The "Miniterm" portable computer terminal was the Computer Devices Incorporated's primary product.
This "hand-carried" computer was preprogrammed to lead sales, manufacturing, and other untrained in computer operation through data processing tasks. Stored on a minicassette, the program was called up automatically when the computer is switched on.
Model 1206/PAT had a 64k processor with 32k RAM and included a modem acoustic coupler, and an 80-column thermal printer that could produce 50 characters per second. Programs were developped in Basic or in Motorola 6800 assembly language on a companion unit.
Options included a 132-column printer, alphanumeric bar-code reader, and a 1.44 MB disk drive.
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More information from Ken Steiner:
I was the software guy for this product. It had no display, 80 or 132 column printing, it could print raster graphics using Digital Equipment format. I forget the name of the OS, but it was unusual, even for 6800 standards. It had two different versions of basic - one in ROM that was similar (not as powerful) as in the Apple2, and one called STRUBAL - structured Basic Language. The disk drive was optional. I don't know if any were sold with disk drive, and a few were sold without disk drive.
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Yeah, 1.44MB DOES seems advanced for 1980. I had (and still have) a 80286 in 1989 with one but that was 1989, not 1980... maybe check that?
My dad was a survey statistician $ the data dept head for Booz Allen $ Hamilton in Philly. He forced them into the computer age during the 60''s $ 70''s. He brought one of these home (Blue/Grey) in 1978. He would telecommute to the Prime mainframe in their office and update his databases via the acoustic coupler. The CDI system in our house had no disk drive, but we had many, many, many microcassettes with all of our basic programs on them. I learned basic on this machine at the age of 7. I can''t tell you how valuable it was to be able to have this available at such a young age. If any of the developers, marketers, sellers of this system read this - thank you. While I am a Mechanical Engineer, I can tackle any programming issue i am faced with thanks to this little system.
Friday 28th March 2014
Dave Asmann (PA, USA)
Sounds like it would be an interesting little machine to use...
