Concept

Computer published 43 years ago:

Concept (c) 1982 Corvus Systems.

- TECHNICAL -

This computer uses a state-of-art (at the time) MC68000 CPU. Its CCOS
operating system is a variant of the Merlin operating system by Silicon Valley
Software: it is a mono-tasking OS, with source-level compatibility with the
UCSD p-system, and vague reminiscences of UNIX. The Concept has a bitmapped screen, which enables to mix text in any style and size with graphics, and some programs were reportedly WYSIWYG (which was uncommon at the time).

The system includes a primitive window manager. The most original feature is probably the rotatable screen that can be used either in horizontal or vertical position: however you need to reboot the computer after flipping the screen. Another feature of interest is the integrated network support: the Concept can be used either as a disk-less network computer or as a full-featured personal computer, and you could connect Concepts, Apple IIs and IBM PCs in an heterogeneous Omninet LAN.

- TRIVIA -

The Concept was announced in the spring of 1982.

The price was about $4000 for a 256-kbytes system in 1984 ($1000 for extra 256-kbytes, $750 for floppy, from $2000 to $4000 for hard disk according to size).

- CONTRIBUTE -

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