Pronto Computers, Inc., was an American computer company based in
Torrance, California
Torrance is a coastal city in the Los Angeles metropolitan area located in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, United States. The city is part of what is known as the South Bay (Los Angeles County), South Bay region of the metropolitan ...
, active from 1983 to 1987. During its brief existence, the company released a duo of
IBM PC compatible
An IBM PC compatible is any personal computer that is hardware- and software-compatible with the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC) and its subsequent models. Like the original IBM PC, an IBM PC–compatible computer uses an x86-based central p ...
computer systems and a family of high-spec
graphics card
A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics accelerator, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or colloquially GPU) is a computer expansion card that generates a feed of graphics output to a displa ...
s. Pronto's first product, the System 16, was widely lauded for its graphical prowess and industrial design; in 1983, ''
I.D.'' magazine named it the best-designed product in the field of instrumentation and equipment. The System 16 was followed up with the Pronto Transportable Solution, a
portable computer
A portable computer is a computer designed to be easily moved from one place to another, as opposed to those designed to remain stationary at a single location such as desktops and workstations. These computers usually include a display a ...
. Both it and the Pronto 16 ran the
Intel 80186
The Intel 80186, also known as the iAPX 186, or just 186, is a microprocessor and microcontroller introduced in 1982. It was based on the Intel 8086 and, like it, had a 16-bit external Bus (computing)#Address bus, data bus multiplexed with a 20 ...
, a microprocessor seldom used in IBM PC compatibles. Pronto Computers went bankrupt in 1987, shortly after
Black Monday
Black Monday refers to specific Mondays when undesirable or turbulent events have occurred. It has been used to designate massacres, military battles, and stock market crashes.
Historic events
*1209, Dublin – when a group of 500 recently arriv ...
.
History
Pronto Computers was incorporated in
Torrance, California
Torrance is a coastal city in the Los Angeles metropolitan area located in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, United States. The city is part of what is known as the South Bay (Los Angeles County), South Bay region of the metropolitan ...
, in March 1983. Its founding members were Henry Gasbarro, CEO; Skip Hansen, vice president of engineering and sales; Doris V. Kaplan,
comptroller
A comptroller (pronounced either the same as ''controller'' or as ) is a management-level position responsible for supervising the quality of accountancy, accounting and financial reporting of an organization. A financial comptroller is a senior- ...
; and Judy Anthony, head of product marketing. According to ''
Computerworld
''Computerworld'' (abbreviated as CW) is a computer magazine published since 1967 aimed at information technology (IT) and Business computing, business technology professionals. Original a print magazine, ''Computerworld'' published its final pr ...
'', the company was established to design, manufacture, and market computer systems and peripherals for businesses. Although the firm manufactured systems that could run many applications designed for
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...
's
Personal Computer
A personal computer, commonly referred to as PC or computer, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as Word processor, word processing, web browser, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and PC ...
lineup, Gasbarro described compatibility as only a secondary design goal. He explained in 1984: "We created a professional product to solve various business needs. We didn't aim at being PC-compatible, but we do get some of the fallout".
Pronto System 16
A month after Pronto's incorporation, at
COMDEX/Spring, the company unveiled the Pronto System 16, an
IBM PC compatible
An IBM PC compatible is any personal computer that is hardware- and software-compatible with the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC) and its subsequent models. Like the original IBM PC, an IBM PC–compatible computer uses an x86-based central p ...
running an 8-MHz
Intel 80186
The Intel 80186, also known as the iAPX 186, or just 186, is a microprocessor and microcontroller introduced in 1982. It was based on the Intel 8086 and, like it, had a 16-bit external Bus (computing)#Address bus, data bus multiplexed with a 20 ...
microprocessor. The System 16 was among the few compatibles based on the 80186; designing such machines based on 186 was a notoriously difficult proposition, owing to the processor's
large-scale integration
An integrated circuit (IC), also known as a microchip or simply chip, is a set of electronic circuits, consisting of various electronic components (such as transistors, resistors, and capacitors) and their interconnections. These components a ...
of support chips largely deviating in functionality from the support chips present on the original
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the List of IBM Personal Computer models, IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible ''de facto'' standard. Released on ...
's motherboard.
Besides the unique processor, the computer was also one of the first personal computers built into a
tower form factor. According to the
Smithsonian, the System 16 pioneered several design concepts in personal computers that became prevalent in the following decades, including a swivel–tilt monitor base, a compact footprint, adjustable keyboard tilt, and ample cable length for the monitor, allowing the bulkier tower to be stored a considerable distance from the monitor. (A common practice was to put the tower on the floor.) The System 16's unique industrial design earned the company an award in ''
I.D.'' magazine in 1983 for best-designed product in the field of instrumentation and equipment. Its design was rendered by Joseph D. Ricchio Jr. of Ron Loosen Associates in
Los Alamitos, California
is a city in Orange County, California. The city was incorporated in March 1960. The population was 11,780 at the 2020 census, up from 11,449 at the 2010 census.
The USA Water Polo National Aquatic Center is located on the Joint Forces Tr ...
.
The System 16 comes equipped with 128 KB of
RAM
Ram, ram, or RAM most commonly refers to:
* A male sheep
* Random-access memory, computer memory
* Ram Trucks, US, since 2009
** List of vehicles named Dodge Ram, trucks and vans
** Ram Pickup, produced by Ram Trucks
Ram, ram, or RAM may also ref ...
stock, expandable to a maximum of 1 MB. Depending on the computer's configuration of drives, the System 16 sold between US$2,995 and US$5,995. The system could be ordered with one or two double-density, 800-KB 5.25-inch
floppy disk
A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, a diskette, or a disk) is a type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a ...
drives; one such floppy drive and a hard drive; or two hard drives. The hard drives in question were not the conventional
"Winchester"-style, enclosed-platter drives used by many other personal computers—including the
IBM PC XT
The IBM Personal Computer XT (model 5160, often shortened to PC/XT) is the second computer in the IBM Personal Computer line, released on March 8, 1983. Except for the addition of a built-in hard drive and extra expansion slots, it is very simi ...
—but were removable disk cartridges manufactured by
SyQuest
SyQuest Technology, Inc. () was an early entrant into the hard disk drive market for personal computers. The company was founded on January 27, 1982 by Syed Iftikar who had been a founder of Seagate, along with Ben Alaimo, Bill Krajewski, Ani ...
. This variant of hard drive was chosen for its compactness and ease of upgrading to drives accepting higher-capacity cartridges, which the company promised at a later date. Indeed, in May 1984, the company began selling System 16s with SyQuest drives between 23 MB and 56.7 MB in capacity, in solo- and dual-hard-drive configurations.
The System 16 can also produce high-resolution graphics using two special modes developed for the
NEC μPD7220
The High-Performance Graphics Display Controller 7220 (commonly μPD7220 or NEC 7220) is a video display controller and a Graphics processing unit, capable of drawing lines, circles, arcs, and character graphics to a bit-mapped display. It was ...
display controller
A video display controller (VDC), also called a display engine or display interface, is an integrated circuit which is the main component in a video-signal generator, a device responsible for the production of a TV video signal in a computing ...
on the computer's graphics card. Both modes implemented
bitplanes
A bit plane of a digital discrete signal (such as image or sound) is a set of bits corresponding to a given bit position in each of the binary numbers representing the signal.
For example, for 16-bit data representation there are 16 bit planes: ...
: in color mode, eight colors from a palette of sixteen can be displayed simultaneously; in monochrome mode, eight shades of gray can be displayed simultaneously. As Pronto did not ship a color monitor for the Pronto until 1984, early adopters who wanted to harness the computer's high-resolution mode had to subsist with the eight shades of green generated by its green-phosphor monochrome
CRT
CRT or Crt most commonly refers to:
* Cathode-ray tube, a display
* Critical race theory, an academic framework of analysis
CRT may also refer to:
Law
* Charitable remainder trust, United States
* Civil Resolution Tribunal, Canada
* Columbia ...
.
Between 1983 and 1987, Pronto sold 1,000 units of the System 16, according to the Smithsonian.
Pronto Transportable Solution
In November 1983, the company introduced an IBM PC–compatible portable computer also based on the 186 microprocessor. Called the Pronto Transportable Solution, the computer was built into a suitcase-style chassis and a nine-inch monochrome
CRT
CRT or Crt most commonly refers to:
* Cathode-ray tube, a display
* Critical race theory, an academic framework of analysis
CRT may also refer to:
Law
* Charitable remainder trust, United States
* Civil Resolution Tribunal, Canada
* Columbia ...
display, available in amber and green phosphors. The computer featured 256 KB of RAM stock and featured an
EPROM
An EPROM (rarely EROM), or erasable programmable read-only memory, is a type of programmable read-only memory (PROM) integrated circuit, chip that retains its data when its power supply is switched off. Computer memory that can retrieve stored d ...
socket for custom software on chips, between 16 KB and 64 KB in total length. The computer was optioned with the same SyQuest disk cartridge system as the System 16, available in 5.6-MB and 23.3-MB drive variants, or the user could have bought a unit with dual 5.25-inch floppy drives.
Graphics cards and decline
In September 1986, the company introduced a line of high-spec
ISA graphics card
A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics accelerator, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or colloquially GPU) is a computer expansion card that generates a feed of graphics output to a displa ...
s aimed at the
computer-aided design
Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...
market. Called the HR1200 Series, all cards were 16 bits in width. While they could support the 8-bit ISA slots of the original IBM PC and the PC XT (and compatibles), only the
PC/AT
The IBM Personal Computer AT (model 5170, abbreviated as IBM AT or PC/AT) was released in 1984 as the fourth model in the IBM Personal Computer line, following the IBM PC/XT and its IBM Portable PC variant. It was designed around the Intel 802 ...
and
RT PC
The IBM RT PC (RISC Technology Personal Computer) is a family of workstation computers from IBM introduced in 1986. These were the first commercial computers from IBM that were based on a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) architecture. Th ...
could take advantage of the data lines of the 16-bit portion of the cards. The HR1200 family comprised four cards: the first with a 1280-by-1024 pixel resolution and 256 simultaneous colors (from a palette of 4,096 colors); the second with a 1280-by-1024 resolution and 16 simultaneous colors; the third with a 1024-by-768 resolution and 256 simultaneous colors; and the last with a 1024-by-768 resolution and 16 simultaneous colors.
Pronto Computers filed for bankruptcy in 1987, shortly after its
initial public offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...
amid the
Black Monday financial crisis.
Citations
References
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
{{refend
American companies established in 1983
American companies disestablished in 1987
Computer companies established in 1983
Computer companies disestablished in 1987
Defunct companies based in Greater Los Angeles
Defunct computer companies based in California
Defunct computer companies of the United States
Defunct computer hardware companies
Defunct computer systems companies