Elwro 800 Junior
Summary
The Elwro 800 Junior is a Polish school computer built by the Elwro electronics factory in Wrocław. In the mid-1980s, Poland’s Ministry of Education held a competition for a computer to teach computer science in schools. A design from the Institute of Automation at Poznań University of Technology won; the computer was presented at the Poznań Fair in 1986.
Technology
The ministry required full compatibility with the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, whose software was widely used in Poland. In one operating mode, the Junior therefore behaves like a Spectrum. Its processor is an East German U880D, a Z80 clone running at 3.5 MHz. The computer has 64 KB RAM and 24 KB ROM. In addition to BASIC, it runs CP/J, a network-capable variant of CP/M.
The Junior was intended for computer classrooms. The Polish JUNET network connects 7 to 15 student computers to a teacher’s computer, which provides a shared floppy disk drive and printer and distributes CP/J to the student workstations over the network. The teacher’s version (Wyk. 01) therefore has a floppy disk controller, while the student version (Wyk. 02) does not. In practice, the network was unreliable and saw little adoption.
Versions
There are three main versions: Elwro 800, 800-2 and 800-3. The first model and early 800-2 units use 150 KB disks; most 800-2 units and the 800-3 use 720 KB disks. Only about 150 prototypes of the 804 Junior PC, with a built-in 3.5-inch drive, were made. Elwro built around 14,000 Juniors in total, against a planned 30,000.
In 1986, Elwro also acquired the licence for the Mera-Elzab Meritum and ended its production in 1987.
Links
Family tree
- Predecessor · not in the collectionElwro 800 Junior
- This objectElwro 800-2 Junior
- This objectElwro 800-3 Junior
- Successor · not in the collectionElwro 804 Junior PC
Keywords
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