Torch Computers

Torch Computers Ltd is one of the longest-established computer manufacturers in Cambridge. It was founded in 1989 under the name Cube Eastern and was renamed Torch Computers in 1991 when certain parts of the original Torch Computer company were purchased. That previous company started in 1982 and was located in Great Shelford, a village just to the south of Cambridge. It ceased trading in 1990.

Initially, from 1989 onwards, Torch was a maker of standard desktop PCs, but it soon became clear that the company’s main strength was in making PCs that were in some way different to the typical mass-produced product. That difference was apparent in various ways, for example, some customers wanted a computer that was slimmer than usual; another customer wanted kits of parts presented in a special box to aid production of scientific instruments. Most of our larger customers were particularly keen to ensure that their product remain consistent in every way for as long as possible, and then, as technology moved on, to be consulted and guided in establishing the replacement product so that their sales were not disrupted.

The integral monitor is a Cub. The heart of the machine is a BBC B, with a Torch Z80 coprocessor fitted. The hard drive is hooked up to the BBC via a Torch SASI controller and a SASI/ST506 bridge board. Theres provision for a modem inside, although neither of my two machines had this fitted. All the standard BBC ports are brought out to the rear of the case, and the Econet chips are fitted to the BBC board. THis unit was manufactured by the earlier company based in Toft, Cambridgeshire

Torch Computers Ltd was a computer hardware company formed in 1982 in Great Shelford, near Cambridge, UK and became well known for its computer peripherals for the BBC Micro. Torch produced several second processor units for the BBC Micro with integrated floppy disk or hard disk drives, including the Z80 Disc Pack (ZDP), Graduate and Unicorn, with Z80, 8088 and 68000 processors respectively. The ZDP ran the CPN operating system, a clone of CP/M, the Graduate, MS-DOS 2.11 and the Unicorn UNIX.

The 300 series were workstations. The 300 was originally launched in the Independence of America Day product launch which also premiered the 725 server. The 300 was originally a standalone network only computer, still based around a BBC Micro motherboard and Z80 processor, intended for use as a TORCHnet station or as a terminal for a TORCH Unix system - you could call it a forerunner to thin client computing :-) Over time it also became expandable via a small tower containing a hard and/or floppy disk drive and, ultimately, a 68000 second processor in the tower running Unix System III. There is also an expansion tower and drive cables included with the 300 series.

The Torch Triple X (or XXX) was a UNIX workstation computer produced by the British company Torch Computers, and launched in 1985

The Triple X was based on an 8 MHz 68010 CPU, with a Hitachi 6303 service processor. The CPU was accompanied by a 68451 memory management unit and a 68450 DMA controller. Both VMEbus and a BBC Micro-compatible 1MHz bus expansion buses were provided, as was a SCSI host adapter, and an optional Ethernet interface. Both RS-423 and X.25-compatible synchronous serial ports were provided. This latter feature made the Triple X attractive to the UK academic community, where X.25 networks were prevalent at the time.

Standard RAM capacity was 1 MB, expandable to 7 MB via VME cards. A 720 kB, 5.25 in floppy disk drive and ST506-comaptible 20 MB hard disk were fitted as standard, interfaced to the SCSI bus via an OMTI adapter.

Either a 10 or 13 inch colour monitor was supplied. Two graphics modes were available: 720 × 256 pixels in four colours, or 720 × 512 in two colours.

The Triple X had novel touch-sensitive soft power switch. When switching off, this commanded the operating system to shutdown gracefully before powering down.