Сириус Системс и Виктор Технолоджиз: История Персональных Компьютеров

Personal computer manufacturer

Sirius Systems Technology was a personal computer manufacturer in Scotts Valley, California. It was founded in 1980 by Chuck Peddle and Chris Fish, formerly of MOS Technology and capitalized by Walter Kidde Inc. In late 1982 Sirius acquired Victor Business Systems (known for its calculators and cash registers) from Kidde and changed its name to Victor Technologies. It made the Victor/Sirius series of personal computers. The company made a public stock offering in the first half of 1983, but went into Chapter 11 protection from bankruptcy before the end of 1984. The company's assets were acquired by Datatronic AB, a Swedish software/hardware distribution company headed by sv. Gabrielsson signed a distribution deal with Kyocera, which began to supply PC clones to Victor.

The Victor 9000 (distributed in the UK by British company Applied Computer Techniques as the ACT Sirius 1, and in Australia by Barson Computers as the Sirius 1) was designed by Peddle, who had also designed the first Commodore PET. His team began work in January 1981 and showed a prototype in April. It appeared for the first time at the show in Munich, Germany, in late 1981. Chuck Peddle used two of his Commodore contacts to set up two subsidiaries in continental Europe. David Deane (France) and Jürgen Tepper (Germany) were both ex Mannesmann Tally whom Chuck had met while negotiating an OEM deal for printers. The Victor 9000/Sirius 1 ran CP/M 86 and MS DOS but did not claim to be IBM PC compatible. It offered a higher resolution screen and 600 KB/1.2 MB floppy drives. One striking difference between it and other machines on the market at the time was the fact that the disc utilized a form of zoned constant linear velocity (ZCLV) (using 9 different speed zones selected out of 15 supported by the hardware) with a variant of zone bit recording (ZBR) (11 to 19 sectors depending on zone) to spun at different speeds according to where the data was stored, running slower towards the outer edge of the disc in such a way that bit density (bits per cm passing the head), rather than rotational speed, was approximately constant. 896 KB of memory (RAM), programmable keyboard and character set were also far ahead of the competition. ACT outsold the Sirius/Victor subsidiaries and also led the way in proving that application software was the key to sales. Most sales across Europe went through small systems houses rather than computer shops. The Victor 9000 was also distributed in the UK under that name by DRG Business Machines in Weston super Mare, who dealt with Victor Technologies in the US direct. It was not a particularly successful venture as ACT had already established a brand name and a loyal dealer base.

BYTE called the Victor 9000 "an excellent microcomputer with an outstanding array of standard features". It praised the high quality video and large array of software available from Victor, while criticizing the high price of peripherals compared to the many third party options on the IBM PC.