Northstar Horizon

NAME	HORIZON
MANUFACTURER	Northstar
TYPE	Professional Computer
ORIGIN	U.S.A.
YEAR	1977
BUILT IN LANGUAGE	None
KEYBOARD	Serial terminal
CPU	Zilog Z80
SPEED	4 MHz
RAM	16 KB (up to 64 KB)
ROM	1 KB
TEXT MODES	80 chars. x 24 lines
GRAPHIC MODES	Text mode only
COLORS	Monochrome
SOUND	No sound
SIZE / WEIGHT	50.8 (W) x 44.4 (D) x 18.4 (H) cm / About 20 kg
I/O PORTS	12-slot S100 BUS, Serial and Parallel ports
BUILT IN MEDIA	One or Two 5.25'' FDD. Later 5 and 18 MB Hard disk drives, 13.4 MB tape backup
OS	Northstar DOS
POWER SUPPLY	Integrated 250W P.S.U.
PERIPHERALS	S-100 Bus cards
PRICE	Horizon-1: $1599 (kit) $1899 (assembled) Horizon-2: $1999 (kit) $2349 (assembled)

Northstar Horizon

Horizon

The Horizon was a S-100 bus based system. It was the first floppy-disc based system hobbyists could buy. In a case with a choice of wood or blue metal cover, the basic version included a 4 MHz. Z80 microprocessor, 16 KB of RAM, a 90 KB 5''1/4 floppy drive with a controller card, a serial terminal interface and 12 S-100 slots. It was sold with the North Star Disc Operating System and a Basic interpreter, allowing random and sequential disk files. The Horizon-2 version offered a second floppy-disc drive.

Any S-100 cards (compatible with Altair, Cromemco and many other systems) could be added to the system, but North Star provided its own additional 16 KB RAM and hardware floating point boards.

In 1979, original 90 KB floppy drives were replaced by Shugart 360 KB models. NorthStar also offered an add-on box with two additional floppies, making a total of 4. The box had a matching walnut stained plywood cover.