Torch Series 300

Historia

Torch Computers Ltd was a computer hardware company formed in 1982 in Great Shelford, near Cambridge, UK and became well known for its computer peripherals for the BBC Micro. Torch produced several second processor units for the BBC Micro with integrated floppy disk or hard disk drives, including the Z80 Disc Pack (ZDP), Graduate and Unicorn, with Z80, 8088 and 68000 processors respectively. The ZDP ran the CPN operating system, a clone of CP/M, the Graduate, MS-DOS 2.11 and the Unicorn UNIX. The 300 series were workstations. The 300 was originally launched in the Independence of America Day product launch which also premiered the 725 server. The 300 was originally a standalone network only computer, still based around a BBC Micro motherboard and Z80 processor, intended for use as a TORCHnet station or as a terminal for a TORCH Unix system - you could call it a forerunner to thin client computing :-) Over time it also became expandable via a small tower containing a hard and/or floppy disk drive and, ultimately, a 68000 second processor in the tower running Unix System III. There is also an expansion tower and drive cables included with the 300 series.