This strange mixture between telephone and computer is actually a Sinclair QL (slightly modified, of course). It is based on the QL motherboard, but with some improvements, namely, ruggedized (in other words, more reliable) Microdrives.
ICL also added some software in ROM: diary, address and phone book, communication software and a terminal emulator. It has a built-in modem and a speech synthesizer.
According to ICL, each executive should have this computer on his desktop !
Two rebadged versions were sold in UK (Merlin Tonto) and Australia (Telecom Computerphone).
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More information from 'Ex Cathedra'
This was a classic design disaster - great ideas, poor execution. The microdrives didn't buffer as the Sinclair ones did, leading to a 7-sec seek time ever time a block was missed. The phone handset was 3/4 size and uncomfortable to use. Overheating was a big problem too, with frequent crashes. The speech synth could answer the phone with a Texas Dalek voice, but couldn't take a message. A fave in-house game at ICL was getting the thing to swear using the limited vocab range...
The main software was Psion xChange - WP, spreadsheet, DB and business graphics. This was in ROM, with the BASIC interpreter on Microdrive - Sinclair QLs were the other way round. xChange was a good package for its day, and actually looks very similar to the built-in packages on the Psion PDAs (3a, 5). The terminal emulation was a VT-type and a PRESTEL (the UK info service operated by the post office).
The system, as did the QL, had basic task-switching - not real multitasking (background tasks didn't run) but at least you were not constantly unloading and reloading programs as on the IBM PCs of the day. A big boon given the problem with the microdrives...
Add-on ROMS were available (your pic actually shows one top right) which made the machine into an ICL7561 terminal emulator. This was a popular configuration as ICL discounted them heavily and they ended up cheaper than the original terminals.
Please consider donating your old computer / videogame system to Old-Computers.com or one of our partners from anywhere in the world (Europe, America, Asia, etc.).
I am looking to buy a working (or not) OPD or Tonto. Can anyone point me to a source?
Tuesday 15th February 2022
Paul Nichols (United States)
So this listing has a slight bug. It says "The system, as did the QL, had basic task-switching - not real multitasking (background tasks didn''t run)..." I didn''t own an OPD but the QL had a true preemptive multitasking OS (i.e. QDOS) and indeed you could exec(ute) a program and it would keep running in the background while you worked in the foreground and you could have many programs running in the background (it was a cool demo to give).
Contrast that with the Mac which started with basic task switching and up until OS X moved the Mac to BSD Unix had a kernel that did cooperative multitasking (i.e. the difference is in preemptive the kernel keeps control and slices up time for each program but in cooperative the kernel gives up control to each program and hopes it gets it back).
Sunday 10th November 2019
Mike (USA)
I was part of a team evaluating the OPD for ICL before release and we recommended that it not be released until the software worked properly and several ergonomic issues be resolved. The board released it anyway. My personal one burst into flames one day in1988
Thursday 7th July 2016
sarah (USA)
NAME
OPD - One Per Desk
MANUFACTURER
ICL
TYPE
Professional Computer
ORIGIN
United Kingdom
YEAR
1984
BUILT IN LANGUAGE
None
KEYBOARD
Full stroke 73-key with numeric keypad
CPU
Motorola MC 68008
SPEED
7.5 MHz
CO-PROCESSOR
Sinclair ULA gate array chip
RAM
128 KB (extensible to 640 KB)
VRAM
32 KB
ROM
From 128 KB to 352 KB
TEXT MODES
42 / 64 / 84 chars. x 24 lines
GRAPHIC MODES
256 x 256 (8 colors) / 512 x 256 (4 colors)
COLORS
256
SOUND
TI TMP5220C speech synthesiser / built-in loudspeaker
