Alphatronic PC from Triumph-Adler

Summary

The Alphatronic PC (also spelled alphaTronic PC) is a mix of home computer and business computer, which was mainly sold in Germany. Triumph-Adler has come from the typewriters and the business environment to the computer market, whereby the Alphatronic PC was not the first computer, but three years earlier the Alphatronic P1 came on the market; the Alphatronic PC can be seen as a member of the Alphatronic family. Even if the name ends on “PC”, it doesn’t have anything to do with an IBM-compatible computer — it didn’t exist yet in this compact design. As usual with home computers, there was a basic ROM with MS BASIC, but from the 5”1/4 floppy drive a CP/M could be started. Two drives came onto the market: F1 (with built-in controller) and F2 (as additional drive to F1). The system was not really successful, even though Triumph-Adler tried to tie a bundle with the printer TR-170 and a ROM-Cartridge with word processing. It can hardly have been a matter of processing, because it was good: a proper keyboard was given, including a set 10 digit block. Triumph-Adler placed the Alphatronic PC16 as the successor, but with an Intel 8088 CPU he had little to do with the predecessor.