Tag Archives: Floppy

TRAMsoft Gmbh, Swiss know-how ! (part 3)

One of the biggest problems with the pocket computers was the place where to save programs. With the PC-1500 one solution was to get a big memory module like CE-161 or CE-163. The common system was the use of a tape recorder. But this was noisy and slow !

Reto and Thomas decided to design an interface between the PC-1500 and one product currently sold. Their choice was the Commodore floppy 1541. Maybe because it was packed with the power adapter ? And as they had enough space they added a 8bits parallel interface.

You can watch this in their website : TRAMsoft Floppy and // interface
And download the user manual in english : User manual

I have found an article extract from the german magazine Chip :
TRAMsoft_Chip0
Download the full article

Here is a translation :
Continue reading

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