a computer that was late to market
A fair portion of the Yandex Museum collection consists of popular exhibits that are familiar to many visitors: “Dendy”, PlayStation, Macintosh, ZX Spectrum. But there are also some rather rare devices – as a rule, not very successful on the market. One of them is the Enterprise 128. This is a British computer with a very interesting, if not very cheerful fate.
In 1983, the British personal computer market was in full swing. The legendary ZX Spectrum had recently gone on sale, the public's favourite Commodore 64 had arrived from the US on tour earlier in the year, and in 1984 the Amstrad CPC 464 was due to appear – as it turned out, it was also a very successful computer.
In this context, the announcement of yet another British computer, and one as powerful as the Enterprise, was a notable event. Judge for yourself: the computer had to run on the popular Z80A processor with a frequency of 4 MHz (versus 3.5 MHz for the ZX Spectrum), have 64 or 128 KB of RAM (versus 48 for the same Spectrum), and most importantly, flaunt outstanding graphics and excellent sound.
There was just one problem: this dream computer didn’t hit the shelves in 1983. It didn’t really come out in 1984 either, although that was when buyers who had been waiting for it for a long time and were warmed up by the advertising campaign were finally able to place their first pre-orders. The Enterprise ended up in the hands of these desperate people only in early 1985, which largely predetermined its unenviable fate.
Intelligent Software: where development began
Fast forward to 1982, long before all the sad events described at the beginning. That summer, Intelligent Software, headed by the then-famous Scottish chess player David Levy, received a tempting offer from an “international trading company.” The latter was so impressed by the successful launch of the ZX Spectrum that it decided to enter the home computer market with its own machine.
Computer historians disagree somewhat on who ultimately funded the whole thing, but the most likely source of money was the Anglo-Indian company Domicrest, one of whose executives, Deepak Mirpuri, played squash with an Intelligent Software accountant and through him met David Levy.
Intelligent Software was not chosen by chance: by that time it had released a powerful chess program Cyrus and even developed chess computers for other companies. In short, it was considered quite a specialist in both software and hardware. The initial idea of quickly making a direct competitor to the ZX Spectrum was quickly rejected: the newly-minted partners rightly decided that such a machine could become obsolete before its release and would not attract the attention of the public at all.
To create a computer “that people will still need four or five years after it comes out,” Samurai Worldwide was founded, with a board of directors including David Levy, Robert Mage, and Kevin O’Connell of Intelligent Software, Deepak and Lal Mirpuri of Domicrest, and Lachu Mahtani of insurance company Locumals, who provided the necessary additional funding for the ambitious project.
The development of the hardware was, of course, given to Intelligent Software itself, which had to expand its staff to about 20 people for this purpose. The super-popular Z80 from Zilog was chosen as the central processor: at that time it was the de facto standard for machines that wanted to work with the CP/M operating system. And so that the new computer could not only compete on equal terms, but surpass its contemporaries in the same price category in all respects, it was decided to equip it with two specialized chips – a graphic chip and a sound chip.
Own chips
Nick Toop, an engineer who had already worked with Intelligent Software and had previously worked for companies such as Sinclair (ZX Spectrum) and Acorn (Acorn Atom, BBC Micro), was assigned to work on the video chip. Nick did not limit himself in any way and eventually produced a unique chip, the list of advantages of which included the following:
maximum resolution is 672 × 512 interlaced and 672 × 256 without it;
the ability to place screen memory anywhere in the video memory (maximum 64 KB);
a large number of graphic and text modes;
combining several graphic modes on one screen (up to assigning its own mode to each line of pixels);
from 2 to 256 colors on the screen;
hardware vertical scrolling;
user-defined screen sizes.
This is, of course, only a small part of the capabilities of the Nick chip (yes, it was named after its creator), and as an example of its versatility, we can take a screenshot from the game International Karate + Reloaded. Note that the lower part of the screen, where the main action takes place, has a fairly low resolution (160 x 200 pixels) with 16 colors, while the more static upper half of the screen boasts a higher resolution and more colors.
The sound was also not bad. The Dave chip, named after its developer Dave Woodfield, could produce three-channel sound (plus a noise channel) with effects such as distortion, ring modulation, low-pass and high-pass filters. All this, of course, in full stereo with arbitrary placement of all channels. To be fair, there was no revolution here, and it is not a fact that it was planned. The popular AY-3–8910 chip from General Instrument had similar, although not identical, characteristics.
However, Dave was responsible not only for sound, but also for memory management (and also took on a couple of other important functions). The minimum RAM size was immediately set at 64 KB. This, firstly, guaranteed normal compatibility with CP/M, and secondly, provided the computer with an additional advantage over some competitors (at least over the same Spectrum).
Two models were released for sale: Enterprise 64 and 128, with the latter proving to be much more popular. Theoretically, Dave could work with up to 3.9 MB of RAM, but external memory expansions were never released for reasons described below. Enthusiasts often increased the Enterprise's RAM, but were usually limited to between 512 KB and 2 MB.
Software problems
Unfortunately, developing your own chip from scratch is an extraordinary, labor-intensive, and time-consuming task. And Enterprise had two such chips. “Nika” and “Dave” (especially “Nika”!) were being finished and debugged right up until the computer’s launch, which happened much later than promised. Because of this, the software developers for Enterprise received working machines too late and simply did not have time to write the required number of games and useful programs by the start of sales.
To sweeten the pill, developers were provided with software for simple conversion of programs from Spectrum BASIC – for example, loading original files and semi-automatic conversion of program text. They were also given a document for easy porting of programs in machine code from the same ZX Spectrum.
At first, computer users had to make do with games and applications written in the local dialect of BASIC, and faster software created in machine codes began to appear later. By this time, there were already thousands of games on the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and other popular computers, which did not incline potential buyers in favor of the Enterprise.
In fact, even with BASIC there was a problem. At first, a third-party company, including Microsoft, was considered for writing a dialect of the most popular programming language at the time. However, it was much easier for the latter to sell ready-made solutions rather than seriously adapt them to a new computer. This, in turn, did not suit the creators of Enterprise, and as a result, the responsibility for re-inventing BASIC fell on Intelligent Software, which was already overloaded with tasks.
However, IS-BASIC would turn out to be a really good dialect based on the ANSI standard. It certainly had its drawbacks – for example, not the highest speed due to more accurate floating-point calculations. But there were many more advantages. IS-BASIC allowed the use of structured programming and had the unique ability to keep several different programs in memory at once, each with its own set of variables and line numbers. At the same time, one program could call another using the CHAIN command – perhaps this is somewhat similar to regular functions, but a little more convenient.
The editor in IS-BASIC checked the correctness of a line immediately after it was entered, so that the user had the opportunity to correct errors without waiting for the program to start. But, unlike the ZX Spectrum, which had similar functionality, editing BASIC programs on Enterprise was much more convenient: it was enough to simply move the cursor to the desired line.
Even the absence of IS-BASIC in the computer's ROM was not a serious problem, because the Enterprise came with a cartridge with this programming language. But this allowed the computer's permanent memory to be filled with other useful functions. This approach will become a problem many years later, when it turns out that many Enterprise owners have long lost their cartridges with BASIC and it is now impossible to program on the computer without loading programming languages from an external medium.
Case: Monochrome vs. Colors
The Enterprise's appearance—with its dark gray case and bright green, blue, and red function keys—makes for a nostalgic smile now, but the computer was originally a more austere machine. Your Computer magazine shows how.
The case was originally designed by Geoff Hollington and Nick Oakley, who wanted to “entice people into buying a computer without telling them much about its specifications.” When management instructed them to make the case more flamboyant, Oakley and Hollington were not thrilled. The latter still considers it a mistake, comparing the colored keys to Lego bricks.
The decision to replace the usual cursor keys with a mini-joystick might also seem controversial. Yes, it made life a little easier for players (although joysticks had already started to go out of fashion and be replaced by gamepads by that time), but editing texts with such a thing is not a pleasure.
And perhaps the most unpleasant and at the same time comical of all 33 misfortunes of the Enterprise was its name.
Many names
During development, the project was given the working nickname Damp-proof Course, which translates into Russian as “waterproof layer”. This name has nothing to do with computers, but that was the idea: if an outsider accidentally glanced at some working materials, then perhaps the person would think that it was about construction. The abbreviation DPC stuck to the machine quite well and appeared in various documents, but still, it was necessary to come up with a normal name.
At first, they decided to call the computer nothing less than Samurai – both beautiful and sharp, and even with a specific reference to the Japanese computer industry, which at that time was clearly ahead of the British. Alas, it turned out that such a computer already exists – released by Nissei Sangyo (a division of Hitachi) and since the spring of 1983 sold in England by Micro Networks for “only” £2,795 without taxes.
Enterprise's marketing team panicked and even tried to stake a claim on the name in the press, publishing very strange advertising spreads with the phrase “The Samurai home computer is coming…” and the note “Samurai is a trademark of Samurai Worldwide Ltd.” There were no technical specifications, not even a few words about the computer – none of this was in the advertising.
Robert Mage later claimed that his company had indeed registered the trademark, and that it had done so before Micro Networks began selling the Hitachi computer. However, there is no such record in the UK Intellectual Property Office database, leaving two possibilities: either Intelligent Software never applied for the trademark, or the application was rejected.
In any case, a new name had to be found for the computer. The Oscar variant did not last long and gave way to Elan – the company believed that it sounded stylish and gave the computer some charm. Advertisements for a new mysterious Elan PC (from Elan Computers) began to appear in the specialized press with the promise to present it as early as September 1983.
Guess what happened next? That's right, and the name had to be changed. The thing is, there was a company in the UK called Elan Digital Systems that wasn't too happy about its glorious name being used for a completely unrelated product.
Whether in a fit of desperation or a desire to make a joke, Elan Computers tried to change its name to Flan (and, accordingly, to rename the company to Flan Computers). The motivation sounded something like this: firstly, it would not require a global reworking of the stencils for printing the name on the documentation, box and the computer itself: it would be enough to erase the lower stroke of the capital letter E, and the job was done! And secondly, some magazines already mistakenly call the computer Flan, so the name will definitely stick.
Of course, the computer and its manufacturer were immediately ridiculed by the industry press. Popular Computing Weekly even held a contest among its readers to come up with a new name for Flan, and the winner was a certain Bernard Dinneen with Teflon Computers. Here's his rationale: “Because they can't find a catchy name.”
Hidden text
Of course, the hapless computer had to be renamed again – fortunately, for the last time. The name Enterprise, despite its somewhat ordinary nature, nevertheless stuck and did not encounter any legal problems, so it was under this name that the computer finally went on sale.
Start of sales
Unfortunately, due to the protracted development, constant name changes and other problems, the start of sales had to be postponed again – to Christmas 1984. The price also increased. Initially, it was assumed that the Enterprise 64 would cost £199, but the price tag was eventually raised to £228.95. For comparison: the ZX Spectrum+ with a normal keyboard could be bought for £179, and the original model, which the British lovingly called “rubber band”, for £125, that is, almost half the price of the Enterprise.
However, the Enterprise did not enter mass production until 1985, and by Christmas the company had produced only a handful of computers, which were quickly distributed to journalists and software developers. By this point, Sinclair Research had stopped production of the original Spectrum and had reduced the price of the ZX Spectrum+ to £129.
In the eyes of buyers, the Enterprise 64 began to look even less attractive, so immediately after the release of the Enterprise 128 in May 1985, the price of the 64-kilobyte model dropped to £180. The model with 128-kilobytes of RAM sold for £250, but already in August it faced strong competition from Amstrad, which released the CPC 6128 computer with the same amount of RAM for £299.
An important detail: the CPC line was already quite popular in the UK, and the computer had a built-in disk drive and was supplied with a monochrome monitor (those wishing to replace it with a color one could pay an extra £100).
Commodore also played a dirty trick on the Enterprise by cutting the price of its hit Commodore 128 to £269. By this time, there were already several thousand programs for the Commodore, and customers, of course, were well aware of this.
But Enterprise Computers was not about to give up, with grand plans to capture 10% of the computer market by the end of 1985. By that time, the company planned to sell 150,000 computers in the UK and another 200,000 overseas. To ensure these sales, Enterprise Computers was putting a lot of effort into marketing, pledging to spend up to £2 million in 1985 on colour magazine spreads and TV commercials.
And at least some of that money was definitely spent, because one of the videos was created by the then not very famous studio Aardman Animations. It would later become famous for its cartoons about Shaun the Sheep, Wallace and Gromit. Here, admire this early work recognized geniuses of stop motion animation.
Alas, the dreams of conquering the market were never destined to come true. Enterprise arrived just in time for the final analysis – the market had long been divided by companies like Sinclair, Commodore and Amstrad, and retail chains simply did not want to sell a new computer with meager software support and a higher price than most competitors.
The Fate of the Enterprise Abroad
A total of 80,000 machines were produced, of which no more than 25,000 were sold in the UK. The remaining computers were sent to other countries after Enterprise Computers was liquidated in 1986, including Hungary, which received something like 20,000 machines.
In Hungary, this computer became a real cult. In the 80s and 90s, Hungarian Enterprise users created a huge number of unofficial ports of ZX Spectrum games. Because of this, an outside observer might get the impression that the Enterprise was roughly equivalent to the Spectrum in terms of capabilities. Of course, this is far from the truth: the power reserve of the specialized chips was enough to emulate most ZX Spectrum games without any problems!
By the way, modern releases for Enterprise, which come out with enviable regularity, usually look much better. Some make full use of the capabilities of “Nick” and “Dave”, while others are still ports from “related” platforms like ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and others. But over the past 30-40 years, the quality of games has noticeably increased, so the ports have begun to look much more decent.
Enterprise was well-known in the USSR and Russia — it was actively supported by the popular magazine “Technology for Youth”. Since 1990, it published programs written in IS-BASIC and machine code. For example, here is an article from the April 1990 issue about fast copying of data from one memory area to another (all scans are clickable):
And here is a real disassembler, written in BASIC:
A year later, Tekhnika-Molodezhi began placing direct advertisements for Enterprises, both individual computers and entire computer classes:
A set of an Enterprise 128, tape recorder, and 12-inch monochrome monitor could be purchased for $360, while a classroom of one teacher and 15 student sets, consisting of a color monitor, tape recorder, joystick, floppy disk drive, and 20 MB hard drive (plus one teacher printer), would set you back $36,200.
In the March 1992 issue, the magazine's editorial board, together with the German company Enterprise Computers GmbH (which ultimately received all the Enterprises produced), held a computer knowledge contest, promising the winners some crazy number of prizes.
The first place was awarded an Enterprise 128 computer with a color monitor, floppy disk drive, and printer. The second place was awarded a computer with a color monitor and disk drive. The third place was awarded a computer with a monochrome monitor and disk drive. Fourth place could be taken by three people, each of whom was awarded their own Enterprise 128, monochrome monitor, and cassette recorder. Fifth place was already taken by six people, who were promised a computer with a tape recorder, but without a monitor. Finally, some microcalculators were offered as incentive prizes, and participants were also promised memorable souvenirs: ballpoint pens, lighters, and stickers. In a word, a festival of unprecedented generosity!
But the main thing that this competition gave us was the incredibly beautiful cover of the issue:
One of the apparently advertising articles claimed that in 1990 Enterprise Computers GmbH signed a contract to supply four thousand computers to the USSR. But how many were shipped exactly is unknown.
Hidden text
And Tekhnika-molodezhi wrote about the Enterprise 128 right up until 1995, and it could be bought for only $100 directly from the editorial office or for $130 by mail. However, this computer never achieved great popularity in Russia and the countries of the former USSR, completely losing to the same Spectrum, whose numerous clones usually cost significantly less and had a much larger collection of software.
But at least several hundred Enterprises did find their owners in our country and now from time to time pop up on all sorts of sites like Avito – alas, not for pennies.
Of course, you can also get to know this computer “virtually” – for example, using the ep128emu emulator, which has versions for Windows, Linux and macOS. You can download it at GitHuband on the website Z80 Museum There is a large archive of software for Enterprise.
But if you want to study the Enterprise 128 in person, come to the Yandex Museum in St. Petersburg at 68a Nevsky. There you can work and play on this unique machine, which never took root in its homeland, but found tens of thousands of devoted fans abroad.
