Comart was the computer system group that took over the Byte Shop/Computerland chain when it had financial difficulties in the late 70s. They were a large company distributing North Star systems, and similar equipments. The Communicator was their first effort in distributing a British-made system.
The Communicator is a S-100 bus system based around a main chassis with a 10-slot-mother-board. The system had 64 KB of RAM and came with three variations of dual floppy disk drives.
Several S-100 boards were available. They offered Viewdata/Prestel capabilities, or 18.7 MB hard disk, with 13.4 MB cartridge backup.
The system ran CP/M operating system. A smaller system called the Educator, with networking facilities, was also available.
Chris Coggins adds:
The Communicator was upgraded over several years until the Communicator was given multi-user capability by running MP/M80 but finished off running Intel 386 processors with 512 KB RAM running CCP/M86. Hard disk had grown to 40MB Rodime drive.
David Broad sold Comart to Kode International and 2 years later it lefts it's Cambridgeshire factory and moved to Swindon. The Company went downhill, dropped the S-100 bus to use standard PC architecture but eventually closed.
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I worked in the Byte Shop London from 1980-1984. When I went back to Australia I started my own company and called it Co-Mart Software Pty Ltd$ I still have my Comart key ring! I''m working in London again for a company called Go1 and will be here until 3rd November. Would love to catch up with other people who worked for Comart. You can find me on LinkedIn or send a message via my website.
Anyone else here who may remember me from the Byteshop/Bytesoft/Comart/Kode days is welcome to contact me an that address
Thursday 15th September 2022
David Lawrence Biggins (United Kingdom)
I was initially working for the Nottingham Byte Shop just before Comart bought the chain. I then ran ByteSoft as a Comart subsidiary then worked directly for Comart, initially as Tech Support Manager, then later Marketing Manager - a post I also held at Kode, when they bought the Comart Group.
I have some Comart kit including a couple of spare boards, and if I get time, I plan to rebuild a CP1520 that I have. I may still have a few boot disks and other bits around.
Stacey, I''m sorry to hear about Ian - we didn''t always see eye to eye, but he was OK. I have a number of photos from the Comart/Kode era and there are at least a few of him if you''d like copies.
You can reach me as ExComart@usermgmt.com
Thursday 15th September 2022
David Biggins (United Kingdom)
NAME
Communicator
MANUFACTURER
Comart
TYPE
Professional Computer
ORIGIN
United Kingdom
YEAR
1979
BUILT IN LANGUAGE
None
KEYBOARD
Serial video terminal
CPU
Z80-A
SPEED
Unknown
RAM
64 KB
TEXT MODES
Depends on the video terminal used
I/O PORTS
2 x Serial RS-232
BUILT IN MEDIA
2 x 5.25'' floppy disc drives - 190 KB, 390 KB or 790 KB each
