George Morrow, the Morrow Designs President, was one of the first engineers to design and market a memory board for the Altair computer. His company was first called "Morrow's Microstuff" and the cards were sold by mail order. Some time later, Morrow Designs began to design hard disks and computers.
With this computer, G. Morrow tried to build a single-board Z-80 CP/M machine that looks like an IBM PC but is one-third as expensive as it, and half the price of a comparable Apple system (Apple III).
The basic version included a serial video terminal and a 200 KB 5.25 floppy disk drive. However, the mainframe could be sold alone with one or two floppy disk drives. The Micro Decision also came with 5 MB, 10 MB or 40 MB Winchester hard drive installed. The MicroDecision line didn't have proper monitors or keyboards. The console shown here is actually a VT52-compatible terminal.
Here are the diffent models marketed and their US price in 1983 :
Model MD1 : one SSSD disk drive (200 KB) = $1590 Model MD2 : two SSSD disk drives (400 KB total) + Personal PEARL DBMS = $1950 Model MD3 : two DSDD disk drives (768 KB total) + Personal PEARL DBMS + QUEST Bookkeeper = $2490
The Morrow MD-1 used the Pilot programming language for a Menu-Driven shell to make the computer more user friendly. Some of the later ones manufacturered also used CP/M 3.0.
Like many CP/M computer manufacturers, Morrow Designs offered a complete software package with its system, including:
- CP/M 2.2 operating system
- WordStar word processing from Micropro
- Microsoft BASIC-80 programming language
- NorthStar compatible BAZIC language from Micro Mike's Inc.
- A spelling checker
- An electronic spreadsheet.
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Contributors: Gary Clouse, David Griffith
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
Micro Decision
MANUFACTURER
Morrow Designs
TYPE
Professional Computer
ORIGIN
U.S.A.
YEAR
1982
BUILT IN LANGUAGE
None
KEYBOARD
Full-stroke keyboard
CPU
Z80-A
SPEED
4 Mhz.
CO-PROCESSOR
None
RAM
64 KB
ROM
Unknown
TEXT MODES
80 chars. x 25 lines
GRAPHIC MODES
None
COLORS
Monochrome
SOUND
Beeper
SIZE / WEIGHT
Unknown
I/O PORTS
2 x serial ports
BUILT IN MEDIA
1 or 2 x 200 KB 5.25 floppy disc drives
OS
CP/M
POWER SUPPLY
Integrated power supply unit
PRICE
Complete system: $1790 Computer alone with one drive: $1195 Video terminal only: $595
