In 1973, the french mini-computer company R2E build the first European mini-computer and called it "MICRAL".
In 1979, CII-Honeywell-Bull (now Bull), bought this company and presented this Micral 80-22 under their logo.
This was a very expensive french computer conceived for the French education market. The price was set ridiculously high since the company knew that the french government would be able to pay such a price !
The basic operating system of this machine was Prologue, a multitasking, multiuser OS. It was commonly combined with the BAL programming language, a mix of BASIC and COBOL with powerful files management commands, made by R2E. Both Prologue and Bal were much more efficient and powerful than CP/M and later MS-DOS but sadly, they virtually never reached beyond the French borders.
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.
NAME
MICRAL 80/22
MANUFACTURER
Bull
TYPE
Professional Computer
ORIGIN
France
YEAR
1980
END OF PRODUCTION
1987
BUILT IN LANGUAGE
None
KEYBOARD
Full-stroke 73 key with arrow keys
CPU
Zilog Z80
SPEED
3 MHz
RAM
64 KB (up to 256 kb)
ROM
12 KB
TEXT MODES
80 chars. x 24 lines
GRAPHIC MODES
Graphics capabilities (unknown resolution)
COLORS
Monochrome (green & black)
SOUND
Beeper into the video terminal
SIZE / WEIGHT
Heavy !
I/O PORTS
Serial, Parallel, Bull terminal, Lan
BUILT IN MEDIA
2 x 5.25'' single side 160 KB floppy disk drives (hard sector diskettes)
(France, 1981)
