in the spring of 1986, and was mentioned in May 1986's Personal Computer World, with Guy Kewney writing:

"The extraordinary thing about the Minstrel 4, apart from the fact that users say it is fast and powerful, is the nostalgic feature of an S-100 bus. The manufacturers say that most people are astonished how small it is - occupying 23 inches by 10 inches and at 9 inches high, it's approximately AT sized. The other unusual thing is the operating system, TurboDOS. Fomerly an 8-bit alternative (faster version) of CP/M, it is now a 16-bit alternative to MS-DOS. Obviously this limits the number of programs, but apparently people buy it for special-purpose work^[1]".

The system - which included an Oki laser printer - retailed for £15,465 + VAT, which is about £62,700 in 2024. That was for eight users - the full 16 would be an additional £10,074, or £35,500 now.

In common with such expensive systems, it was popular in the UK's public sector, where most of the company's 4,000 installations by 1988 seemed to have ended up^[2].