Cromemco Z-2

Z-2 was the name of a series of microcomputer made by Cromemco, Inc. which were produced in the middle to late 1970s.

They were available in assembled or kit form and, although primarily intended for a business market, achieved some popularity among early computer enthusiasts owing to their speed, configurability, and durability.

Cromemco Z-2

The Cromemco Z-2 computer was a Z80 based microcomputer system produced in the middle to late 1970s. The original Z-2 in kit form included a ZPU-K Z80 CPU card, S-100 bus motherboard, all-metal rack-mount chassis and dust case, card socket and card guide; The assembled form included in addition a complete set of sockets and card guides, and a cooling fan. The Z-2 series was capable of supporting up to 21 S-100 boards and could be configured with any of the boards supplied by Cromemco.^[1]

The Z-2 gave an impression of solidity due to its hefty 450-watt power supply and heavy metal chassis. A TU-ART (dual serial and parallel board), 4FDC Floppy Disk Controller, one or more 16KZRAM cards, and a Wangco 5¼" floppy disk drive would be added to form a basic system.

An unusual feature of the Z-2 was switch selectable CPU speed; 250 or 500 nanosecond cycle time were provided. The ZPU speed was 4 MHz at a time when less than 2 MHz was normal, and boards from other manufacturers might still require the slower speed. The ZPU card in the Z-2 could address up to 64 kilobytes of RAM. However, the 16KZ memory card supported bank-switching with 8 banks of 64 kilobytes each. When using the 16KZ, the maximum RAM of the Z-2 was limited by the available S-100 slots. If 16 of the slots were occupied by 16KZ cards, then the system had 4 banks of 64 kilobytes each, for a total of 256 kilobytes.

Additional S-100 slots were required for cards controlling peripherals, disk drives, and I/O interfaces. Communication with the processor was normally performed through a TU-ART or other S-100 bus compatible interface card, which could run a CRT terminal or teletype.

Cromemco Z-2D

The Cromemco Z-2D computer was a Z80 based microcomputer system which differed from a Z-2 by having one or two Wangco 5 1/4" disk drives, a disk power supply and a 4FDC disk controller in a Z-2 chassis. The Z-2D was available in assembled and kit form. ^[2]

Cromemco Z-2H

This was a Z80 based microcomputer containing an 11 megabyte hard drive in addition to the basic Z-2 system.^[3]

References

1. ^ Cromemco Z-2 Instruction Manual, Cromemco,Inc. Part No. N/A, 1977
2. ^ Cromemco Z-2D Instruction Manual, Cromemco,Inc. Part No. 0023-0014, 1978
3. ^ Cromemco Z-2H Hard Disk Storage Instruction Manual, Cromemco,Inc. Part No. 023-0087, 1980

External links

• Cromemco Z-2H Hard Disk Storage Instruction Manual PDF

• Cromemco 16KZ Instruction Manual PDF