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.
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.).
I have a Morrow Computer and complete documentation. Anyone interested in it?
Thursday 26th September 2019
Alliene Turner (United States)
In 1979, Two of my college friends and I started a small business selling Morrow Design computers and writing software while attending Northwest Nazarene College, Nampa, ID.
We sold quite a few MD1, MD2, and MD3s. Sold one Decision One to a client that needed a multi-user system.
Somewhere I have all the sales material for the computers (three ring binder). If I can find it, I will scan them and send them to the site.
Friday 6th September 2019
mike fetting (United States)
I bought a Morrow MDII in 1982, because I needed a computer to manage a multi-defendant t lawsuit I wanted to file. (I am a lawyer.) I couldn''t handle it without a computer which I understood would do the job. It did I could run a law office with that computer. It was a revelation to me and a revolution.
It finally failed Disk drives I failed as I remember. Still have it. Anyone have any ideas onail how how I could get it fixed. E-mail me at don@donricketts.com
