Regnecentralen was a governmental agency founded in 1955 in order to build and run DASK (the first Danish computer), and for doing research in the computer field.
The RC 702 Piccolo (RC 700 was the series) was thus used by most schools in Denmark. It was equiped with a Z80A microprocessor, could be shipped with one or two built-in 5" floppy disc drive and ran CP/M.
The system supported CP/M and UCSD PASCAL, but was usually shipped with RC COMAL-80, a programming language which was used extensively in Danish schools for many years. COMAL was quite popular as a teaching language, especially in Scotland.
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Pictures & info from Henrik Schmidt
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.
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To enhance my comment on 9th September 2010: This computer was used for training purposes in The Netherlands to educate young adults, (which already had a degree), with a special half-year course, for acquiring a job in the IT business. It was in the year 1985. I remember the operating system installed was CP/M and we programmed in the COBOL language.
Monday 16th May 2016
Anonymous (Netherlands)
Back in 1981, my school, Sofiendalskolen in Aalborg, had a few RC700 systems, and I used them for learning to program in Pascal and COMAL. While most of these were RC702 systems, we also had an RC701 system, which I believe is quite rare. It had an 8" floppy disk drive and used a TV monitor for display.
I have made a website with more information about the RC700 computer from Regnecentralen. The site has a simulator for the RC700, which you can download, or you can try the web-based version of the simulator. There is also a number of disk images with software for the RC700 which can be used with the simulator.
I am interested in finding more software for the RC700. If you have any software on 5 1/4" floppy disks (original or not) made for (or compatible with) the RC700, please let me know. I have made a PC that can be used for reading these and create .IMD disk image files.
This was my first computer experience. The Comal 80 book had a gold-colored cover. The computer was used for our school''s administration and had two 8" floppy drives. (No 5" drive) I believe the floppy could hold 1Mb of data, ~900Kb formatted.
Friday 11th July 2014
Mark
NAME
RC 700 Piccolo
MANUFACTURER
Regnecentralen
TYPE
Professional Computer
ORIGIN
Denmark
YEAR
1980
BUILT IN LANGUAGE
None
KEYBOARD
RC-721 full-stroke limited keyboard. An extended version with numeric keypad was also available
CPU
Z80A
SPEED
4 Mhz
RAM
48 KB (expandable to 64 KB)
ROM
2 KB
TEXT MODES
Unknown
GRAPHIC MODES
A graphic expansion board could be installed (More info?)
COLORS
Monochrome
SOUND
Beeper
I/O PORTS
Monitor output, Keyboard connector, Parallel connector, Terminal & Printer serial (V24) connectors, External disk drive connector, Fuse, Monitor power
BUILT IN MEDIA
5.25'' floppy disk drive Optional 8'' floppy disk drive
