Olivetti BCS

[drbullitt]

I did component level repair on every PC Olivetti marketed in the US. M20, M24, M28 and the M386 are just a few. I also repaired all the A5, A6, and BCS series business machines.
I also repaired their P101 computer with a mag card reader. It was a serial machine that stored data serially in a mechanical delay line. They sold thousands of these. Surveyors particularly loved them.

 

[tpaxia]

Eventually Olivetti came out with an 'Alternate Processor Board' (APB) that had an Intel processor and came with with some version of Microsoft DOS 1.x.

It made a passable PC, but IIRC, it was still cheaper to but a real PC so the only customers that purchased the APB were those that had the M20. They could run their original M20 PCOS software as well as MSDOS software.

I loved the M20's white screen, much better than the Amber or Green screen of the early PC and it would be many years before white screens would be popular for PCs. I wouldn't mind having a M20 today. Every once in awhile I see an M20 in an old move, usually something of European origin.

I made a clone of the APB