Stratos (computer)

The Stratos was designed by Stewart Earnest and Ray McKaig of Symbiotic Systems, Inc., a company originally based out of Woodland, California, and later relocated to Santa Cruz, California.[1] Symbiotic Systems previously released the Syncron 8, a S-100 bus–based computer running the Intel 8080 microprocessor and featuring a backplane motherboard with twenty card slots. The 8080 is housed on a card that features PROMs, one of which has a bootstrap loader allowing the user to load software via floppy disk or data cassette, while the other has a 512-KB PROM flashable by the user.[2] The Syncron 8 can take up to 12 KB of RAM and has a keyboard interface allowing users to directly interact with the computer without the need for a terminal.[3] A television could be used as a display for the computer with the use of a composite cable.[4] The Syncron 8 was regarded as a hobbyist or industrial computer.[5]

The Stratos by contrast is a general-purpose, turnkey,[6] single-board computer, built from a six-layer printed circuit board and powered by a Zilog Z80 microprocessor clocked at 4 MHz. The computer comes with 64 KB of conventional RAM and 16 KB of additional RAM, the latter programmable as either disk-cache memory, as conventional memory (as the zero page in CP/M), as video memory, or as a RAM disk. The computer also comes with a 2-KB EPROM.[7] The computer's BIOS chip was custom written by Symbiotic Systems.[8]

The included software package comprises CP/M version 2.2, the Spellbinder word processor, either CBASIC or a Pascal compiler,[9] Reminder, Autophone, a personal financing application, and a medley of bespoke programs.[7] Reminder is a task-scheduling utility that took advantage of the computer's built-in real-time clock to executive certain programs and directives based on a 99-year calendar.[10] Autophone is an auto-dialer/answering utility that can issue DTMF signals or pulses through a telephone line to automatically (and repeatedly, if desired) place phone calls; it can also automatically answer incoming calls if it detects one on the line. One of the Stratos' bespoke programs is Font, a bitmapped font editor that can redefine any of the 256 memory-mapped 8-by-9-matrix characters of the on-screen font to any shape, either with a keyboard or with an optional light pen.[7]

The Stratos was optioned with either one or more 5.25-inch or 8-inch floppy disk drives.[11] It can address up to 5 MB of floppy storage.[9] The computer's power supply unit is switched-mode and was reported to run at 80 percent efficiency in 1981, negating the need for internal fans.[10] The system unit and included keyboard are housed in a teak enclosure.[6] The computer's lack of electromagnetic shielding reportedly made the computer prone to radio-frequency interference.[12]

The Stratos was released in September 1981 for at least $6350; the price was higher depending on the configuration.[11] The computer was previously previewed at the 6th West Coast Computer Faire in June 1981, where Marlin Ouverson, editor of Dr. Dobb's Journal, wrote that its real-time clock and 16 KB of programmable RAM "set it apart from other CP/M compatible systems".[8] The computer saw modest industrial use, with a real estate company in Santa Cruz using it to generate income analysis reports of their clientele,[13] while a book publisher and printing broker out of San Francisco used the Stratos to compose and design brochures.[14] The computer continued to be sold until 1983, when Symbiotic went out of business.[15]