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....
Please consider donating your old computer / videogame system to Old-Computers.com or one of our partners.
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)
Hi Harry, thanks for posting. Yes, I can get both of your computers repaired at fairly low cost. Can you post your e-mail and I will communicate with you directly. This mini-Forum does not automatically forward/redirect messages.
Do you have any software to exchange? Anyone on the forum have any cool vintage hardware for this Wren and more importantly software to run?
Cheers,
Ian
Wednesday 1st July 2020
Ian (United Kingdom)
I think I used to use one of these back in 1990 for exercising floppy disk drives. It used to run some program for exercising different makes of drive and also used to show an "oscilloscope" output showing the amplitude of the signal from the heads when a test diskette was used in the drive$ this allowed alignment to be performed. Anyone else know of these being used for this purpose or have I got this mixed up with something else?
Tuesday 19th May 2020
Dan (UK)
NAME
WREN
MANUFACTURER
Thorn EMI
TYPE
Transportable
ORIGIN
United Kingdom
YEAR
1984
KEYBOARD
Full-stroke keyboard with 5 function keys and arrow keys, 67 keys
CPU
Zilog Z80 A
SPEED
6 MHz
RAM
64 kb (up to 256 kb)
VRAM
32 kb
ROM
8 kb
TEXT MODES
80 x 25 / 40 x 25
GRAPHIC MODES
512 x 256
COLORS
monochrome built-in display
SIZE / WEIGHT
235 x 420 x 470 mm / 12 kg
I/O PORTS
Centronics, RS232c, Winchester Hard Disk, Paddle (2), Modem socket, RGB video output
(France, october 84)
