GRiD Compass II
UvA Computer Museum catalogue nr 11.05
An important task of the magnesium housing was dissipating most of the 60 Watts of mains power; there was no cooling fan.
The GRiD Compass was equipped with an Intel 8086 at 8 MHz with 8087 math coprocessor; 512 kB of ROM; 512 kB of RAM; and 384 kB of non-volatile magnetic-bubble memory as background storage. External storage was available by connecting a floppy drive and/or hard disk (up to 40 MB) using the machine's GPIB (IEEE-488) connector. The bright, amber-colour electroluminescent display has 320*240 pixels. The earlier models of the Compass (designed in 1979) were using a proprietary operating system GRiD-OS. However after the introduction of the IBM-PC (1981) MS-DOS became fashionable, and was made available for the Compass (MS-DOS 2.11). The Compass became famous when it was taken aboard the Space Shuttle.
Our Compass II 1129 is equipped with MS-DOS in a ROM-module and a 2102 (single) DS/DD floppy drive. The set is in serviceable condition. In 1984, the prices of these items were 28.325, 1.770 and 3.885 Dutch guilders, respectively (excl. VAT).
Our GRiD computer and accessories were donated by Mr. S. Haijma of Alkmaar (Netherlands).
