The Visual 1050. Entered into the PC battles mid-80s from the now defunct
Visual Technology company (most famous for video terminals at the time).
This CP/M based machine was tailored to Wordstar with a specialized
keyboard featuring all the wordstar function keys.
Graphic capabilities were managed by a second 6502 processor.
It was delivered with a set of Digital Research software, including CP/M, C-BASIC compiler, DR-GSX (graphic extensions), as well as WordStar (Word processor), Mailmerge (address database), Multiplan (spreadsheet) and TTY-1050 (communications)
John Citron remembers:
I worked for Visual from 1980-1987. From 1983 to 1987, I was a hardware technician with them and serviced many of these machines. In addition to the expansion ports on the outside, there is also a riser header for a, never implemented, optional memory expansion card. The 9" green monitor was manufactured in Taiwan by ADI and it, along with the keyboard, eventually became the main components for their V-50/55 and V-60/65 line of video terminals.
In addition to coming with a huge bundle of applications, the system was also able to read CP/M disks from many of the competitive machines in its day. By running a special utility, one could load in programs and data from Osborne, DEC VT-180, DEC Rainbow, and others.
Overall, the system was great in its day and I eventually owned one for a number of years. The video was crisp and the Keytronic keyboard was comfortable to use. The only complaint that I ever had was the noise. The system was very loud due to the empty case and the noisy fan and floppy drives.
Thanks to Richard Bramante for information and pictures.
We need more info about this computer ! If you designed, used, or have more info about this system,
please send us pictures or anything you might find useful.
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.).
This was my first "real" home computer, purchased back in 1984 after I graduated college and I used it up through 1995! It was great for word-processing, spreadsheets, and programming (used FTL C and Modula-2 compilers for CP/M). The best thing was it''s VT-100 compatibility. I used it with a modem as my home terminal for UNIX systems all through graduate school. It was great for vi and editing/compiling/uploading C programs. What a great little machine, and great graphics and display capabilities. But its floppy drives were noisy! My wife referred to them as buzz-saws, and between those and the daisy-wheel printer I used with it, I couldn''t use the thing past 10 pm without waking everyone up!
Wednesday 8th December 2010
Jim Schifalacqua (USA)
I put together a basic page here for some information I have collected on this system. If anybody can help with more information please let me know.
http://bramante.metabarn.com/visual1050/
Tuesday 18th December 2007
Richard Bramante (USA)
NAME
Visual 1050
MANUFACTURER
Visual Technology
TYPE
Professional Computer
ORIGIN
U.S.A.
YEAR
1984
END OF PRODUCTION
1987?
BUILT IN LANGUAGE
None
KEYBOARD
Keytronic full stroke 93-key with numeric key pad & 17 function keys
CPU
Z80-A
SPEED
4 MHz.
CO-PROCESSOR
6502 (Graphic video management)
RAM
128KB (bank-switched)
VRAM
320Kb (32Kb x 10)
ROM
8 KB
TEXT MODES
80 chars. x 25 lines
GRAPHIC MODES
640 x 300 dots
COLORS
Monochrome
SOUND
No sound
SIZE / WEIGHT
CPU - 5'' (H) x 17'' (W) x 17'' (D) / CPU 15 lbs, Monitor 10 lbs
I/O PORTS
video terminal, Serial, Parallel, Winchester HD
BUILT IN MEDIA
2 x 400KB, 5.25'', SSDD, 96tpi floppy disk drives (TEAC FD-55E) Optional 10Mb external Winchester hard disk drive.
