Northwest Microcomputer Systems, Inc. (NMS), was a short-lived, privately owned American computer company active from 1977 to the early 1980s and based out of

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

. The company was co-founded by several computer engineers and investors, including Randy Bush.

History

Northwest Microcomputer was incorporated in December 1977 in

Coos Bay, Oregon Coos Bay () is a city located in Coos County, Oregon, United States, where the Coos River enters Coos Bay on the Pacific Ocean. It shares Coos Bay with the adjacent city of North Bend, Oregon, North Bend. Together, they are often referred to as ...

, by Randy Bush, John Burles, Michael McKeown, Jim Long, and Jay Farr. The firm was headquartered at 219 Fitzpatrick Building, on the site of the shopping mall that existed in Coos Bay at the time. Bush was the company's principal founder; prior to founding Northwest, Bush had twelve years of experience in the computer industry as an engineer. He was joined by McKeown, a

Doctor of Science A Doctor of Science (; most commonly abbreviated DSc or ScD) is a science doctorate awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. Africa Algeria and Morocco In Algeria, Morocco, Libya and Tunisia, all universities accredited by the s ...

; Long, a student of Marshfield High School who was hired as a programmer; John Burles, who was named accountant; and Jay Farr. Farr's other company, True Value Hardware, was Northwest's first client. Northwest's first product was unveiled at the second annual

West Coast Computer Faire The West Coast Computer Faire was an annual computer industry conference and exposition most often associated with San Francisco, its first and most frequent venue. The first fair was held in 1977 and was organized by Jim Warren (computer specia ...

in 1978 and given the name ''85/P''. In May 1978, Northwest moved out from their Coos Bay mall headquarters for a bigger facility in

Eugene, Oregon Eugene ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lane County, Oregon, United States. It is located at the southern end of the Willamette Valley, near the confluence of the McKenzie River (Oregon), McKenzie and Willamette River, Willamette rivers, ...

. The company that year expanded nationally; the new headquarters in Eugene were selected to lessen the burden on their manufacturing operations and spanned 2,500 square foot. It also became the site of the company's

research and development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in some countries as OKB, experiment and design, is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products. R&D constitutes the first stage ...

laboratory. In 1979 they released a series of RAM and

EPROM An EPROM (rarely EROM), or erasable programmable read-only memory, is a type of programmable read-only memory (PROM) integrated circuit, chip that retains its data when its power supply is switched off. Computer memory that can retrieve stored d ...

cards for

STD Bus The STD Bus is a computer bus that was used primarily for industrial control systems, but has also found applications in computing. The STD Bus has also been designated as STD-80, referring to its relation to the Zilog Z80 series microprocessors. ...

systems—a standard of computer bus architecture developed for

industrial control system An industrial control system (ICS) is an electronic control system and associated instrumentation used for industrial process control. Control systems can range in size from a few modular panel-mounted controllers to large interconnected and in ...

s. The company survived into at least 1981 before going defunct.

85/P

The 85/P was intended as a Pascal development machine (the ''P'' stood for Pascal), and was an all-in-one computer that ran an

Intel 8085 The Intel 8085 ("''eighty-eighty-five''") is an 8-bit microprocessor produced by Intel and introduced in March 1976. It is software-binary-code compatibility, binary compatible with the more-famous Intel 8080. It is the last 8-bit microprocesso ...

microprocessor clocked at 3 MHz and contained 54 KB of static

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM most commonly refers to: * A male sheep * Random-access memory, computer memory * Ram Trucks, US, since 2009 ** List of vehicles named Dodge Ram, trucks and vans ** Ram Pickup, produced by Ram Trucks Ram, ram, or RAM may also ref ...

direct memory access Direct memory access (DMA) is a feature of computer systems that allows certain hardware subsystems to access main system computer memory, memory independently of the central processing unit (CPU). Without DMA, when the CPU is using programmed i ...

ability on the

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a motor vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van, but fewer than the average rail transport. It is most commonly used ...

, and two 5.25-inch floppy disk drives built by

Shugart Associates Shugart Associates (later Shugart Corporation) was a computer peripheral manufacturer that dominated the floppy disk drive market in the late 1970s and is famous for introducing the -inch "Minifloppy" floppy disk drive. In 1979 it was one of the ...

. The computer's built-in 12-inch

CRT CRT or Crt most commonly refers to: * Cathode-ray tube, a display * Critical race theory, an academic framework of analysis CRT may also refer to: Law * Charitable remainder trust, United States * Civil Resolution Tribunal, Canada * Columbia ...

monitor could display 80 columns by 24 lines, while the built-in keyboard had 103 keys and

Hall effect The Hall effect is the production of a voltage, potential difference (the Hall voltage) across an electrical conductor that is wikt:transverse, transverse to an electric current in the conductor and to an applied magnetic field wikt:perpendicul ...

switches. The entire computer was built into an enclosure made from natural wood. The 85/P came shipped with numerous software packages, including the

CP/M CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/Intel 8085, 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Dig ...

operating system, a

BASIC Basic or BASIC may refer to: Science and technology * BASIC, a computer programming language * Basic (chemistry), having the properties of a base * Basic access authentication, in HTTP Entertainment * Basic (film), ''Basic'' (film), a 2003 film ...

interpreter and a Fortran compiler for CP/M, and a standalone Pascal compiler–interpreter. The latter could parse Pascal code at up to 725 lines per minute on the computer's 8085 processor. The computer eschewed the hobbyist market in favor of small businesses, bookkeepers, and attorneys. Its original asking price of $15,000 was described as less than half the cost of a minicomputer of its processor class. The price was later reduced to $7,495 in 1978.

References

{{reflist, colwidth=30em 1977 establishments in Oregon 1980s establishments in Oregon American companies established in 1977 Computer companies established in 1977 Defunct computer companies of the United States Defunct computer hardware companies Defunct computer systems companies Defunct manufacturing companies based in Oregon