Ai ABC-24 / 26 Computer

ABC 24 Computer (opens in new tab)

ABC 24 Computer The ABC 24 and ABC 26 machines are closely related and share most of their hardware. The main differences are the size of the floppy disk drives. As a result, these machines will be described and documented together.

These machines were aimed at small and medium business users. Screen, Keyboard, Disk drives and a wide range of peripheral interfaces were fully integrated into a single robust case. These machines are strongly built and are very heavy!

An inbuilt ROM monitor performed direct boot to the screen prompt on power-up, similarly to the Cromemco machies. There were no switches and lights to confuse or distract the business user, switch on and the machine booted to a ROM monitor prompt, ready for a keyboard command to start a disk-hosted OS such as CP/M. The monitor manual is in the Data section, it also has quite detailed hardware information.

Ai had developed an impressive range of software for these machines:

• Operating Systems

  • CP/M and MP/M - regular Digital Research CP/M and MP/M
  • DOSKET - Ai’s proprietary OS
  • UCSD PASCAL

• Application Software

  • Fortran IV
  • COBOL
  • BASIC-2
  • PL/3
  • Ai Applications and Utilities, including an Arabic Word Processor

All original software for these machines has been lost. DoPECC is eager to obtain any items of original software in the hope that the original environment may ultimately be restored. Anyone with information is urged to make contact via the About/Contact link

The ABC machines appear to have been reasonably successful in their day, but were swept away with all other machines in the CP/M class when the IBM PC arrived in 1981.