The coolest looking computer in my collection! | Morrow MD3P

Nothing like a little Zork on an August evening, using Morrow Designs' Morrow MD3P portable CP/M computer. It sports a Z80 single board computer and a video terminal all in one! Dual 360k Shugart SA-455 floppy drives with that lovely understated growl.

[@50shadesofbeige88]

It's rare I see an old machine I don't recognize. This is one of those times. Fantastic find!

[@TechTimeTraveller]

@50shadesofbeige88 They're quite rare. I think they came towards the end of Morrow itself. I have a second unit but it won't power up.

[@DoingGorillaTagStuff]

@@TechTimeTraveller You should give me the second unit :D lol

[@jasonblalock4429]

I remember the days when the fans on computers sounded like a jet engine starting up. I don't miss those days.

[@monad_tcp]

Coolers with precision bearings are a must. I'm pretty sure they existed back then, but the thing was so noise in all ways it wouldn't matter much.

[@LanaaAmor]

They also provided more cooling

[@MikeStavola]

One of my servers uses aluminum caged ball bearing fans, and once they get up to 11000rpm they sound like the whole rack's gonna take off.

[@datassetteuser356]

Damn, that's one solid CP/M machine there. And what an interesting screen size. Wow, never saw something like this before. Good stuff, thanks for sharing

[@richfiles]

I have a much newer Brother word processor from the 90s with a screen in that aspect ratio. My understanding is that the size originated with early terminals. Allegedly, the size and aspect ratio comes from two things... 1: the screen was to be able to display 80 columns, but save on memory by only showing a portion of a page vertically. Memory was expensive and limited back then, so you could have less memory dedicated to video by just displaying less at once and scrolling. 2: Supposedly, the screen's visible area is close to the size of an IBM punchcard. Back then, that would have been a familiar sight in computing. The display survived far past the relevance of punchcards... HP used these in a few of their computers, and some stand alone word processors also utilized them.

[@datassetteuser356]

@@richfiles Fascinating, thanks!

[@kens32052]

ZORK...that really brings back memories...sigh.

[@saschakolb7102]

Omg, CP/M operating System 😮

[@sethbramwell]

I miss that old disk drive and system whirring up sound. Though i always feel like it should be immediately followed by a robotic voice saying "Greetings, Professor Falken."

[@omgnowairly]

This was the device that started my fascination with computers.

[@KERAAK35]

Awwwww I miss the sound loadings from this PC and the Amiga sound era as well :) A500 & A1200 Cheers for showing some golden computers, from the past! :) BR AN.

[@kens32052]

Ah yes the Amiga Workbench brings back memories.

[@ssjaken]

Wow that's gorgeous. Looks like 2001: A Space Odyssey

[@TechTimeTraveller]

@@ssjaken I really dig the wide aspect ratio CRT. Just looks like nothing else!

[@SIPEROTH]

@@TechTimeTraveller What is this little PC?

[@TechTimeTraveller]

@@SIPEROTH It's a Morrow Designs MD3. It's from pre-DOS days.. runs a Z80 and CP/M. It's actually two machines in one. Morrow machines required a terminal.. they basically stuck the terminal and the computer into one box.

[@SIPEROTH]

@@TechTimeTraveller Oh! Interesting. Thank you.

[@Smoke1]

It's been a while since I heard old disk sounds. It feels like music to my ears.

[@raymitchell9736]

Ahhh... those sounds I remember so fondly :-)

[@absurdengineering]

I have a “desktop” Morrow MD-3. By coincidence, it is hooked up to an amber Ampex terminal. I think Morrows just go with amber so well. Yours is a beautiful machine. MD-3 has no fan inside. It is downright stealthy with a RAM disk. There is no expansion bus inside AFAIR, but I had a homebrew ramdisk card wired into the board. It had 256kb of ram. 32 chips of 8kB static ram + 3xAA for backup power. It could boot from RAM disk - I modified the bootloader. I have no access to it at the moment, but in a year or two I’ll dig it out and document the mod. It was done around 1989-1990.

[@SteliosLiapis]

Very rare and beautiful futuristic - space computer !!!!!! ❤

[@feedmyintellect]

So cool!!! Every keystroke has a physical keyboard sound and a co.puter sound.

[@liamthompson9342]

Really nice crisp display - and amber too, the best colour, for reasons

[@techn0games]

Super cool. I don't think I'll ever get tired of seeing retro computers.

[@jpTankMan]

What a beautiful beast. I remember seeing 2 of them pop up on Goodwill's auction site back in like 2018. I still curse myself for not getting one, even if they were not in good shape.

[@TechTimeTraveller]

I'm told there weren't too many made. I missed the first one I saw come up on ebay but did not hesitate on this one.

[@Hassan-Alnajjar]

That's amazing, something rear to see., thanks for sharing. (Greetings from Dubai, UAE 🇦🇪).

[@drewzero1]

George Morrow was always my favorite host on Computer Chronicles... The others sometimes made jokes about his failed company but he seemed to have a really good sense of humor about it. Gary Kildall was great on that show too.

[@scallen3841]

I miss the sound of the disk drive sounding like it's eating the disk

[@InfiniteLoop]

That thing is Adorable! I love the amber and odd size

[@MatroxMillennium]

Oh, nice! I thought it was going to be one of those word processors, from the thumbnail, but that's a whole CP/M machine!

[@GaugePlays1980]

Whoa, widescreen computing in the 80's. I have never seen this luggable before. It definitely has the retro-futuristic look to it.

[@williamcorcoran8842]

The floppy drive sounds like a guitar chord played through a mike Mathew’s dirt road special amp from Electro-Harmonix!

[@JamesPotts]

That crt is crazy awesome.

[@thenotoriouspie]

i yelled out loud in surprise when you took the keyboard off i cant lie. its so sleek and rad looking

[@newhope33]

I miss the boot up sound from those old computers.

[@jerkface38]

Just fire up your air compressor lol

[@tolentarpay5464]

I love that screen!

[@wisteela]

That looks fantastic.

[@1SqueakyWheel]

Wow I haven't thought about Zork in decades! It was my first command line game. No lie, hands down... Those types of games had the BEST graphical imagery!

[@haweater1555]

It's all in your head...

[@1SqueakyWheel]

@@haweater1555 exactly

[@albertoernestini6279]

I've never seen this CP/M system! Thanks for sharing!!

[@blakespot]

60x24 it looks like. Nice!

[@Android-1138]

I LOVE amber phosphorus displays!!

[@denisdrozdoff2926]

That crt is too cute!

[@50shadesofbeige88]

Neat. I love that mini CRT!

[@TechTimeTraveller]

Question - did this pop up as a subscription notification? I'm hoping it's not doing that and annoying subs who hate shorts.

[@50shadesofbeige88]

@@TechTimeTraveller no. It just popped up on my feed.

[@Mitch3D]

Bring one of these into a coffee shop and watch the reactions.

[@yatapaws]

Whoa that thing is neat!!

[@bad_metaphor]

Had the Compaq version of this, and played Zork too. :)

[@igorperuchi2114]

Wow, this is too cool to be real And yet it is!

[@lelandclayton5462]

That is cool as heck

[@Metal_Maxine]

It's adorable!

[@remurdereht]

Interesting aspect ratio on that CRT.

[@Altomare3]

I love it so much! There's a german machine very similar called the SKS Nano. I've been looking for one for a while, as it's the european counterpart of the Otrona Attaché. Btw if you ever dabble in Otronas, hit me up, I have a lot of experience with these babies

[@FudgeXDD]

oh wow, it sure is curvy for 80s era machine

[@mstandish]

That is a sexy looking luggable

[@bkkorner]

Cool!!

[@ArissonMercinova]

I miss Drive A and Drive B...

[@Feudor1973]

PIZ-DOS MSDOS. Помним.

[@SockyNoob]

Sexy beast. Glorious sounds.

[@primerye]

The computer growls at you. The exits are northwest and east.

[@edwardpaddock2528]

Was that a PET there in the back???

[@zenmaster24]

Surely this belongs to the TVA…

[@Sleepy-c7h]

man dachte ein Jet wolle starten.

[@AiOinc1]

The design and apparent lack of build quality of this machine remind me strongly of the cheap word processors of the 80s

[@kpanic23]

Meep Meep!

[@szr8]

It's all fun and games until someone gets eaten by the grue..

[@the_normal]

From Alien movie....

[@haweater1555]

Hearing protection included?

[@CB3ROB-CyberBunker-2]

lemme quickly and discretely turn on my laptop during a meeting.... BRRRWWWWOOOOO BRRP BRRP BRRP BWWWWWWOOOOO Biep biep biep BWWOOO

[@CB3ROB-CyberBunker-2]

plus for the hipsters, it probably works better to make everyone look at your portable computer than the latest macbook pro. when sitting at starbucks or mcdonalds. lol. just turn it on.

[@CB3ROB-CyberBunker-2]

the thing we mostly forgot about 'computers back in the days' is how many noise they made :P LOL. and that was -before- you made the ibm proprinter xl print out something. :P to wake up all the neighbors.

[@CB3ROB-CyberBunker-2]

see you often go 'damn i don't want this flimsy dell crap' 'i just want a network full of brand new ibm xt's or something but with a cmos chipset'. but then you hear this and you go 'oh yeah that's why we no longer use those' lol.

[@8BitNaptime]

George Morrow from Computer Chronicles?

[@TechTimeTraveller]

@@8BitNaptime You got it!

[@8BitNaptime]

@@TechTimeTraveller Sweet, I don't know why I didn't look up his machine earlier!

[@WilliamHostman]

what's the screen res? 120×25?

[@ПавелКоркин-м9ы]

Динозавр)

[@Dimavrus_Tenebris]

Fallout terminal

[@bobbowie5334]

They still make these in Russia.

[@jimbotron70]

HAL vibes...

[@NaTevBorch]

Напомнил фильм чужой 😂

[@rotheryberlin7772]

Copyright 1982👍

[@lyndoncunningham5305]

A lugable 😅