Nearly nothing is known about these obscure CP/M systems. The technical info is related to the Mimi 802, and the picture illustrates a Mimi 803...
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Mimi's at Leicester Polytechnic, by Rob Seaward:
I used one of these at Leicester Polytechnic around 1981/82.
We used to have a lab full of these for students - we were learning FORTRAN and were lectured by Roger Hutty who wrote a very good book in the subject.
I remember we used to boot the machine using a combination of keys (possible shift or control and B if I recollect correctly).
To ensure myself and a friend could always access a machine (particularly when we were close to assignment deadline) we swapped the V and B keys on the keyboard making the machine unuseable to any other student or for that matter the dumbfounded technicians.
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.
Hi All. I’m proud to say that I built a lot of the Mimi computers for British Micro. I worked there in the early 80’s and remember having to tune the CRT monitors while they were turned on, with the covers off... the guy that owned the company was a fella from Armenia called Manus Hegoyan (probably wrong). This is what got me into a career in computing.
Wednesday 2nd December 2020
Jon Hall (England)
Does anyone have a copy of the Trojan Software development system for the MIMI they can send me ? I developed a lot of stuff using it and thought it was the bee''s knees!
Monday 14th January 2019
Rich (UK)
I was a designer/engineer at British Micro from 1982. I think I worked on the ''803'' onwards. That one had text and graphics mono display modes as has been mentioned. The next ''804'' was text only but with a higher quality display than was common at the time. There was also an ''805'' machine with colour graphics, but that never got into production.
The machines shipped with ''OS/M'', a clone of the CP/M operating system, and had an optional hard drive. Compared with some 8-bit Z80 machines of the time (eg. the hobbyist ZX81) it was far superior, though at a cost as it was aimed at business. I believe it even outperfomed the original 8/16-bit IBM PC.
I can confirm that ''Mimi'' was the name of the owner''s daughter (born ''78).
Sunday 20th May 2018
Bart
NAME
Mimi 802 / 803 / 804
MANUFACTURER
British Micro
TYPE
Professional Computer
ORIGIN
United Kingdom
YEAR
1981
KEYBOARD
Full stroke keyboard with 17 programmed function keys and a numeric keypad, 96 keys
CPU
Z80A
SPEED
4 Mhz
RAM
64 KB dynamic
ROM
Unknown
TEXT MODES
Unknown
GRAPHIC MODES
Unknown
COLORS
Unknown
SOUND
None
SIZE / WEIGHT
24 lbs
I/O PORTS
Full RS232C and Centronics parallel ports, Light pen socket
