Compis (''COMPuter I Skolan'', also a pun on the colloquial Swedish word ''kompis'' meaning comrade or buddy) was a computer system intended for the general educational system in
Sweden and sold to Swedish schools beginning in 1984 through the distributor
Esselte
Esselte is a manufacturer and marketer of office products and business supplies with subsidiaries in 25 countries and sales in over 120 countries. Esselte makes files, binders, folders, covers, staplers, letter trays and computer accessories under ...
Studium, who also was responsible for the software packages.
The computers were also used in Danish, Finnish and Norwegian schools under the name Scandis.
History
In 1980, the
ABC 80
The ABC 80 (Advanced BASIC Computer 80) was a personal computer engineered by the Swedish corporation Dataindustrier AB (DIAB) and manufactured by Luxor in Motala, Sweden in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was introduced on the market in August ...
used in the schools was regarded as becoming obsolete, and Styrelsen för teknisk utveckling (board for technical development) was tasked to find a replacement. In 1981, the procurement ''Tudis (Teknikupphandlingsprojekt Datorn i Skolan) '' was launched, and while the decision was controversial,
Svenska Datorer AB was awarded the contract with development beginning in 1982. After Svenska Datorer went bankrupt, production was transferred to TeliDatorer/Telenova under
Televerket (Sweden)
Televerket was a Swedish State authority acting as a state-owned corporation (public enterprise), responsible for telecommunications in Sweden from 1853 until 1993. Originally it was named Kongl. Elektriska Telegraf-Werket (literally: Royal Elec ...
The computer was distributed by
Esselte
Esselte is a manufacturer and marketer of office products and business supplies with subsidiaries in 25 countries and sales in over 120 countries. Esselte makes files, binders, folders, covers, staplers, letter trays and computer accessories under ...
and exclusively marketed towards, and sold to, Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish schools, mainly high stage (year 7-9) and
gymnasium-level.
The computer was based on the
Intel 80186 CPU and with
CP/M-86 as the operating system in
ROM
Rom, or ROM may refer to:
Biomechanics and medicine
* Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient
* Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac
* ...
(although it could also run
MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...
from disk). The computer had a wide selection of ports, including one for a
light pen
A light pen is a computer input device in the form of a light-sensitive wand used in conjunction with a computer's cathode-ray tube (CRT) display.
It allows the user to point to displayed objects or draw on the screen in a similar way to a tou ...
. The Compis project was criticized from the start, and as the move to
IBM PC compatibility came it was left behind and finally cancelled in 1988 although it was in use well into the 1990s.
Applications
Notable applications being run on the Compis in an educational environment was:
*
COMAL
COMAL (''Common Algorithmic Language'') is a computer programming language developed in Denmark by Børge R. Christensen and Benedict Løfstedt and originally released in 1975. COMAL was one of the few structured programming languages that was a ...
interpreter
*
Turbo Pascal 3.0 compiler, under the name Scandis-Pascal
*
WordStar
WordStar is a word processor application for microcomputers. It was published by MicroPro International and originally written for the CP/M-80 operating system, and later written also for MS-DOS and other 16-bit PC OSes. Rob Barnaby was the so ...
word processor
* ''Harmony'' software: word processing, spreadsheet and database. The name was a pun on
Lotus Symphony, the dominant
productivity software
Productivity software (also called personal productivity software or office productivity software) is application software used for producing information (such as documents, presentations, worksheets, databases, charts, graphs, digital paintings ...
at the time.
Some schools had simple
local area network
A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, school, laboratory, university campus or office building. By contrast, a wide area network (WAN) not only covers a larger ...
s of Compis/Scandis computers, in which 10–20 machines shared one
hard disk with a typical capacity of 10
MB.
See also
*
Education in Sweden
Education in Sweden is mandatory for children between ages 5/6 and 15/16 depending on when on the year they were born. The school year in Sweden runs from mid–late August to early/mid–June. The Christmas holiday from mid–December to early J ...
*
Unisys ICON
The ICON (also the CEMCorp ICON, Burroughs ICON, and Unisys ICON, and nicknamed the bionic beaver) was a networked personal computer built specifically for use in schools, to fill a standard created by the Ontario Ministry of Education. It was ...
External links
Compis Info A site dedicated to the Compis
Telenova Compis some documentation available here (page in Swedish).
References
Nationalencyclopedins nätupplaga, "Compis"Swedish Internet museum
Personal computers
Goods manufactured in Sweden