CAL/Durango Advert - December 1982
From Personal Computer World
Durango: See our intelligent little space conqueror and you'll know why he's green
One of the least computer-ey micro in the entire collection, the Durango 700, distributed in the UK by Computer Ancilliaries Limited, seemed to be mostly a dot-matrix printer with a keyboard stuck to the front, a disk unit (which included a 15mb hard drive, which was reasonably big for the time), and a small 9" monitor stuck to the side.
It ran an Intel 8085 and could support four terminals connected via industry-standard RS-232 (serial) connectors.
The founder of Durango, George Comstock, had left the famous daisy-wheel printer manuafacturer Diablo in 1976 and set up in a garage across the road from Apple.
The company did try a successor machine, based on Intel's 80286, to try and out-compete the new IBM PC, but the strategy failed and the company went bankrupt in 1984[1].
The advert does feature a nice green Mekon - the alien character from British 1950s comic Dan Dare.
There's no price displayed, but the linked article suggests it was around $13,000 - around £41,500 in 2024 terms.
This was no doubt a significant reason why it seemed to have been destroyed by the arrival of the much cheaper IBM PC, priced at around £2,900, in June of this year.
Date created: 09 March 2013
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.
