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The COMX 35 is a computer designed and manufactured in Hong-Kong by COMX World Operations LTD. The computer is based on an RCA CDP-1802A processor running at 2.8 MHz. The machine contains a total of 35 kB of memory of which 32 kB can be used by the user.

This computer is quite oscbure, and little is known about its history, particularly in Honk-Kong.

It was desgined and manufactured in Hong Kong by COMX WORLD OPERATIONS LIMITED. It was also sold in Sweden by Noxon AB, and in the UK by ALSY Computers Ltd, but it is in the Netherlands that he had most success (at least for Europe concerns).

The company that imported the COMX-35 to the Netherlands, West Electronics, supplied almost all of COMX software for free and copyright-free (or for a small fee for tape, disc and / or shipping). West Electronics also hosted several homemade software competitions, resulting in the fact that most software found today for the COMX-35 are actually in dutch.

There is no graphic mode, but user definable characters can be used to simulate graphics. The sound features are poor as there is only one single channel beeper. You can hear it when pressing a key. The Basic is very simple, with not a lot of specific statements, since there is not much to play with...

The keyboard is said to be waterproof (can someone test that for us ?) and used goldplated contacts under the keys (if you've got one, you are rich :-)). There is a built-in joystick to the right of the keyboard (very easy to break), a bit like on the Spectravideo SV-318. And just above it, is the power Led.

Different hardware extensions were made available, including an expansion box allowing 4 extension cards to be connected simultaneous. Cards were available to connect floppy disk drives, printers (parallel, serial and thermal) and an 80 column monitor. A 32K RAM extension was available as well, however the additional RAM was not usable or supported by COMX BASIC.

The chosen CPU, the RCA CPD-1802, was also used in the RCA Studio 2 videogame system and a development/hobby systems using Chip-8, like the Cosmac RCA VIP. This 8-bit processor is still being manufactured in many forms, as it is radiation-resistant. It was also used as the heart of the Voyager, Viking and Galileo probes !

The COMX-35 is black but can also be found in a white case. This model is rarer than the black one.

The COMX-35 did have a successor: the COMX-PC1. This was just a COMX-35 in a different housing and better keyboard. This PC1 was also sold as the Savla PC1 in India!

The design of the COMX-35 is quite similar to the Pecom 64 and the Telmac 600, even the BASIC is based on the same code as these computers. All 3 were based on Quest Super BASIC.

The COMX Basic is interesting and has some original features such as TIME and TIMOUT functions. TIME(X) can be used to start a clock and when X units of time has elapsed, the TIMOUT Y is used to jump to a subroutine beginning with the line number Y. Pretty neat !!

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Thanks to www.homecomputermuseum.nl, ww.comxclub.hobby-site.com and www.emma02.hobby-site.com for some of the info.