Cromemco Dazzler

Cromemco's Dazzler (or TV DAZZLER) was a graphics card for S-100 bus computers. Released in 1976, it is the first commercial color bit-mapped graphics card available for microcomputers. Multiple Dazzler cards could be installed in a single machine and synced together, a feature which could, with minor modification, be used to genlock. Genlocked Dazzler cards drove ColorGraphics Weather Systems displays that generated most of the weather imagery seen on US television in the early 1980s.

The Dazzler came about in a roundabout fashion after Les Solomon, an editor for Popular Electronics magazine, demonstrated the original Altair 8800 to Roger Melen of Stanford University. After seeing it, Melen purchased Altair #2 for his friend Harry Garland to work with. The two built a number of add-ons for the machine, starting with an early video digitizer called the Cyclops and then moving on to the prototype Dazzler. The Dazzler was first introduced at the Homebrew Computer Club on November 12, 1975.

Like many early microcomputer projects of the era, the Dazzler was originally announced as a self-built kit in Popular Electronics. In order to "kick start" construction, they offered kits including a circuit board and the required parts, which the user would then assemble on their own. This led to sales of completely assembled Dazzler systems, which became the only way to purchase the product some time after. Sales were so fruitful that Melen and Garland formed Cromemco to sell the Dazzler and their other Altair add-ons, selecting a name based on Crothers Memorial Hall, their residence while attending Stanford.

When Federico Faggin's new company - Zilog - introduced the Z80, Cromemco branched out into their own line of Z80-based S-100 compatible computers almost immediately. Over time these became the company's primary products. Combinations of their rackmount machines and the Dazzler formed the basis of ColorGraphics Weather Systems (CWS) product line into the late 1980s, and when CWS was purchased by Dynatech in 1987, Dynatech also purchased Cromemco to supply them.

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