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EasyData Computer Products?? Ever hear of 'em?

offensive_Jerk

offensive_Jerk

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Joined
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Location
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So I saw this manual at a thrift shop. Seemed like the old IBM Guide to Operations. It was from the early 90s, and it's a manual for EasyData Computer Products 420SX/425SX/433SX models.

The manual seems a little too high quality to just be some mom and pop Computer store house brand. Anyone ever hear of them?
The Internet doesn't seem to bring back much info except for this:

Word Mark: EASYDATA
Status/ Status Date:
ABANDONED-FAILURE TO RESPOND OR LATE RESPONSE
7/1/1983
Serial Number:
73362747
Filing Date:
5/3/1982
Registration Number:
NOT AVAILABLE
Registration Date:
NOT AVAILABLE
Goods and Services:
COMPUTER SOFTWARE
Mark Description:
NOT AVAILABLE
Type Of Mark:
TradeMark
Published For Opposition Date:
N/A
Last Applicant/Owner:
NORELL DATA SYSTEMS CORPORATION
3400 WILSHIRE BLVD , LOS ANGELES, , 90010
Mark Drawing Code:
Typeset (Words/letter/Number)
Register Type:
Principal
Design Search:
(NO DATA)

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Interesting triangle on the front of the outline drawing. Leading Edge PCs had a triangular logo, but I usually would find that in the far upper left corner.
I did not find many Leading Edge PC pics in google images...
 
I haven't heard of them. Searching google images and books (found your image then lots of motherboards and a few pictures of random people from their blogs as usual). One references them as "A Division of GCH Systems, Inc."

This other article just mentions them as a " Mountain View, Calif clone maker"
 
Might not be that big a clone manufacturer. Other than the cover for the binder, those manuals look very similar to the Gateway 2000 manuals done at the same time. I think the same company handled printing for many OEMs.
 
I had one of these. offensive_Jerk, I see you're in Wisconsin; so am I. My parents bought ours at American TV in Rockford, IL, in 1993. I've wondered if it was something confined to Wisconsin and Illinois, but if the parent company was in LA, who knows.

Since getting rid of mine, I've looked every so often for evidence of them online, and like you haven't found much. I do remember that the salesman at American said they were mostly a player in business computing, but I suspect he was just saying things salespeople like to say.

It was a plain old beige-box 486... I'm tempted to say it was a bit larger than others of the time. I don't remember anything remarkable about it except that when I wanted to boot a 3.5" floppy, I had to change the positions of the floppy cable ends because the 5.25" was assigned as A:.
 
I just did some searching on PC Magazine in Google Books. They actually reviewed a few 386 and 486 models over the years. Pretty poor performers, at least in the 486s, it seems.

It looks like the company was Norell back in the early '80s, and made productivity software, a Lisp implementation, and at least a few games. EasyData was originally the name of their DBMS. Looks like by the mid-'80s they were making internal modems. I wasn't able to see when or why they changed their corporate identity to GCH (with an EasyData division), but that's how their PCs were always badged as far as I can tell. However, on my PC and in my memory, the name EasyData was most prominent; I don't think I even realized GCH was part of it for a long time.
 
I HAVE AN EasyData COMPUTER!

I HAVE AN EasyData COMPUTER!

I have one of these ultra rare EasyData computers. I got it from my church in Ruby, Michigan. Our old paster gave this computer to the church in the early 1990's. He got a new computer and gave his EasyData, Windows 3.1 computer to the church. They used it for a cupple of years. Then they put it in the back shead for another 10 years. I just got it in the early summer on 2017. It had a Wen monitor, EasyData keyboard, Logictech mouse, and a EasyData tower. I also got an old IBM printer with it too. There was no power coards and was very faded and dirty. When we got home we noticed their was a rusty spot on the bottom corner and on the bottom. Me and my brother opened it up and it had a mouse nest in it. There were fesis and dirt all over the mother board. Under the power converter was the nest. Luckily the mouse was not in it but it sure left a mess. I felt scared to plug it in. So I took the hard drive, the video card, the sound blaster card, the printer card, the compact disk drive, the 5¼ floppy disk drive, and the 3½ floppy disk drive out. I also saved the besil, the coards inside, and the power converter too. I installed the hard dive, the sound blaster card, the 5¼ floppy disk drive and the 3½ floppy disk drive into a Gateway 450. The Gateway 450 was made with Windows 98 but was updated to Windows xp but the hard drive got overloaded and would only show a black screen with a flashing white under score (I think it is MS-DOS thinking). I turned the computer on and Windows 3.1 worked, however it was missing all the Nortan utilities,Windows tour, and America Online (AOL). I wanted to put a "new computer" in side the EasyData after I got the rust removed and all the metal and plastic well cleaned, but my dad made me get rid of it. I didn't know how rare it was until after it was gone. So technically I had a EasyData computer, but now its gone.
 
I also had one of these as a kid (alas, my parents threw it out when I left home). CompUSA used to sell them rebadged under their CompuDyne branding. Mine was a slow-as-molasses Compudyne/EasyData 16/386SX model, similar to this one I found discussed on a different forum.

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In case the above images ever break, the identifying labels read:

Compudyne
Model No. 16/386SX

Manufactured by
GCH Systems, Inc

FCC ID: EIY386-16S

I believe the motherboard for the above machine to be this one--it looks correct, but not having it in front of me anymore I cannot confirm. Mine had a maximum of 8MB DRAM, but I can't remember if it was 30- or 72-pin.

There were also true 386, 486SX and 486DX models housed in the same chassis (appropriately labeled for whatever architecture they contained).

Hopefully someone finds this helpful. These PCs weren't terribly uncommon but this particular chassis wasn't sold for long. They put the same computers in a different case with a green buttons, which is the more common version to find (I think there are some on ebay right now actually). I think these older cases are more attractive, personally, but of course I'm biased since it was the first PC I ever owned!
 
i have this computer, on the outside it says easydata 433hi , the motherboard has printed on it gch systems inc. 210-4400/4330/4250 r0m0
for some reason it wont post unless i short the 2 reset pins that doesnt have any wires hooked to them
was wondering if anyone has a copy of the bios rom or knows how to fix this problem
 
mrc333777 said:
i have this computer, on the outside it says easydata 433hi , the motherboard has printed on it gch systems inc. 210-4400/4330/4250 r0m0
for some reason it wont post unless i short the 2 reset pins that doesnt have any wires hooked to them
was wondering if anyone has a copy of the bios rom or knows how to fix this problem
Click to expand...
update, got it working... there was a bent pin on one of the socketed chips
 

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