Engineering:ABC 800

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Short description: Office versions of ABC 80 home computer
ABC 800
Luxor ABC 800 personal computer.jpg
Luxor ABC 800 computer in the collections of Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology
ManufacturerLuxor in Motala, Sweden
TypePersonal computer
Release date1981
Introductory price9,800 SEK (1982) (ex.VAT)[1]
Operating system24 KB ROM for BASIC II
CPU8-bit Zilog Z80A @ 3 MHz
Memory32 KB ROM + 32 KB RAM
GraphicsText mode 80×24 colour Teletext, 78×75 block graphics or 240×240 at 2 bpp, 512×240 at 4 bpp, 256×240 at 4 bpp with red, green, blue, yellow, cyan, magenta, white and black
SoundBeep, within the keyboard
Connectivity2x serial (75 - 19,200 baud[2]) DE-9, 2x32-pin eurocard 4680 bus connector, video DA-15, keyboard DIN-7

The Luxor ABC 800 series are office versions of the ABC 80 home computer.[3][4][5] They featured an enhanced BASIC interpreter,[6] a slightly faster clocked CPU and more memory: 32 kilobytes RAM and 32 KB ROM was now standard, the Z80 is clocked at 3 MHz (quarter the 12 MHz crystal).[3] It featured 40×24 text mode with eight colors (ABC 800 C) or 80×24 text mode monochrome (ABC 800 M).[5] They could also be extended with "high" resolution graphics (240×240 pixels at 2 bpp) using 16 KB RAM as video memory.[5]

Models

ABC 800

The ABC 800 came in a monochrome version with amber text on a brown background with an 80 character wide screen, and a color version with 40 characters. The main board is integrated with the keyboard, much like the Amiga 500. However, the ABC computer has a very sturdy metal chassis.

Storage is usually two 5.25" floppy disk units in 160, 320 or 640 KB capacity. External hard disk systems became available later (primarily the ABC 850 with 10 MB). Model numbers 'ABC 800 M' for monochrome and 'ABC 800 C' for color.

Luxor advertising asked, "Who needs IBM-compatibility?" However, most computer buyers eventually considered it a requirement. A certain degree of compatibility between the ABC and IBM PC platforms could be achieved with the help of a program called 'W ABC'.

The ABC 800 computer was also sold by Facit under the name Facit DTC.[3]

ABC 802

Swedish computer/terminal Luxor ABC 802

The ABC 802 is a compact version with 64 KB RAM where 32 KB is used as a RAM disk. The main board is integrated with a 9" CRT screen and has improved graphics, though no high-resolution graphics. Luxor ABC 802 was a model with a small monochrome screen in yellow phosphor, intended for offices. Here with two 5.25 inch disk drives along the side of the display. The grey-brown color was common for all ABC 800 (and ABC 1600) products and was different from the beige ABC 80.

ABC 806

The Luxor ABC 806 model.

The ABC 806 is a version with main board, screen (DA-15) and keyboard (DIN-7) as separate units. It has 164 KB RAM where 128 KB is used as a RAM disk, as well as more advanced 512x240x16 graphics.[3]

Performance

In order to see how the ABC 800 would compare to other contemporary personal computers, in 1982, the Swedish magazine MikroDatorn used the Rugg/Feldman benchmarks of eight short BASIC programs (BM1 - BM8) defined by the American Kilobaud Magazine and routinely used by the British magazine Personal Computer World for testing new machines.

The result was that ABC 800's semi-compiling BASIC interpreter turned out to be faster than most other BASICs used in popular machines, especially when integer variables are used, the results for some well known computers were as follows (times in seconds): 

                           BM1   BM2   BM3   BM4   BM5   BM6   BM7   BM8
ABC 800 (integer)         not measured - see ABC 80 for approximate numbers
ABC 800 (single precision) 0.9   1.8   6.0   5.9   6.3   11.6  19.6  29
ABC 800 (double precision) 1.2   2.2   10.0  10.6  11.0  17.8  26.4  144

IBM PC                     1.5   5.2   12.1  12.6  13.6  23.5  37.4  35
Apple III                  1.7   7.2   13.5  14.5  16.0  27.0  42.5  75
VIC-20                     1.4   8.3   15.5  17.1  18.3  27.2  42.7  99
ZX81 in "fast mode"        4.5   6.9   16.4  15.8  18.6  49.7  68.5  229

As seen from the table, the ABC 800 was approximately twice as fast as the IBM PC on floating point calculations, except for BM8 where it was only 20% faster. Using integer variables (only measured for the older ABC 80 in this test) the numbers would be approximately 2-3 times as low (i.e. speeds 2-3 times as high) as for the single precision results in the table.

ABC 800 character set

ABC 800 character set, as described on the user manual[7]

ASCII code Character Mode Graphic Mode ASCII code Character Mode Graphic Mode ASCII code Character Mode Graphic Mode ASCII code Character Mode Graphic Mode
32 NBSP 56 8 TRS-80 character 0x98.png 80 P P 104 h TRS-80 character 0xA8.png
33 ! TRS-80 character 0x81.png 57 9 TRS-80 character 0x99.png 81 Q Q 105 i TRS-80 character 0xA9.png
34 " TRS-80 character 0x82.png 58 : TRS-80 character 0x9A.png 82 R R 106 j TRS-80 character 0xAA.png
35 # TRS-80 character 0x83.png 59 ; TRS-80 character 0x9B.png 83 S S 107 k TRS-80 character 0xAB.png
36 TRS-80 character 0x84.png 60 < TRS-80 character 0x9C.png 84 T T 108 l TRS-80 character 0xAC.png
37 % TRS-80 character 0x85.png 61 = TRS-80 character 0x9D.png 85 U U 109 m TRS-80 character 0xAD.png
38 & TRS-80 character 0x86.png 62 > TRS-80 character 0x9E.png 86 V V 110 n TRS-80 character 0xAE.png
39 ´ TRS-80 character 0x87.png 63 ? TRS-80 character 0x9F.png 87 W W 111 o TRS-80 character 0xAF.png
40 ( TRS-80 character 0x88.png 64 É É 88 X X 112 p TRS-80 character 0xB0.png
41 ) TRS-80 character 0x89.png 65 A A 89 Y Y 113 q TRS-80 character 0xB1.png
42 * TRS-80 character 0x8A.png 66 B B 90 Z Z 114 r TRS-80 character 0xB2.png
43 + TRS-80 character 0x8B.png 67 C C 91 Ä Ä 115 s TRS-80 character 0xB3.png
44 , TRS-80 character 0x8C.png 68 D D 92 Ö Ö 116 t TRS-80 character 0xB4.png
45 - TRS-80 character 0x8D.png 69 E E 93 Å Å 117 u TRS-80 character 0xB5.png
46 . TRS-80 character 0x8E.png 70 F F 94 Ü Ü 118 v TRS-80 character 0xB6.png
47 / TRS-80 character 0x8F.png 71 G G 95 - - 119 w TRS-80 character 0xB7.png
48 0 TRS-80 character 0x90.png 72 H H 96 é TRS-80 character 0xA0.png 120 x TRS-80 character 0xB8.png
49 1 TRS-80 character 0x91.png 73 I I 97 a TRS-80 character 0xA1.png 121 y TRS-80 character 0xB9.png
50 2 TRS-80 character 0x92.png 74 J J 98 b TRS-80 character 0xA2.png 122 z TRS-80 character 0xBA.png
51 3 TRS-80 character 0x93.png 75 L L 99 c TRS-80 character 0xA3.png 123 ä TRS-80 character 0xBB.png
52 4 TRS-80 character 0x94.png 76 N N 100 d TRS-80 character 0xA4.png 124 ö TRS-80 character 0xBC.png
53 5 TRS-80 character 0x95.png 77 M M 101 e TRS-80 character 0xA5.png 125 å TRS-80 character 0xBD.png
54 6 TRS-80 character 0x96.png 78 N N 102 f TRS-80 character 0xA6.png 126 ü TRS-80 character 0xBE.png
55 7 TRS-80 character 0x97.png 79 O O 103 g TRS-80 character 0xA7.png 127 TRS-80 character 0xBC.png TRS-80 character 0xBF.png

See also

References

  1. ↑ "empty". http://pc-museum.com/luxor/Luxor-prislista.pdf.  091209 pc-museum.com
  2. ↑ "Luxor Product Information pdf". http://www.pc-museum.com/luxor/produktblad-abc802.pdf. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 "Luxor ABC 800 series". https://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=357. 
  4. ↑ Rautiainen, Sami (2020). "Luxor ABC 800 serie". https://www.devili.iki.fi/Computers/Luxor/. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "RigPix Database - Vintage home computers (Except IBM PC's and their clones) - Luxor ABC-800". https://www.rigpix.com/vcomp/luxor_abc800.htm. 
  6. ↑ "Starring the Computer - Luxor ABC 800". https://www.starringthecomputer.com/computer.html?c=588. 
  7. ↑ Rautiainen, Sami (2020). "Luxor ABC800 Käyttöohje: Liitteitä - Näppäinkoodit merkki/grafiikkamuodossa (ASCII-taulukko)". http://www.devili.iki.fi/Computers/Luxor/Manuals/ABC800/Kayttoohje/sivu_42.html#81. 




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