SwedaGuy
Experienced Member
Good morning,
I'm Dylan, I go by the handle Sweda Guy. Some of the members may recongnize Sweda as a manufacturer of Point-of-Sale equipment. The ceased operations in the US in the early '90s. I'm one of very few people left who will still support and maintain their hardware and software. That leads me to the neat stuff:
My first experience with them, and still my primary interest/hobby, was their 80-S and 85-S supermarket systems. The back-end processor consisted of one or two Data General NOVA systems, running DG's proprietary RDOS operating system. I started fooling around with these systems around 1992, and they were vintage then. I've still got a few around that run, and a fair number of "parts machines". The most difficult part of maintaining those is the disk drive, a 5-MByte removable platter known as a phoenix disk.
Later Sweda supermarket systems used the MP100 or MP200 CPU, also by DG, and 5, 10 or 15 MByte winchester drives (yes actual winchesters, not a clone). Oddly enough, that later hardware is much more difficult to keep alive than the late 70's vintage stuff.
They had various manufacturers build their POS terminals, most notably Omron Systems out of Shaumberg, IL. As back office systems to these terminals, Sweda marketed a modular box, a precursor to the "PC" as we know it, by Unisys, runnin their CTOS operating system. Geez those things were reliable, but I hated CTOS... Oddly enough, those faded out of use before the older DG stuff did. Not that I'm doing much support anymore, but the CTOS based systems went away completely by 1994 or so, where as I was still supporting NOVA based stores until 1999. Y2K pushed them out...
My first PC, acquired in 1991, (almost vintage by then) was a Cordata 8086 with 2 5-1/4" 360Kbyte floppy drives and one 20 MByte MFM hard drive.
Of course I've got my bevy of 386s, 486s and low-end pentiums. We own several businesses and I won't allow them to use Windows applications, so I've always got to make sure I got spare parts.
We currently use some DOS, a lot of OS/2 and and AS/400 to wrap it all up. Oh, ya, there is an RDOS system, in DG's Desktop Generation line to keep some vintage BASIC apps on line.
We have occasion to use Unix, Linux and PC-MOS as well.
I'm probably forgetting something...
I also support legacy Micros hardware, that is Micros Systems, Inc., in Beltsville, Md. They make high-end restaurant systems. I don' deal with any of their product that is less than 10 years old, but anything from a 2700 (for sure) and 4700 (sketchy but possible) all the way back to the 400 series terminals is fair game for me. In fact, I've recently set upon writing an emulator program for the Intel 8085 processor that will allow a small chain customer to use the firmware in their hotel posters on a PC platform with modern peripherals. Ya, it's 15,000 lines of uncommented assembly language, I'll let you know in a couple of decades when I'm done...
Oh, I did want to mention that I found this forum on a google search for PC-MOS. Looks like you've got some interesting stuff here...
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!
I'm Dylan, I go by the handle Sweda Guy. Some of the members may recongnize Sweda as a manufacturer of Point-of-Sale equipment. The ceased operations in the US in the early '90s. I'm one of very few people left who will still support and maintain their hardware and software. That leads me to the neat stuff:
My first experience with them, and still my primary interest/hobby, was their 80-S and 85-S supermarket systems. The back-end processor consisted of one or two Data General NOVA systems, running DG's proprietary RDOS operating system. I started fooling around with these systems around 1992, and they were vintage then. I've still got a few around that run, and a fair number of "parts machines". The most difficult part of maintaining those is the disk drive, a 5-MByte removable platter known as a phoenix disk.
Later Sweda supermarket systems used the MP100 or MP200 CPU, also by DG, and 5, 10 or 15 MByte winchester drives (yes actual winchesters, not a clone). Oddly enough, that later hardware is much more difficult to keep alive than the late 70's vintage stuff.
They had various manufacturers build their POS terminals, most notably Omron Systems out of Shaumberg, IL. As back office systems to these terminals, Sweda marketed a modular box, a precursor to the "PC" as we know it, by Unisys, runnin their CTOS operating system. Geez those things were reliable, but I hated CTOS... Oddly enough, those faded out of use before the older DG stuff did. Not that I'm doing much support anymore, but the CTOS based systems went away completely by 1994 or so, where as I was still supporting NOVA based stores until 1999. Y2K pushed them out...
My first PC, acquired in 1991, (almost vintage by then) was a Cordata 8086 with 2 5-1/4" 360Kbyte floppy drives and one 20 MByte MFM hard drive.
Of course I've got my bevy of 386s, 486s and low-end pentiums. We own several businesses and I won't allow them to use Windows applications, so I've always got to make sure I got spare parts.
We currently use some DOS, a lot of OS/2 and and AS/400 to wrap it all up. Oh, ya, there is an RDOS system, in DG's Desktop Generation line to keep some vintage BASIC apps on line.
We have occasion to use Unix, Linux and PC-MOS as well.
I'm probably forgetting something...
I also support legacy Micros hardware, that is Micros Systems, Inc., in Beltsville, Md. They make high-end restaurant systems. I don' deal with any of their product that is less than 10 years old, but anything from a 2700 (for sure) and 4700 (sketchy but possible) all the way back to the 400 series terminals is fair game for me. In fact, I've recently set upon writing an emulator program for the Intel 8085 processor that will allow a small chain customer to use the firmware in their hotel posters on a PC platform with modern peripherals. Ya, it's 15,000 lines of uncommented assembly language, I'll let you know in a couple of decades when I'm done...
Oh, I did want to mention that I found this forum on a google search for PC-MOS. Looks like you've got some interesting stuff here...
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!
