The very first NCR personal computer

[Aleksandrs Guba]

I remember NCR 7200 quite well. We obtained three of the NCR 7200 Model 1 at the end of 1977. Nobody named it as a "PC". Terms used were "Terminal" or "Data Collection Unit" while the official name was "Data Entry Terminal". There was a cassettes block provided, no any other external data storage.

You may find how we used them here: http://www.thecorememory.com/html/my_ncr_computers.html and some information about these machines here: http://www.thecorememory.com/html/ncr_7200.html or here: http://www.thecorememory.com/html/computers.html.

Regards,

Aleksandrs

[wally]

Hi uglytuna,
ADDS introduced the Multi-Vision system in 1979.
It was the first multi-user desktop computer brought to the market.
The NCR 7200 was introduced Oct. 1975 and it had 1 or 2 cassette-drives.
The NCR 7500 was introduced Oct. 1978 and it had 1 or 2 cassette-drives.
Regards Wally.

http://www.thecorememory.com/assets/images/NCR_7200.jpg

http://www.thecorememory.com/assets/images/NCR_7500.jpg

[Herb Fish]

So one must assume that the 7200 with dual FLOPPY DRIVES, mag tape drive (reel-to-reel or cassette?), and printer that Zedy said was imported into the Head Office in Sydney Australia must have been custom made for the International Division?

Are there any pics of the Adds Multi-Vision PC?  Marketing Brochures?  User and Hardware Manual?  Did NCR advertise and sell it as a PC?  Could it run WordStar and VisiCalc?  If so, I think we might have finally gotten an answer to your original question Aleksandrs.  If so, it deserves a place in http://www.thecorememory.com/html/my_ncr_computers.html

[wally]

Hi,
PC or not PC, that is the question!
As far as I see it, the first NCR PC was the Decision Mate V.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_computer

Are there any pics of the Adds Multi-Vision PC?

I haven't seen any pics of the ADDS Multivision.
The Multivision was a development of ADDS and not NCR.
But ADDS was a wholy owned subsidiary of NCR.
ADDS was an OEM and supplied also other companies i.e Radio Shack.
It was shipped by ADDS until 1985 and it was marketet as Desktop Microcomputer.

Did NCR advertise and sell it as a PC?

I haven't seen any NCR advertisement of the Multivision.

Could it run WordStar and VisiCalc?

Wordstar and Visicalc were running on CP/M and MP/M.
MUON was functionally a super set of MP/M and CP/M that runs all 2.2 software.
Therefor I assume, that you could run Wordstar and Visicalc.
But I also know, the Multivision had  the ADDS extended Microsoft Basic Compiler and a proprietary word pocessing package.

The first PC build by ADDS was the ADDS PC-I in 1985 and it was marketet as PC and it was compatible to the IBM PC. The OS were Microsoft MS-DOS 2.11 and PC-DOS 2.0.

Regards Wally.

[bugman50]

I can remember running service calls on either a 7200 or 7500 unit a local bank had.  While this machine did indeed run some version of BASIC I would not have classified it as a "Personal Computer (PC)".  For whatever reason this particular machine loved to corrupt data on the 8" floppy drives of which I spent many afternoons trying to recover.  I also remember when NCR officially joined the PC arena with the Decision Mate computer.  We were all told when the first television commercial would run and that the accompanying voice would be Christopher Plummer.   I remember telling my wife afterwords that the commercial seemed rather lame in its presentation despite Mr. Plummers excellent narration.

[Aleksandrs Guba]

I've recently found this photo of, as stated, "NCR DecisionMate IV Model 1202 8088 with Dos 2.11". Is this what is stated or, perhaps, just another DMV?

[RetrospectUK]

This picture is of the NCR PC4, the full class and model being 3277 1202 8088 ( the last 4 digits provide information about the country and power lead)
The full description of the 3277 1202 was 'PC4i, colour, 256kb, dual flex disk, graphic controller, 32k, keyboard'.

[wally]

That's correct.
Here you can find more information.

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=539
http://old-computers.com/MUSEUM/photos.asp?t=1&c=539&st=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZCS_Ud4cFY

Regards Wally.