Micromation Advert - January 1980
From Personal Computer World
Micromation Z-Plus Microcomputer System
On the one hand, the Z-Plus Microcomputer System was a fairly standard computer of the day, with a Zilog Z80 CPU, 64K of memory, S-100 bus, Digital Research's CP/M and Microsoft BASIC.
On the other hand though it's worthy of a mention simply because it was perhaps the ultimate in "computer as furniture", raising the bar compared to Smoke Signal Broadcasting's "stylish leather-grained cabinet" or the many S-100 boxes of the time that feature some sort of wooden box construction.
In this case, the computer itself came in a 29" by 10" box with walnut veneer sides, which unfortunately were "very easily scratched [when] removing it from its home"[1].
This in turn, along with all the other guff like disk drives and the monitor, was supplied in a custom-made teak desk.
The downside of this was that, whilst it may look nice at first, it would require various forms of actual woodwork in order to expand the system, for instance cutting out extra holes with a jigsaw in order to run cables for extra disk drives and so on.
All the additional furniture put it towards the more expensive end of the micro spectrum, turning in at £3,750 - or about £25,900 in 2024 money, with a 20M hard-disk system costing the same again (with £50 change) - a total of £51,800 now.
In the mid-2010s it was still possible - in certain parts of the UK or Ireland - to buy a house for that sort of money[2].
It might be a mostly-derelict house, but it would still be somewhere to actually live.
Date created: 13 August 2014
Last updated: 06 October 2024
Sources
Text and otherwise-uncredited photos © nosher.net 2024. Dollar/GBP conversions, where used, assume $1.50 to £1. "Now" prices are calculated dynamically using average RPI per year.