Grid Compass II

The GRiD Compass computer was revolutionary for packaging a lot of computing power in a compact, portable (4.5 kg) box of unprecedented clamshell design (by Bill Moggridge, 1943-2012). An important task of the magnesium housing was dissipating most of the 60 Watts of mains power; there was no cooling fan.

The GRiD Compass was equipped with an Intel 8086 at 8 MHz with 8087 math coprocessor; 512 kB of ROM; 512 kB of RAM; and 384 kB of non-volatile magnetic-bubble memory as background storage. External storage was available by connecting a floppy drive and/or hard disk (up to 40 MB) using the machine's GPIB (IEEE-488) connector. The bright, amber-colour electroluminescent display has 320*240 pixels. The earlier models of the Compass (designed in 1979) were using a proprietary operating system GRiD-OS. However after the introduction of the IBM-PC (1981) MS-DOS became fashionable, and was made available for the Compass (MS-DOS 2.11). The Compass became famous when it was taken aboard the Space Shuttle.

Our Compass II 1129 is equipped with MS-DOS in a ROM-module and a 2102 (single) DS/DD floppy drive. The set is in serviceable condition. In 1984, the prices of these items were 28.325, 1.770 and 3.885 Dutch guilders, respectively (excl. VAT).