Tag Archives: ROM

TRAMsoft Gmbh, Swiss know-how ! (part 2)

On the last page of TRAMsoft advert we see “SRS Ing. R.W. Fankhauser” which was one of the best reseller for their modules.
One other was “GEWA COMPUTERS”.
(If some of you have informations about GEWA then please contact me)
Here is an extract from the GEWA catalog 2/84 :
(You can watch the prices on the red page.)

TRAMsoft_Gewa1

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TRAMsoht TOOLs were very well known in Germany as showed by the following article :

TRAMsoft_Computer0

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Remember that you can have more informations about TOOLS on TRAMsoft website. And you can buy some available extensions too.
Manuals are available for download.

Next time i will show you their storage solution…

TRAMsoft Gmbh, Swiss know-how ! (part 1)

In the 80s we saw a lot of things appear for the Sharp PC-1500. Listings, tapes, memory modules and Eprom … and rare extensions.
In 1983 a company was established in Switzerland by two young graduates of technical high school “Technikum Winterthur” Reto Ambühler and Thomas Müller. With their initials they named their company TRAMsoft.

Reto TRAMsoft_logo Thomas

There are some months I contacted them and Reto was kind enough to answer me. He also agreed to give me a few things which I will soon. I hope Thomas will say us a few words and tell us this wonderful time of the arrival of the PC-1500.

But back to their company and their products … that still exist !
And you can order their last items for PC-1500 and PC-1600 😉

They were interested in the PC-1500 and managed to overcome its limitations both in terms of the Basic language as its features.

Thus users are able to “open” their machines to the environment.
Their best-known products are the TOOLS.
There are 4 TOOLS organized by theme.

TOOL1: Editing utilities
TOOL2: Fast tape operations
TOOL3: Additional BASIC-functions
TOOL4: Statistics and synthetic programming

TOOLS on TRAMsoft website

But unlike the EC-50xA/B Sharp modules, the TOOLS do not come onto the memory port on your machine but in an external box. You can continue to use your extensions CE-151, CE-155, CE-159 and CE-161 and the program modules from Sharp.
All these TOOLS can all be integrated into the same housing. Great, right?

Here is their flyer from 1986:

TRAMsoft_Advert_001 Full advert 1 as .pdf file

Reto sent me other versions of their commercials :

TRAMsoft_ExpansionBox Full advert 2 as .pdf file

Thanks to trade with other people I acquired a catalog of “Ingenieurbüro Walter Speidel” dated 1984. Their tools are already on the market but we can see that at that time the TOOLS have yet no box. It is printed with EPROM circuit, address decoding and a connector.

TRAMsoft_IWS0
Extract from IWS catalog as .pdf file

The prices are quoted in Deutschmark.
At that time I was living in Germany and remember that conversion to Franc had a ratio close to 3 This gives us about 150 euro for each TOOLS.

Ah, perhaps you noticed the initials “Ingenieurbüro Walter Speidel”? This will be the topic of another article by the end of the year …;)

For now I leave you to discover the site TRAMsoft.
http://www.tramsoft.ch/index_en.html

Many versions of PC-1500 ? PC-1600 too !

Hey, we focused on the PC-1500 and PC-2 versions but do you know the PC-1600 versions ?
As this pocket is compatible with PC-1500 we can talk about it.

I have two PC-1600 but they are not exactly same.
Lets see the old version :
PC-1600 V1

and the new one :
PC-1600 V2

The memory place is different, as small board for the V1 and on CPU board for the V2.
If you look at the Technical Reference Manual you will have the first version :
PC-1600SCH V1

And if you look at the Service Manual there is the V2 :
PC-1600SCH V2

Are you looking for a screwdriver to open your precious PC-1600 ? 😉