Oh, found a bit more, looking for confirmation of the 6502. It's
here:
Attachment:
File comment: Article in Personal Computing April 1979
SDS-420-1979.png [ 240.93 KiB | Viewed 8938 times ]
Quote:
Small Business Computer from Scientific Data
A new small business microcomputer system has been announced by Scientific Data Systems, Inc.
Designed for professional use, the SDS 420 system is self-contained in a small desk-top cabinet. All sub-systems are modular for simple servicing.
The system includes a 2 MHz 6502A microprocessor. Instruction times are 1 microsecond minimum and 3.5 micro-seconds maximum Its 32K bytes of memory with 250 nanosecond cycle time is expandable to 56K and contained on a single PC board.
From 1-1/2 to 10 Megabytes of floppy-disk storage is included on the high speed PerSci dual-diskette, single/double density drives. Dual head drives are optional and up to four drives can be supported by the system.
A high resolution Ball Brothers 12-inch CRT display with 25 lines of 80 characters per line and an independent 2K byte refresh memory is also included.
The SDS has a 71 -key alphanumeric detachable keyboard with decimal pad, cursor control, reset and interrupt keys and three user-programmable keys.
The SDS 420 employs an extended 12K BASIC interpreter which provides all the features of standard BASIC plus commands for formatted printing; the input of strings with embedded terminators; extensive string manipulative commands: file interface to random, sequential or keyed files with indexed sequential access; I/O device handling; error handling; extensive screen window management; and source file editing. The keyed file interface makes it possible to write data manipulation programs in BASIC with minimum commands.
Single unit price is $7700. For more information contact
- p78 Personal Computing April 1979
Looking again at your original article link, looks like the 420 was out, as a computer, and the upcoming product was some kind of central fileserver.
Also, much less useful, one line in a table from Jan 1981:
https://archive.org/details/InterfaceAge198101/page/n79Although it does say the 420 cost $8k whereas the 432 is $19k, also 6502 powered... so then I found
this in "The Seybold Report on Word Processing" by Seybold Publications, 1980"
Quote:
The model 420 includes dual 8" floppy diskettes storing 600,000 characters each and its suggested retail price is $8,400 without ... And for even more disk storage, there is the model 432, which includes 56K bytes of RAM, dual 8" floppy disks storing 600,000 characters ...
It seems the 420 had 32k RAM, the 432 had 56k. And there was a 421 and 422.
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sds432-hint.jpeg [ 24.41 KiB | Viewed 8938 times ]