Micral

Micral is a series of mini- computers from the French manufacturer Réalisation d' Études Electroniques ( R2E ) were prepared. Production began with the Micral N in the spring of 1973. Micral The N was the first commercial personal computer with a microprocessor, in this case an Intel 8008th

History

The R2E André Truong Trong Thi - founder and François Gernelle began in 1972 at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA ) to develop a mini-computer, which should be able to perform automated hygrometric measurements.

The development of the required software has been carried out by Benchitrite, Alain Lacombe and Jean -Claude Beckmann work on the electronic and mechanical implementation.

As a further consequence was designed by the concept of Micral N, which was much smaller than the existing minicomputer.

Technology and implementation

The software is a ROM- based MIC -01 monitor and ASMIC 01, was written on a sintering technique Multi -8 minicomputer with a cross assembler. The heart of the microcomputer based on an Intel 8008 microprocessor with a 500 kHz clock rate.

The backplane bus, called Pluribus had a 74- pin connector. With two of the Pluribus Micral N could support up to 24 boards. The MOS Memory Computer used instead of core memory and supported the parallel and serial input and output. Programming was done with the help of tape. The front panel console was optional and offered customers the opportunity to make their own console to suit particular applications.

Beginning of the year 1973, the Micral N be delivered, a full featured, low-cost replacement for minicomputers, which ushered in the era of the PC.

Development

In fact, originally a PDP -8 computer be used for process control. But the idea was abandoned by this planning, since the technical concept of the Micral N yielded the same performance for only a fifth of the cost.

Could take through the stack channel, a buffer of one megabyte per second, it was possible in the Micral series an 8 -inch floppy disk reader to obstruct. 1974 Micral computers were equipped with a keyboard and screen, hard disk drives were available from 1975. In 1979 the further developed Micral was equipped with a 8031 D 1/4-Zoll-Festplatte of 5 megabytes of Seagate.

The last Micral which was designed by François Gernelle, was published in 1983 9020er series.