In 1977, I was attempting to write software for a small company in Denver, CO, called Digital Group. DG was a competitor of MITS and IMSAI, building computers based on early 8 bit CPUs. The company wasn't doing too well, and wasn't paying very well, so I was looking to supplement my income.

I found a side project to work on, and since it might have lead to a few sales of DG computers, I took my DG 64K Z80 based machine home evenings and weekends.

Not only was it heavy, but there were too many cables to dis/re-connect. There was a main system box, plus two floppy drives, a monitor, a printer, a keyboard, and perhaps a few more parts that I've forgotten. Tearing it down and loading it into my car took half an hour, with another half hour (or sometimes more, since the cable connectors were not robust) to set it up again.

I mentioned to DG's President, Dick Bemis, that I wanted a single box that would contain everything: system, disk drives, power supply, peripheral cards, a small monitor, and some place to hang the keyboard for transport. Even if it took a hand truck to move it, at least it would eliminate the cabling problems.

I worked with a few people in DG to spec this, and we went through a some prototypes. Robert Suding and his team built it generally to my description, and I carried the prototypes back and forth, asking for design changes as problems came up.

Eventually DG released the finished version under the name "Mini Bytemaster". For various reasons, not many were ever sold, but I believe it was named one of Byte Magazine's "Products of the Year" in 1978. There is some additional information, and some pictures, at http://www.bytecollector.com/bytemaster.htm. If I recall correctly, the larger "Bytemaster" (without the "Mini") was designed somewhat later, partly due to the difficulty of getting the newly available 5.25" floppy drives.

The Osborne and Compaq luggables didn't come out until several years later, but the companies were better organized, and they each sold somewhat more than the dozen or so Mini Bytemasters that were built.

James Lane