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MPC 1600

Columbia Data Products' MPC 1600, the first commercially released IBM PC clone, with an Amdek monitor and a Key Tronic keyboard
Also known as	Multi Personal Computer
Developer	Columbia Data Products
Manufacturer	Columbia Data Products
Type	Personal computer (desktop)
Release date	June 1982; 42 years ago (1982-06)
Lifespan	1982–1985
Introductory price	US$2,995
Discontinued	May 1985; 39 years ago (1985-05)
Operating system	MS-DOS, CP/M-86, MP/M-86, OASIS, Xenix
CPU	Intel 8088 at 4.77 MHz
Memory	128 KB (1 MB max.)
Storage	Two 5.25-inch FDDs
Graphics	Color Graphics Adapter
Sound	PC speaker 1-channel square-wave/1-bit digital (PWM-capable)
Connectivity	RS-232, parallel, monitor, keyboard
Backward compatibility	IBM Personal Computer

The Multi-Personal Computer (MPC), better known as the MPC 1600, is a line of desktop personal computers released by Columbia Data Products (CDP) starting in 1982. The original MPC, released in June 1982, was the first commercially released computer system that was fully compatible with the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC).

Background and development

Columbia Data Products (CDP) was a small computer systems manufacturer founded by William Diaz in the mid-1970s in Columbia, Maryland. The company had been marketing microcomputers for over five years before releasing the MPC in 1982. Examples of the company's early systems included the Commander line of Z80-based microcomputers.

In August 1981, the computing giant IBM released the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC), their first mass-market microcomputer, to intense commercial interest and industry speculation. It was notable for being an open standard unlike anything IBM had released previously: it used off-the-shelf hardware such as the Intel 8088 microprocessor; ran an operating system (IBM PC DOS) developed by a third-party company, Microsoft; and had a computer bus (later dubbed Industry Standard Architecture, or ISA) whose specification IBM made open to third-party hardware vendors who wanted to release expansion cards and other hardware. Recognizing that this culture of openness might allow them to engineer a fully compatible clone of the IBM PC, Columbia Data Products set out to manufacture such a system "almost immediately" after the PC's August 1981 introduction. CDP were deep into developing a competing microcomputer based on a different architecture but decided to cancel it in favor of developing a clone of the IBM PC.

CDP's IBM PC clone was engineered by a team headed by David Howse, CDP's manager of hardware design; Charlie Montague, the company's director of technical services; Bob Mikkelsen, the company's office manager of programming; Don Rein, the company's manager of software engineering; and Dick Mathews, CDP's VP of planning and development. Howse was the principal designer behind the hardware for the computer. The company borrowed the design of the IBM PC's motherboard largely wholesale, using the same ISA bus, Intel 8088 microprocessor, Intel 8288 bus controller, NEC μPD765 floppy controller, and other off-the-shelf integrated circuits used by the IBM PC. CDP doubled the stock amount of RAM of the IBM PC to 128 KB while adding more expansion slots and offering dual 5.25-inch floppy disk drives for the base model. CDP sourced a cost-reduced clone of the original 83-key IBM PC keyboard from Key Tronic of Spokane, Washington; while featuring an identical layout, it lacked the tactility provided by the IBM PC keyboard's buckling spring design.

While cloning the IBM PC's hardware was easy for CDP, mimicking the PC's BIOS ROM required planning out a clean-room design to avoid infringing IBM's copyright on their BIOS and thus was more complex. CDP had to pay careful attention to how their BIOS initialized its memory map and interrupt table in order to ensure functional equivalency with the IBM PC, the source of much trial and error and expense because of the numerous third-party expansion cards and software CDP had to test against. On the other hand, providing a compatible operating system was significantly easier for CDP because IBM's contract with Microsoft allowed the latter to freely license their MS-DOS operating system, which was the basis of IBM PC DOS, to third-party companies. CDP were able to secure a license to the source code for MS-DOS, incorporating the same API while modifying it to recognize their computer's RAM disk, on which their clone of GW-BASIC (renamed BASICA) resides, while adding software flow control to the computer's number-0 RS-232 serial port and redirecting textual parallel printer data to the aformentioned serial port.

While the IBM PC could be used as a multi-user machine, the vast majority of PCs were purchased by customers intending to use the PC as single-user machines, with IBM devoting the majority of their marketing efforts toward this demographic. CDP meanwhile sought to stress the multi-user capability of their clone and thus gave it the name Multi-Personal Computer (MPC). To this end, the company offered the MPC with several multi-user operating systems, including Digital Research's MP/M-86, Microsoft's Xenix, and Phase One Systems's OASIS, in addition the single-user MS-DOS as well as Digital Research's CP/M-86 that it shipped with.

Specifications and variants

The Multi-Personal Computer intially came in three variants: the MPC 1600-1, featuring two 5.25-inch, double-density floppy disk drives (FDDs) manufactured by Tandon; the MPC 1600-2, with one 5.25-inch FDD and one 5-MB hard disk drive (HDD); and the MPC 1600-3, with one 5.25-inch FDD and one 10-MB HDD. In 1983, the company introduced the MPC 1600-4, with one 5.25-inch FDD and one 23-MB HDD.

All models in the line came with 128 KB of RAM stock, expandable to 1 MB. In addition, all models in the line feature eight ISA expansion slots, each one supporting up to full-sized 8-bit ISA cards. As the original IBM PC had only five expansion slots on its motherboard, this was a major selling point for CDP; even after IBM introduced the successor IBM Personal Computer/XT in 1983 with eight expansion slots, two of the slots on the XT were only half-height. Although the MPC 1600-1 did not ship with a hard drive, CDP included the same combination floppy–hard disk controller card with the machine as the higher-end models, for users who wanted to add an aftermarket HDD. By combining the hard disk controller and the floppy controller on the same card, this freed up an additional ISA slot; on both the original IBM PC and the PC XT, the floppy controller is housed on a separate card. Just as well, the MPC integrates two RS-232 serial ports and the parallel port (and associated circuitry) on the motherboard, freeing up yet more slots compared to IBM's implementation. However, unlike the IBM PC, the MPC 1600 series does not offer sockets on the motherboards for expanding the RAM of the systems. Instead, the user must purchase an aftermarket RAM expansion card, which does take up one of the eight ISA slots.

Release and reception

Legacy

Notes

1. By 1984, CDP had reduced the line to just the MPC 1600-1 and the MPC 1600-4, with the latter revised to featuring only a 10-MB HDD instead of the 23-MB HDD it originally had.

References

1. Buchanan, William (2000). Computer Busses. Elsevier Science. p. 26. ISBN 9780340740767 – via Google Books.
2. ^ Rohlfs, Jeffrey H. (2003). Bandwagon Effects in High-technology Industries. MIT Press. p. 120–122. ISBN 9780262681384 – via Google Books.
3. ^ Wise, Deborah (August 9, 1982). "IBM look-alikes: Columbia's MCP and Dynalogic's Hyperion". InfoWorld. 4 (31). IDG Publications: 21 – via Google Books. ("MPC" is misspelled throughout as "MCP" in this article.)
4. Bowker's Complete Sourcebook of Personal Computing (1985 ed.). R. R. Booker Company. 1984. p. 10. ISBN 0835219313 – via the Internet Archive.
5. ^ Brown, Warren (November 21, 1982). "Columbia Data 'Piggybacks' IBM Computer to the Market". The Washington Post. 105: WB1. Archived from the original on December 8, 2024.
6. ^ Montague, Charlie; David Howse; Bob Mikkelsen; Don Rein; Dick Mathews (November 1983). "Technical Aspects of IBM PC Compatibility" (PDF). Byte. 8 (11). McGraw-Hill: 247–252 – via World Radio History.
7. ^ Machrone, Bill (June 1983). "Aboard the Columbia". PC Magazine. 2 (1). Ziff-Davis: 450–452 – via Google Books.
8. Editors (August 11, 2006). "The 25 Greatest PCs of All Time". PC World. IDG Publications. p. 7. Archived from the original on July 25, 2013.
9. ^ Newrock, Melody (1984). Here Come the Clones!: The Complete Guide to IBM PC Compatible Computers. McGraw-Hill. pp. 27–44. ISBN 9780070464582 – via the Internet Archive.
10. Szalay, Michael (2023). Second Lives: Black-Market Melodramas and the Reinvention of Television. University of Chicago Press. pp. 171–172. ISBN 9780226824802 – via Google Books.
11. Smith, Tony (August 12, 2011). "The IBM PC is 30". The Register. Archived from the original on April 21, 2024.
12. Bell, Les (September 1982). "New IBM Clone". Your Computer. 2 (3). Eastern Suburbs Newspapers: 6 – via the Internet Archive.
13. ^ Sandler, Corey (June 1983). "Columbia: Call It a 'Work-Alike'". PC Magazine. 2 (1). Ziff-Davis: 447–451 – via Google Books.
14. Webster, Tony (1983). Microcomputer's Buyers Guide. McGraw-Hill. p. 112. ISBN 9780070689596 – via Google Books.