Jarogate Advert - June 1984
From Practical Computing
If you are thinking of buying more than one PC - think again
It's another all-British (for a definition ignoring the fact that most of the chips came from the Far East or the US) multi-user system, this time from Jarogate of Brixton in London, for its MP5 CP/M Multiprocessor.
As was the case with other competitors of the day, such as Bromcom's SuperStar, it's multi-user in that each of the up-to 16 users has their own memory and CPU - in this case a 6MHz Z80B, 64K memory and access to an S-100 bus - hosted in the base system, and needed a terminal to act as the actual "computer".
If CP/M and a Z80B processor was considered as a bit old-skool, there was also support for Intel's recent iAPX 286, or 80286, processor. However, it doesn't look like it went as far as to support MS-DOS.
Entry-level pricing of the MP5 was from £1,995, or about £8,420 in 2025.
Jarogate had been founded by Robin Tracey in 1979, but by 1990 had racked up £750,000 of debt - about £2,334,200 in 2025 - and was sold to Data Dynamics at the beginning of 1991, having been in receivership since the autumn of the previous year[1].
It looks like Data Dynamics had already bought fellow multi-user micro company Shelton, as it was already selling the Sig/Net range. The combined company had an installed base of around 8,000 systems, with 4,000 coming from Jarogate. Tracey remained in the new company as sales director[2].
Date created: 24 March 2025
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.