Manufacturer: Híradástechnikai Szövetkezet, Hungary, 1983
Control unit: Z80 microprocessor (clock signal 1.77 MHz) RAM originally 16 kilobyte (the HT1080Z/64 type is extended), ROM 12 Kilobyte + 1.5 Kilobyte monitor and Hungarian accented characters. Graphic resolution 128 * 48 pixel, black-and-white display. Text mode 16 * 32 or 16 * 64 characters Internal power supply unit.
The winning computer on the first School-computer Competition of the Ministry of Education. Practically, the HT-1080Z was the first computer that appeared in a large scale in the schools (a bit earlier, a few hundreds of Luxor / BRG ABC-80 computers were already present there).
It was produced based on the licence of the EACA Videogenie from Hong Kong that was compatible with the American TRS-80 computer. Its durable, high-quality keyboard and compact design makes it perfectly suitable to be used in schools. It includes the central processing unit, the keyboard, the power supply unit and the cassette tape recorder in an integrated manner. Both sides of its off-white plastic case is decorated by a wood pattern. As display, it can use a monitor or a television receiver.
The computer used the BASIC language (Microsoft’s ‘dialect’) burned into the ROM. There were several peripherals available, among others a colour graphics card named MICOLOR-01, a floppy controller, a printer driver, etc.
By using an analogue-digital driver it could be connected to metering systems, too. Therefore it could be well used in technical and physics education.
The HT-1080/Z School-Computer produced till 1986-87 was not really popular. The reasons were as follows:
– the basic model, the TRS-80 represented the technical level of the late 1970s so it was no longer a state of the art technology when the HT-1080/Z came out.
– the Homelab/Aircomp and the Primo models available from 1984 as well as the Videoton TV Computer launched in the mid 80s were considered more user friendly.
– Among the foreign models, the Sinclair ZX-81 was significantly cheaper (to which even a 64K RAM expansion card was available).
The Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 computers which were a great success in the mid-80s offered a wider software assortment and a finer graphics resolution. In the second half of the 80s, the distribution in schools of Commodore-16, plus/4 models was more subsidized and although the Hungarian models (e.g. ProPrimo, HT3080C) were successfully presented on the second school-computer competition they only remained prototypes. The HT-2080/Z was a version of HT-1080/Z intended for office use (but as far as we know they did not differ considerably).
Source:
http://ht.homeserver.hu/
http://www.gamestar.hu/magyarorszagon-vilaghiru-haziszamitogepek-ht-1080z.html
http://oldmachines.tripod.com/hun_ht_1080z.htm