Allard's Computer Museum Groningen

Holborn





click a big view

The Holborn 9110








click a big view
The Micro Bee Terminal with lightpen.




click a view of the back
The system box with drives




The 9100, Donated by Edo Dooijes, juli 1 2005, UvA Computer Museum catalogue nrs 00.50






The Holborn 6100 system, contains the 6110 with 6140 diskdrive


The Sreen! click dir




The console open click a big view





The 6100, Donated by family van Barneveld, Losser, Januari 21 2006. Mr van Barneveld used the machine at the University of Twente, Enschede for administration tasks. Later on his son Marc used it for his study Industrial Design at the TU Delft. 

The UVA writes about the 9100 system:

The Holborn 9100 computer was a Dutch product ("born in Holland"). It consists of a science-fiction style desk-top display/keyboard console which mainly contains a converted MicroBee terminal, a fridge sized processor box with two or four 8" floppy drives and a printer. The processor was a Z80 with 64k of address space, making it necessary to apply bank-switching.
This system used a proprietary multi-user operating system, one feature of which was the use of a lightpen for much the same purposes as today's mouse.

Allard writes about the 6100 system:

The Holborn 6100 uses the same science-fiction style desk-top unit as the 9100 were also the processor is built in, while a seperate box is containing a double 8" diskdrive. No lightpen can be used. The keyboard is a little differend then the Micro Bee used in the 9100. The on/of switch of the console is located under the head of the console and the serial and printer connectors are located at the botom left (see also the open view)

The Holborn computer was mainly sold to small companies for administration and bookkeeping purposes.
The machine's hardware was designed by H.A. Polak, the console by Vos Industrial Designers.
Info Added 0ctober 2006 (from Digidome.nl): The name "Holborn" actually comes from the place where the founders came from; Holten, Holland. So it's not Born in Holland but Born in Holten.

Holborn Specs:

Date: 1981/1983
Country: The Netherlands
Manufacturer: Holborn
Original Price: fl 30.000 dutch guildes
CPU: Zilog Z80A
Speed: 4 Mhz
Screen: Monochrome terminal,for the 9100 the possibility for a second one
Internal Memory: 72 kb standard, expandable to 220 kb
background memory: 2.5 MB on two 8" diskettes, optional are up to 4 diskettes or 30 MB harddisk
I/O: RS 232, parallel printerinterface
Operatingsystem: Holborn OS or CP/M


The Holborn company has been active only from 1980 to 1983, when it bankrupted. Like most manufacturers of computer systems of original design around the world, it hasn't survived the competition of IBM and the IBM-PC-clone builders.
About 200 machines were sold, 50 of them of the larger variety. The price of the full-sized Holborn was about Dfl 30,000 or US$10,000 (at the exchange rate of the time).


Unit 4

                                                                                         Here an example of the Holborn in Unit 4 on the efficiencybeurs 1982
                                                                                                     (picture via T. van Doornen)

Allard's computer linklist


UVA Amsterdam



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