Zenith introduced the revolutionary
Z-100 computer in mid-1981.
Targeted for professionals, etc...
The keyboard had a wonderful "feel" and "stroke action" that Byte Magazine columnist and fiction author
Jerry Pournelle raved about in several columns.
- Dual processors: 8085 and 8088
- Available with CP/M and Z-DOS (non-IBM compatible MS-DOS variant)
- Five S-100 expansion slots
- Two 320KB 40-track double-sided 5.25-inch Floppy disk drives. Socket enabled direct plug-in of external 8-inch floppies.
- 2x serial ports (2661 UART), one Centronics printer port (discrete TTL chips), light pen port
- 640x225 bitmap display. 8 colors (low-profile model), or monochrome upgradable to 8 greyscales (all-in-one).
- Base 128k RAM, expandable to 192K on-board, to 768K with S-100 cards. (Video RAM was paged into the 64K block above 768K).
The Z-100 had superior graphics to the contemporary
CGA (640x200 monochrome bitmap or 320x200 4-color),
IBM Monochrome Display Adapter (80x25 text-only), and arguably even the
Hercules Graphics Card (720x348 monochrome). Early versions of
AutoCAD were released for the Z-100 because of these advanced graphics.
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