This mini forum is intended to provide a simple means of discussion about the Philips  P/330 computer. If you want to share your own experience or memories, or add relevant information about this system: post a message!

I worked by Philips in 1969 en was a programmer. In 1973 I had my own company and we made software for alle Philips office computers. The P330 was one of them. I think is was the best product of all. We made hundreds of applications for this model in the Netherlands. It has indeed a 12" screen (white characters 25 x 80) en two 8" floppy drives 1,2 MB.
A harddisk was optional. The programming language was Phocal. (Philips Office Computer Assembly Language).
The printer was a 9 pins dot matrix, 100 cps. The P330 was the last product of the Philips Office computers series. Then Philips came with the mircro computers and later the IBM compatibele PC''s.
In 1992 the Philips computer dream was ended. It was a good time and good products.

I programmed this computer and it''s brothers and sisters: P172, P173, P300 series until 1983.
The P330 was the last model, the simpliest version costed over 80000 HFL, ca. 40000 euro. Just before the rising of microprocessors and pc''s.

They were mainly used for local administration, invoicing and such with an interface to central financial systems on mainframes. All bookings where written on ECMA cassettes which were sent to the central computer company.
Triumph had similar systems.

P172 was programmed with Pholas, the rest with Phocal, an assembler language. Programming the P172 was a bit of a nuisance, entering codelines into the computer itself.
Programs for the P173 onwards could be entered and assempled on a bigger P4000 computer.

I used the earlier version of this machine without a display back in the late 70s. It was the first computer I ever operated. Some called it a "billing machine" but it was a real computer because we had to call a guy in to program it when it had problems. We kept accounts on the A4 sized cards with magnetic strips. I got pretty fast at working this machine.

I have a rare P300 (p320) for sale, complete and in good condition, let me know if you''re interested, is sell it for 450euro.

I''ve programmed for 10 years P300 series since 1977 to 1986. First model was P300: without screen, without magnetic suport, just 4 K memory loaded with a pioc (small magnetic cassette), using continuus stationary and paper cards (no magnetic band). After, P320, had Magnetic cards able to store 384 bytes, each. Then came P330, with 2 disquettes of 0,5Mb each and later on 2 of 1 Mb. and finally 1 Mb. disquette and 7 Mb hard disk. Program 750 managed the devices and basic functions.

I worked on an earlier version in 1971. It had 1k ram, built into the leg? It used A4 cards with magnetic stripes down each side called Visual Records?

We did payroll, goods in and out and profit and loss accounts.

I have a philips 308 p to restore ..
Does anyone have manuals?
I would be grateful: trovador29@hotmail.com

I have a philips 308 p to restore ..
Does anyone have manuals?
I would be grateful: trovador29@hotmail.com

this day s i''ve found a machine in ebay.es that look like this one, but is the model p354c... but 1500€ is to much money xD

http://cgi.ebay.es/ordenador-Philips-P354-C-tarjetas-perforadas-/150543982452?pt$LH_DefaultDomain_186$hash$item230d1edf74$ht_500wt_1156

Apparently, the P/330 was used in a number of medium-sized businesses here in Germany, typically for accounting, costing, and warehouse administration. Here is (unfortunately, in German) a case study from 1981 about a German household stuff and hardware distributor: http://www.computerwoche.de/heftarchiv/1981/36/1187194/

today, I have discovered one philips P/308. It is like P/330. Have anyone information about this computer? I have no manuals or documentation about this computer.

I have a complete machine in working condition in my office with complete bookkeeping software. It is an earlier model without screen or harddisk. As it did not have a screen software has to be followed by using a guide explaining code-lights. Sofware is indeed loaded using a pioc-system(small tapes like dictaphone) 3 for each programm (intro-input-centralisation)

I've got one of those in my parent's basement. It still works. I did all my highschool reports on it in the 80's. I've got all the manuals and specs, if you are interested. (I think it only has 8K RAM.)