IBM 5322 System/23

(1981) This large, extremely heavy (95 lbs/43 kg) computer system, was designed to be taken out of the carton, set up, checked out and operated by first-time users. The 5322 Datamaster is an all-in-one computer with text-mode CRT display, keyboard, processor, memory, and up to two 8-inch floppy disk drives. The 5324 Datamaster shares the same electronics and peripherals, but is in a tower chassis. The processor was an 8-bit Intel 8085 with bank switching logic so that it could have an address space larger than 64k. One memory bank can address up to 272k or ROMs, and the other can address up to 128k of RAM. A BASIC interpreter was built-in. A second keyboard and screen could be attached in an extended configuration. The Datamaster combined word processing and data processing in a single machine to give small businesses the big benefits of information processing. The same engineers who design the Datamaster went on to help designed the IBM PC, the computer system which started the PC revolution which exists today. When introduced, a single-screen Datamaster sold for around $9000. This example was donated by Ron Fraser.

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