Prime Computer
 |
|
| Public | |
| Fate | Acquired (in 1998 by Parametric Technology Corporation) |
| Founded | 1972 |
| Defunct | 1998 |
Prime Computer, Inc. was a Natick, Massachusetts-based producer of minicomputers from 1972 until 1992. The alternative spellings "PR1ME" and "PR1ME Computer" were used as brand names or logos by the company.
The company was started by 7 founders, some of whom worked on the Multics project at MIT.
The company started with the motto "Software First".
Poduska left in 1981 to start Apollo Computer.
The original products were clones of the Honeywell 316 and 516 minicomputers.
The first Prime system, similar to the DDP 516 but a 32-bit machine with paging. It ran an operating system called DOS, also referred to as PRIMOS 2 (not to be confused with MS-DOS, PC DOS, etc.).
The Prime 100 was a stripped down version of the Prime 200 (no memory parity or floating point).
The Prime 300 had a main store of 32KB to 512 KB and from 6MB of Pertec disc storage. It ran DOSVM operating system, also referred to as PRIMOS 3, but still used earlier DOS for booting. One of the first minicomputers with microcode-supported virtual memory capability. The virtual memory was simpler than used in later systems. Addresses were 16 bits, with each of up to 32 time-sharing (time slice) users, receiving a virtual 64K word address space. It had S-mode and R-mode instructions.
An example of the Prime 300 was installed in the mathematics department of the University of Aston in Birmingham, UK and at the Medical University of Hannover, Germany.
The Prime 400 ran at 0.5 MIPS, had a main store of up to 8MB and 160MB of disc storage. The name PRIMOS was now used for the operating system and the P400 ran PRIMOS 4. It ran a V-mode instruction set, along with the S-mode and R-mode instructions. It had a segmented virtual memory architecture, somewhat similar to Multics.
The Prime 550 was an upgrade in performance over the Prime 400. It ran at 0.7 MIPS, had up 2MB of memory and 500MB of disc storage and a 9 track tape unit.
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