1980s Vintage Computers

NorthStar Advantage

The NorthStar Advantage built on the earlier (and more popular) Horizon system. It features:

A single box design with built in screen, keyboard and disk drives.
Built in green screen, with a mix of 80 column text or 640x200 graphics.
Z-80 processor running at 4 MHz.
64K of user RAM , plus 16K of video RAM.
Six expansion slot for serial or parallel ports, or an additional processor card (eg 8088).
CP/M with graphical extensions.
My machine has twin 360 KB floppy drives (uses hard-sector floppies), in double density double sided mode.
Hard drive available as an option.
System also supported Northstar DOS, provided here with graphics support and called Graphics DOS (GDOS).
Comprehensive Diagnostics on floppy.

This computer was introduced in around 1982. However it was quickly overtaken by the IBM PC and did not sell well in the UK.

NorthStar Advantage pages can be found at:

This page was last revised on: 16/11/14