Karadawn Advert - January 1982

It's perhaps something of a stretch to claim that yet another Z80, CP/M system was the most advanced available, but here it is, apparently: the Karadawn KD 700, first launched towards the end of 1981.

Looking a little like Intertec's SuperBrain, it did up the spec a little by coming with twin Z80A 4MHz processors, and also offered a mathematical and Greek character set as an option, perhaps positioning it at the scientific end of the market.

It also seemed to be going after the CAD/CAM market with optional high-resolution video, bit-addressable graphics and a light-pen attachment.

Storage was also fairly generous, offering mixed 8" and 5¼" floppies, as well as up to four externally-connected 66MB hard disks, for a decent-at-the-time total of over 260MB of disk space.

Provenance is a little difficult, as Karadawn Ltd is another company that has disappeared without trace.

The advert claims that it was somehow manufactured by Karadawn Ltd - a UK company - in Santa Cruz, California, but that probably implies that it was actually an OEM micro.

Anyway, it retailed for £2,750 plus VAT, or around £15,600 in 2026, but was also available for lease at "approximately £20 per week", or £99 now.

It did seem to at least have several distributors, including U-Micro, a company which would become famous for its high-end 68000-based machines.

A pair of adverts from May 1982's Practical Computing showing Karadawn's new Interlink and Interbus systems

Karadawn was back in the spring of 1982 with a couple of new systems that looked very much like Shelton's Sig/Net.

The first was the stand-alone Interlink, which was a Z80-based CP/M machine that came with additional software for mainframe connections. It retailed for £3,500 plus VAT, which is about £19,800 in 2026.

The second was the multi-tasking, multi-user Interbus, which was an S-100-based system that required a plug-in CPU and memory board for each user on the system, which would connect to "most terminals".

This cost £3,750, or about £21,300 now, but that included a terminal. Price per additional user was a "mere" £2,000 plus VAT, which is about £11,400 now.