The Ontel OP-1 Series was a line of Intel 8080-based microcomputers produced by the Ontel Corporation in the late 1970's and early 1980's. Unlike most other microcomputers of that era, the OP-1 line was aimed at the OEM and business word processing markets. Due to this marketing orientation and also to the high prices, it is unlikely that many Ontels were acquired by hobbyists or home users.
The OP-1 line included the following models: (This discussion of the OP-1 lines is based on my experiences at Michigan State University decades ago, and may contain inaccuracies or omissions. Please send any corrections to me at the address below.)
All models included a high-quality text-only 80x24 monochrome monitor built into the system unit. Early monitors were white, but later a green-screen model of the OP-1/R was offered, for about $25 extra. Sweden had recently issued ergonomic standards which required green screens. Though these standards did not apply to us in the United States, the Associate Director of the Computer Laboratory, Lewis Greenberg, decided to spend the extra money to "do the right thing". It backfired--clerical staff who received the first green-screened Ontels were unaware of the Swedish standards and the higher price, and thought that inferior units were being pawned off on them. I admit that I found the green screens, with their lower contrast, to be harder to read than the white screens.
The keyboard was detachable and had a long (at least 3 feet) cable. Programmers loved to pull out the keyboard and lay it on their lap as they put their feet up on their desk. The guts of the keyboard were made by Cherry, considered the gold standard of keyboards at the time. When there were problems with keys on a keyboard (which happened surprisingly often for a "gold standard'), we replaced individual keyswitches, for about $1 - $2 apiece. That's a lot of money, considering that the keyboard had about as many keys as the original IBM PC keyboard, and nowadays an entire keyboard can be had for $10.
The OP-1 and OP-1/R were quite heavy and had a solid, hulking appearance. Apparently in order to be physically compatible with the large, wide system units, the keyboards were also quite large--in fact, ridiculously large and heavy. The keyboards could be screwed into the system unit, presumably to prevent theft or vandalism. In our public Ontel labs around campus, the keyboards were indeed screwed into the system units--a real shame, since it made them much less friendly to use.
At Michigan State, we used Ontels almost exclusively to run an embedded system named SCREDIT. This program, typically run from EPROM on an OP-1/R, acted as a front-end to the mainframe text editor. It also acted as a terminal emulator. I was the author of SCREDIT, and expect to write a web page on it some day...
Mark Riordan Last updated 26 April 2011