Tandberg & Dragon 32

The Tandberg keyboard was actually a terminal keyboard thingy which connected to a central mini computer – and "mini" here actually meant the computer was about the size of a couple of side-by-side noisy fridges. My dad worked as a journalist back when computers arrived in homes and offices. The newspapers then had just moved off lead type printing and onto digital systems, so his workplace picked up a second hand Norsk Data (Norwegian Data) system... which was already dated – tech moved rather quickly in the late '70s and early '80s. As the '90s drew close it made more sense to use actual desktop computers (i.e. Macs) in DTP environments.

I don't know much about the actual hardware specs of the ND mini computers. They were rack and module based with multiple processors, so perhaps quoting specs is pointless. I only know that by the mid '80s these machines had just a few megabytes of work memory and by then even silly home computers like the Amiga would get you there with a much smaller investment. Of course, the main feature of the ND systems was being able to handle multiple terminals (using proprietary gate arrays and PALs).

At the newspaper, articles were saved on these massive tape storage units. I remember going into the server room seeing them spin and whir while a Reuters teleprinter clattered in the background. People were still banging on typewriters too, and if not, they were loudly stabbing the terminal keyboards because of lingering typewriting habits. typewriters then had round keys, but nowadays it might feel odd to type on...?

The keyboards used decent switches, likely with space for diodes and LEDs. With the typing speed in this environment I wouldn't be surprised if the keyboard matrix was fully dioded. A microcontroller was used too, so they weren't uncommon in keyboards even back then. The keyboards I saw came in with either mid-dark brown or olive tertiary keys. So, very late '70s coupled with the orange. The layout could be customized a bit, with unused switches being replaced by blank covers.

ND machines used an OS called Sintran. It was console only, for managing terminals and stuff. It had a sort of scalable syntax where one could abbreviate or fully type out the commands. Or use the special keys on the terminal keyboards. As for games, there were the types a engineer might cobble together while bored. I remember playing a variant of Dalek/Robot on the green monochrome screen. To make this a cartridge console out of this is complete nonsense (Perhaps the dual cartridge slots could be for RAM and Storage). I don't remember seeing a mouse used with these systems. Anyways, I just wanted to draw something using the Tandberg aesthetics.

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The Dragon 32 seems like a boring computer. I don't really have anything to say about it.