NorthStar Horizon Microcomputer
date: label: Date made
content: 1977
name: label: maker
content: Northstar
notes: label: Description
content: Northstar developed from a computer store called "The Original Kentucky Fried Computer." It changed its name due to impending litigation by Kentucky Fried Chicken. The company's first product was a Floating Point Math Board for S-100 computers. They then developed an inexpensive floppy drive system. This led the way to the Horizon, one of the first computers with built in floppy drives.
label: Description
content: Announced in November 1977, the Horizon was sold in a wooden cabinet, as opposed to the more usual metal or plastic. The initial price was $1,899 assembled and $1,599 unassembled. The Horizon ran on a Z-80 microprocessor that ran at 4 MHz. It contained 16 KB of RAM, which could be expanded to 64 KB and 1 KB of ROM. The operating system was both CP/M and Northstar DOS. The machine was among the first to offer floppy drives, and customers could order one or two 90 KB 5 ¼" drives. Northstar was also one of the first machines to offer a hard disk drive. This was called an HD-18, and had 18 megabytes on an 18" platter. The Northstar Horizon was suited for business, education, and software development applications.
label: Description
content: This particular machine was donated to the Smithsonian by Peter A. McWilliams. He used it in writing <I>The Word Processing Book: A Short Course in Computer Literacy</I> (1982). When it sold well, McWilliams wrote <I>The Personal Computer Book,</I> (1983), which became a runaway bestseller. This was his first computer.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: California, Berkeley
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Computers
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content: Family & Social Life
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content: Work
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content: Computers & Business Machines
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Peter McWilliams
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1989.0354.01
label: catalog number
content: 1989.0354.01
label: accession number
content: 1989.0354
objectType: label: Object Name
content: microcomputer
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: plastic (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: average spatial: 19.1 cm x 50.1 cm x 44.5 cm; 7 1/2 in x 19 3/4 in x 17 1/2 in