Ohio Scientific, based in Ohio, USA, were the makers of the Superboard II. The Challenger 1P and Challenger IIP-MF were essentially cased versions of this single board system with integrated keyboard, a single 5Volt power supply and the first 6502 version of Microsoft BASIC interpreter.
An optional floppy disk controller and a extra 24K of ram for this unit was available using a 610 expansion board.
The C1P-MF was an upgraded version of the C1P having 20 KB of RAM and one 90 KB floppy disc drive. Memory could be upgraded up to 32 KB.
The Superboard and its derivatives had good user support and many programs were available.
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Some additional information from Mark Alsing:
It had basic keyclick sound capability that could be added by popultaing components (resitors and caps) on the main board.An RS-232 interface could also be added this way and there was a cut-out on the back to mount a DB-25 connector for it. Video output was composite and required an RF modulator to display output on a regular TV. I had a MicroVerter box that put the output on ch. 13 or 14.
Ken Jordan, a game developer who got his start on the OSI-C1P, reports :
The text mode was really 32 x 32, but because of TV overscan only 24 x 24 was used. As was common, I soldered Atari joysticks to the numeric keys to allow gaming (there was a standard for this mod).
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.).
Special thanks to Daryl Maddox who donated us this computer !
I have a OSI C1P II with the 610 and floppy. I also have all of the manuals and software for it. I am going to be selling and wanted to see if there was any interest in it before I put it on Ebay.
Sunday 3rd April 2016
Mike (Lovettsville, VA)
I bought a superboard in 1979, my first computer. I learned software and hardware from it. I upgraded to 32K and a floppy. I designed and built an interface to a 3 voice sound chip and a TI "sprite" color graphics chip. I showed my color c1p to the OSI club in Cleveland, a group of business users, and they wondered why anyone would need colors!
Wednesday 8th July 2015
harmon (Kent, Ohio USA)
HI, I was a technician back then and worked for OSI. I repaired many of these units. I am interested in purchasing some of the older units C1P, C2P, etc.
Thursday 18th December 2014
Dave Smith (USA)
NAME
Challenger 1P
MANUFACTURER
OHIO Scientific
TYPE
Home Computer
ORIGIN
U.S.A.
YEAR
1979
BUILT IN LANGUAGE
Microsoft BASIC
KEYBOARD
Full stroke 53 keys
CPU
6502
SPEED
1 MHz.
CO-PROCESSOR
None
RAM
4 KB (static) expandable to 8 KB on board
VRAM
1 KB
ROM
8 KB
TEXT MODES
24 chars. x 24 lines
GRAPHIC MODES
Only built-in graphic characters
COLORS
Monochrome
SOUND
No sound
SIZE / WEIGHT
Unknown
I/O PORTS
Tape recorder (input/output jacks for 300 baud Kansas City Standard tape storage), Composite video
Special thanks to Daryl Maddox who donated us this computer !
