PCM Systems Corporation
Formerly
  • PCM, Inc. (1975)
  • Pacific Cyber/Metrix (1975–1996)
TypePrivate
IndustryComputers
Founded1975 (1975)
Defunct2001 (2001)
FateDissolved
Headquarters
Key people
  • Robert Nelson, president
Number of employees
15 (early 2000s)
Websitepcmsystems.com (archived)

Pacific Cyber/Metrix, Inc. (PC/M; originally PCM, Inc., later PCM Systems) was an American computer company based in California. The company was founded in 1975 in San Ramon, California.[1]

A privately held company, PC/M was founded by Robert Nelson and several others, most of whom including Nelson came from the San Ramon facility of Edgerton, Germeshausen, and Grier, a scientific research firm. Nelson was named president and general owner. For the next several years the company developed microcomputers based around the PDP-8–compatible Intersil 6100 as well as CMOS EPROM burners. The company earned profit from the cash flow generated by their products and received no outside venture capital. PC/M moved its headquarters in late 1979 to Dublin, California,[2] where the company spent the remainder of its existence in a 6,000-square-foot facility.[3] The company's workforce was relatively spartan throughout its lifespan, employing only "about 10" in 1979,[2] later increasing to 15 by the early 2000s.[3]

History

1970s

Front view of the PCM-12

The company's first announced product was the PCM-12, a 12-bit minicomputer based on the Intersil IM6100 microprocessor, allowing it to be mostly software compatible with Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP-8/E.[4] The PCM-12 supported up to 32 kilowords of memory 12 bits wide,[5] and its 80-line bus accommodated 15 expansion cards. On release, the only expansion cards optioned were device-interfacing modules—including TTY and cassette—and memory boards; a direct memory access controller card and a hardware vectored interrupt handler card were provisional. Included with the stock PCM-12 was a 4-kiloword memory board. The minicomputer's front panel meanwhile provides virtually all of the PDP-8/E's switch-functions while also including binary bootstrap loader and decrement-address functions.[5] On release in early 1976, the PCM-12 was only available in kit form for between US$400 and $600, depending on options.[4] By mid-March that year, the price of the kit increased to $799.[6] The kit in minimal form required assembling the computer from five printed circuit boards (including the CPU and 4-kiloword memory boards), the cabinet, the front panel, and the power supply. The computer was later offered completely assembled and tested in May 1976, for $1224.[5] The PCM-12 was, by Byte magazine's estimation, the first mini- or microcomputer based on the IM6100.[7] According to Modern Data, the computer was also the first to have its backplane and cards built into a metal card cage.[8]

The PCM-12 received a facelift in the form of the PCM-12A in mid-1977. This revision "beefed-up" the original PCM-12's included literature and cabinetry, added a crystal oscillator to the CPU board to generate a timing signal for variable baud rates, an "absolute loader" that bootstraps binary from tape directly into any field of memory, and a floppy disk controller card—the latter allowing DEC's OS/8 operating system to be run on the PCM-12. The kit price remained $799,[9] later decreased to $679 (against the assembled version's $989).[10] The portfolio of expansion cards by this point included a parallel–serial I/O card and a DEC-compatible,[11] high-speed punched card reader–writer.[12] PC/M backported floppy disk functionality to the original PCM-12 with the 12440,[9] a dual-floppy controller card introduced in November 1977. This card sold for $259 assembled and $169 as an unsoldered kit.[13]

PC/M released myriad expansion cards in the turn of 1978, including three memory expansion cards, a power-fail module card, an improved TTY card, and a PDP-8 emulation card.[14] The three memory cards comprised the 12020A, the PCM-12's basic 12-bit 4-kiloword n-channel RAM board; the 12160, a ROM/RAM hybrid board constituting 1.5 kilowords of UV-erasable EPROMs in high pages and 512 words of n-channel RAM in low pages; and the 12210, a 12-bit 4-kiloword non-volatile CMOS RAM board. The 12210 stored memory after power-off for up to 30 days with the aid of its included battery. All three memory cards carry 59 integrated circuits, including logic chips for bus interfacing. The 12230 power-fail module was available around the time of release of these memory cards, which when paired with the 12210 made the PCM-12 impervious to AC power failures.[15] The improved TTY card, named the 12060, emulated DEC's 03 and 04 device selector designations and provides I/O with both RS-232 and 20-mA current loop interfaces. The 12060 supports both teleprinters and video terminals.[16] PC/M co-introduced the 12060 with the 12310, a digital I/O board which provides the PCM-12 with additional instruction sets based on DEC's DR8-EA Flip-Chip module, which aided in the fields of data acquisition and process control.[17] Aiming to attract third-party vendors for development of custom expansion cards for the PCM-12, the company released the 12090 prototype board, a double-plated through-hole circuit board with a grid of vias to facilitate wire-wrap or solder-tail connections.[18]

The company entered the CMOS EPROM programmer industry with the release of the Model 66 in February 1978.[19] Compatible only with Intersil's 6603 and 6604 EPROM chips, Model 66 can be used standalone or controlled via a computer, terminal, teletype, or IC test equipment for automated burning. Inside the Model 66 is a microprocessor and a 4-KiB RAM buffer. It offers a full suite of editing functions, including loading and monitoring the RAM buffer or the EPROM directly, with a button on the front panel allowing the user to verify quickly if the EPROM has been erased; while firmware in ROM provides dumping and verifying capabilities to external control. Operated standalone, EPROM data may be loaded by paper tape.[19] The Model 66 was later tweaked as the Model 660 in August 1978.[20]

In 1979, the company opened up Bubbl-Tec, a division dedicated to development and manufacturing of devices using bubble memory modules fabricated by Texas Instruments. The opening of this division, which PC/M anticipated would generate the bulk of the company's future growth overall, necessitated the company move headquarters from San Ramon to Dublin. Originally sold only via direct sales, PC/M signed up distributors in the United States and Europe and hired in-house company salespeople to sell Bubbl-Tec's products later in 1979. The company delivered its first bubble-memory-based device in July 1979; two more were added to Bubbl-Tec's roster in September.[2]

1980s

A physically larger follow-up to the PCM-12 was introduced in early 1980. Described by Computer Business News as a mainframe, the PCM-12 Omega offered 18 expansion slots on its bus and added a hinge to its card cage, allowing it to pivot up into view of the user from the front panel and stay into place through a special mechanism. Still based on the Intersil 6100, PC/M ensured software compatibility with the PDP-8/A (the last non-microprocessor-based incarnation of the PDP-8), the VT78 DECstation, and the WS78 and WD78 word–data processing systems. The expansion slots are variably spaced to allow for both narrow cards such as memory modules and wire-wrapped prototype boards which require far more clearance. The built-in power supply provides overvoltage protection and foldback current limiting.[21]

Shortly after the PCM-12, PC/M released a single-board computer, the Model PPS-1201, designed to be plugged into Intel's Multibus backplane.[22] Based again on the Intersil 6100, the PPS-1201 supports up to 4 kilowords of socketed memory chips configurable as any amount of RAM or EPROMs. An additional kiloword of memory on the board is reserved for loading and running a "control panel" suite, comprising a debugger and a machine code monitor, from an on-board ROM. The board also possesses a memory expansion controller, a serial port compatible with RS-232 and 20-mA current loop interfaces (through the use of an on-board optocoupler), and three 12-bit-wide parallel ports.[23] The PPS-1201 was followed up in 1981 by the simply titled Model PPS-12, which had essentially the same board layout but added support for other PC/M-manufactured serial–parallel and bubble memory expansion modules as well as added software for terminal control and external software development equipment interfacing.[24] The PPS-12 was designed for field applications where only battery or solar power is available; it requires only a 5 V hookup and consumes only half a watt of power.[25]

PC/M's Bubbl-Tec division continued releasing memory cards until at least 1987,[26] their efforts culminating in the PCH-3 Bubbl-Board, a bubble memory expansion card for IBM PC and compatibles. The card supported up to 1.5 MB worth of bubble memory modules, which were removable and could be loaded into Bubbl-Pacs enclosures for the Bubbl-Dek[27]—an external bubble memory module reader developed by Bubble-Tec that plugs into the disk drive bay of the PC.[28]

In 1988, the company introduced a $20,300 Unix-compatible multiprocessor computer system for Motorola's VMEbus, called Hyperflo. Each processor board carries four Motorola 68020 CPUs and two floating-point units standard. Apart from the processor boards, the package includes a resource management board, a memory controller board, and one or more flat memory boards. An optional ROM board allows software to be stored and loaded instantaneously. The system supports up to eighteen processor boards.[29]

1990s – 2001

Pacific Cyber/Metrix's domain in the 1990s was largely limited to VMEbus-based digital signal processors for imaging, signal analysis, and scientific instrumentation.[30] In 1996, the company renamed themselves to PCM Systems.[31] In November 2001, the company filed its certificate of dissolution to the California government.[32]

Citations

  1. ↑ Staff writer 1990, p. 187; Staff writer 1979b, p. 13.
  2. 1 2 3 Staff writer 1979b, p. 13.
  3. 1 2 Staff writer 2004, p. 851.
  4. 1 2 Staff writer 1976a, p. 137.
  5. 1 2 3 Staff writer 1976e, p. 210.
  6. ↑ Staff writer 1976c, p. 42.
  7. ↑ Staff writer 1976b.
  8. ↑ Staff writer 1976d.
  9. 1 2 Staff writer 1977d, p. 116.
  10. ↑ Staff writer 1977c, p. 15.
  11. ↑ Staff writer 1977a, p. 20.
  12. ↑ Staff writer 1977a, p. 20; Staff writer 1978d, p. 131.
  13. ↑ Staff writer 1977b, p. 53; Staff writer 1978e, p. 200.
  14. ↑ Staff writer 1977e, p. 33; Staff writer 1978b, p. 142.
  15. ↑ Staff writer 1978a, p. 144.
  16. ↑ Staff writer 1978g, p. 74.
  17. ↑ Staff writer 1978b, p. 142.
  18. ↑ Staff writer 1978e, p. 150.
  19. 1 2 Staff writer 1978c, p. 200.
  20. ↑ Staff writer 1978h, p. 200; Staff writer 1979a, p. 241.
  21. ↑ Staff writer 1980a, p. 26.
  22. ↑ Staff writer 1980b, p. 10.
  23. ↑ Staff writer 1980d, p. 97.
  24. ↑ Staff writer 1981a, p. 11.
  25. ↑ Staff writer 1981b, p. 196.
  26. ↑ Staff writer 1981b, p. 10; Staff writer 1982, p. 44; Staff writer 1986a, p. 89; Staff writer 1986b, p. 113.
  27. ↑ Matzkin 1987, p. 45.
  28. ↑ Stafford 1986, p. 44.
  29. ↑ Staff writer 1988, p. 74.
  30. ↑ Staff writer 1991, p. 130; Staff writer 1993a, p. 95; Staff writer 1993b, p. 119.
  31. ↑ PCM Systems 1996.
  32. ↑ OpenCorporates n.d.

References

Further reading

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