Ready prompt T-shirts!
ZX81 T-shirts!
ZX Spectrum T-shirts!
Arcade cherry T-shirts!
Spiral program T-shirts!
Atari joystick T-shirts!
Battle Zone T-shirts!
Vectrex ship T-shirts!
Competition Pro Joystick T-shirts!
Elite spaceship t-shirt T-shirts!
Moon Lander T-shirts!
Atari ST bombs T-shirts!
C64 maze generator T-shirts!
Pak Pak Monster T-shirts!
BASIC code T-shirts!
Vector ship T-shirts!
Pixel adventure T-shirts!
Breakout T-shirts!
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The Wren was one of the last "laptop" CP/M computer. It can be described as a combined personal computer and Teletext terminal. It weights more than 12 Kg !
This Computer was assembled at the Thorn EMI factory in Treorchy South Wales. Only about 1000 were made before Wren went bust and many companys were left holding the parts for the other 9000 units that were part of the first production run.
It was very advanced for its day and the software package was very good quality and comprehensive for that era.
Although the Wren computer was manufactured at Thorn EMI in Feltham, they were a subcontractor to Wren Computers Ltd. Wren was a joint venture company between Transam Microsystems (www.transam.co.uk) and Prism (who distributed computers for Sinclair). Transam have recently been aquired by Eurodata Systems.
The Wren was sold with several good softs : Perfect Calc, Perfect Writer, Perfect Filer, Executive Desktop (agenda, phone directory, note-pad, etc.), the popular BBC Basic (the same as the Acorn BBC or the Electron) and a communication application. Indeed the Wren has a built-in modem and is Prestel (english videotex) compatible. But it can also be used to automaticaly dial phone numbers stored in a directory.
The whole system looks quite strong and robust. When transported, the whole monitor and drive assembly slides over the keyboard. The 7" built-in screen is monochrome but it is also possible to connect the WREN to an external RGB monitor. The two disk-drives (40 tracks) can stored 190k each. Weird fact : the drives LEDs light up when one of the floppies is selected but don't light off when this drive stop to work...
Quality control was a major issue which certainly delayed production and caused a few financial problems for Wren. It might just have been too far advanced a concept for the time....
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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.). |
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Ian (London, UK)
"Do you still have the audio digitiser schematic and software to share or to purchase? I am also interested in the RGB to PAL card."
I''m afraid I don''t have the schematics. I *may* have the circuit boards somewhere, but it''s quite likely that I got rid of them when the Wren itself stopped working, or during a house move. Even knowing which ICs I''d used would probably help you a bit.
The RGB-to-PAL interface was a design I saw in an electronics Magazine.
I''ll have a quick look through my things and see if by any chance I can find the circuit boards, but I''m not confident :-(
| | Tuesday 11th May 2021 | Martin Underwood (England) | | |
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Hello Wren fans,
I do believe you might be interested into Jerry Walker youtube channel where he is repairing 3 pieces of old Wren computers and is trying to reverse engineering not just schematics but also a firmware. And maybe you could help him with some info?
Here is link to one part of series
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v$_4cUNDc_ong
Regards,
Petr
| | Tuesday 18th August 2020 | Petr | | |
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Greetings again to all in the Forum! Have a working Wren but unfortunately boot disc is corrupted and system will not boot to screen. Can anyone send me a physical copy of a boot disc by post to London UK? Have a full set of other software to exchange.
Keen to correspond with other Wren users and enthusiasts to discuss and exchange software, schematics and hardware ideas etc.
Please text me on (+44)7710 095902 for e-mail details.
Cheers!
| | Sunday 12th July 2020 | Ian (UK) (United Kingdom) | | |
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(France, october 84)
