The Luxor ABC 800 series are office versions of the ABC 80 home computer. They featured an enhanced BASIC interpreter, and more memory: 32 kilobytes RAM and 32 KB ROM was now standard. The Z80 is clocked at . It featured 40×24 text mode with eight colors (ABC 800 C) or 80×24 text mode monochrome (ABC 800 M). They could also be extended with "high" resolution graphics (240×240 pixels at 2 ) using RAM as video memory.
Models
ABC 800 The ABC 800 came in a monochrome version with amber text on a brown background with an 80 character wide screen, and a color version with 40 characters. The main board is integrated with the keyboard, much like the Amiga 500. However, the ABC computer has a very sturdy metal chassis.
Storage is usually two 5.25" floppy disk units in 160, 320 or 640 KB capacity. External hard disk systems became available later (primarily the ABC 850 with 10 MB). Model numbers 'ABC 800 M' for monochrome and 'ABC 800 C' for color.
Luxor advertising asked, "Who needs IBM-compatibility?" However, most computer buyers eventually considered it a requirement. A certain degree of compatibility between the ABC and IBM PC platforms could be achieved with the help of a program called 'W ABC'.
The ABC 800 computer was also sold by Facit under the name Facit DTC.
ABC 802
The ABC 802 is a compact version with 64 KB RAM where 32 KB is used as a RAM disk. The main board is integrated with a 9" CRT screen and has improved graphics, though no high-resolution graphics. Luxor ABC 802 was a model with a small monochrome screen in yellow phosphor, intended for offices. Here with two 5.25 inch disk drives along the side of the display. The grey-brown color was common for all ABC 800 (and ABC 1600) products and was different from the beige ABC 80.
ABC 806
The ABC 806 is a version with main board, screen (DA-15) and keyboard (DIN-7) as separate units. It has RAM where is used as a RAM disk, as well as more advanced 512×240×16 graphics.
Performance In order to see how the ABC 800 would compare to other contemporary personal computers, in 1982, the Swedish magazine MikroDatorn used the Rugg/Feldman benchmarks of eight short BASIC programs (BM1 - BM8) defined by the American Kilobaud Magazine and routinely used by the British magazine Personal Computer World for testing new machines.
The result was that ABC 800's semi-compiling BASIC interpreter turned out to be faster than most other BASICs used in popular machines, especially when integer variables are used, the results for some well known computers were as follows (times in seconds):
Computer CPU [MHz] BM1 BM2 BM3 BM4 BM5 BM6 BM7 BM8 ABC 800 single precision Z80 3 0.9 1.8 6.0 5.9 6.3 11.6 19.6 29 ABC 800 double precision 1.2 2.2 10.0 10.6 11.0 17.8 26.4 144 IBM PC 8088 4.77 1.5 5.2 12.112.613.623.537.435 Apple III S6502 2 1.7 7.2 13.514.516.027.042.575 VIC-20 6502 1.108 1.4 8.3 15.517.118.327.242.799 ZX81 in "fast mode" Z80 3.25 4.5 6.9 16.4 15.8 18.6 49.7 68.5 229 As seen from the table, the ABC 800 was approximately twice as fast as the IBM PC on floating point calculations, except for BM8 where it was only 20% faster. Using integer variables (only measured for the older ABC 80 in this test) the numbers would be approximately 2-3 times as low (i.e. speeds 2-3 times as high) as for the single precision results in the table.
ABC 800 character set ABC 800 character set, as described on the user manual ASCII code Character Mode Graphic ModeASCII codeCharacter ModeGraphic ModeASCII codeCharacter ModeGraphic ModeASCII codeCharacter ModeGraphic Mode 32 56880PP104h 33 ! 57981QQ105i 34 " 58:82RR106j 35 # 59;83SS107k 36 60<84TT108l 37 % 61=85UU109m 38 & 62>86VV110n 39 ´ 63?87WW111o 40 ( 64ÉÉ88XX112p 41 ) 65AA89YY113q 42 * 66BB90ZZ114r 43 + 67CC91ÄÄ115s 44 , 68DD92ÖÖ116t 45 - 69EE93ÅÅ117u 46 . 70FF94ÜÜ118v47/71GG95 - -119w48072HH96é120x49173II97a121y50274JJ98b122z51375LL99c123ä52476NN100d124ö53577MM101e125å54678NN102f126ü55779OO103g127
See also ABC 80 ABC 1600 - Unix-based
References