P5000 came in two major types. One was 8080 based, and the other was Z80 based. RAM on the 8080 was 64K, 128K on the Z80. The Z80 was used on the "twin" (two terminal and two printer) version, and the Cluster (or 4 Head/4 terminal version).
Software was remarkably efficient, copies going between the two floppies, printing, and editing all at the same time on up to 4 terminals, on an 8 bit CPU and 128K of RAM.
The software was originanally developed in Ottawa, lead by the person who would become company president. Company started as Micom, and was eventually bought by Philiips.
The pictured model is a P5004, second generation from P5002 series. This huge system (at least 50 kg) was conceived by D. K. Hammer at system software development department of Philips in Vienna, but manufactured in Canada. It was commonly connected to a Qume daysywheel printer and was used not only for word processing, but also as billing, accounting or specialized system for technical or scientific documents production.
First P5000s did not boot from a floppy but from a Magnetic card reader. The ‘Schugart’ 8” drives came later. Each 300 KB 8" floppy disc could store up to 128 A4 size pages.
There was also a P5040 third generation which looked like a modern pc. This was the last of the dedicated Philips word processors.
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Contributors: Kevin Holdaway, Kostas Kritsilas
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I used to work at the Town of Mount Royal production facility from 1981-1993/4 (facility had moved to Ville St. Laurent by then).
P5000 came in two major types$ one was 8080 based, and the other was Z80 based. RAM on teh 8080 was 64K, 128K on the Z80. The Z80 was used on the "twin" (two terminal and two printer) version, and the Cluster (or 4 Head/4 terminal version).
Software was remarkably efficient$ copies going between the two floppies, printing, and editing all at the same time on up to 4 terminals, on an 8 bit CPU and 128K of RAM.
As far as I know, the software was originanally developed in Ottawa, lead by the person who would become company president (went to school with Dr. Wang). Company started as Micom, and was eventually bought by Philiips.
