The ACS-8xxx were multi-user systems. They could support from 1 to 4 users, but you could also get them in versions for up to 9 users and a supervisor. In appearance, they were large and heavy rectangular desktop boxes with Z80 or 68000 CPUs (ACS-68000 series).
They used a large custom single-board computer the size of the case. The drive controller was a
separate half-card mounted on top of the SBC. The early 8000s had separate cases for the 8" FD & HD. In later models the drives and cards were
integrated into the same case.
The 8000 systems were labeled ACS-8000-x, where x indicates the size of the disk-drive and hard disk :
The ACS-8000 had a 10, 20 or 40 MB Winchester hard-drive and could be upgraded to 80 MB. Hard-disk models also had disk-drives. CP/M, MP/M II or Oasis were the available operating systems.
The ACS-8000 MTU had a 17 MB magnetic streamer.
The ACS-8000 was quite similar to the Altos Serie 5 but was more powerful.
I programmed one of these using dBaseII in the early 80s. It used the MPM operating system and could have several Televideo dumb terminals attached. It had a 10MB hard drive. I still have it! I''m starting to try to figure out how to sell it.
Thursday 13rd September 2018
Steve (USA)
My father used one of these systems in his office for the food research laboratory he worked at in the late 70''s. I remember the 8" floppy drives were separate from the processor. There was a big blue CRT/keyboard terminal of unknown make, and a big floor standing Texas Instruments dot matrix printer. I believe the system was serial connected to several pieces of lab equipment. I was only 7 or 8 at the time, and this whole thing fascinated me, it was the cat''s meow.
Wednesday 29th November 2017
Mike P. (USA)
Used an Altos 8000 running UCSD p-system natively in my first job back in ''84. 48k ram, split over 4 users with some shared memory for semaphores etc. Needed to use overlays in p-system to handle the larger programmes. Each overlay had to have the same procedure names in the smae location to work. I remember with the 20MB version you needed to toggle the on/off switch a few time to get the drive up to speed before it would boot from it.
Tuesday 18th November 2014
medge (Australia)
NAME
ACS-8000
MANUFACTURER
Altos Computer Systems
TYPE
Professional Computer
ORIGIN
U.S.A.
YEAR
1978
KEYBOARD
Terminal keyboard
CPU
Z80A
SPEED
4 Mhz
RAM
From 32 kb to 208 kb
ROM
Unknown
TEXT MODES
Display features depend on the attached terminal
SIZE / WEIGHT
designed to fit a standard 19
I/O PORTS
several RS232 ports (depending on models), parallel
BUILT IN MEDIA
8'' disk-drives : from 512 kb to 2 Mb 10, 20 or 40 Mb Winchester hard-disk (upgradable to 80 Mb) 17 Mb magnetic streamer (ACS-8000 MTU only)
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