Following the announcement of ICL’s entry level DRS Model 30 last autumn (CI No 1,026), the company has now launched two mid-range boxes – Models 40 and 45 – in an attempt to push its way more strongly into the micro market. The DRS range is initially targeted at ICL’S mainframe corporate accounts where it felt it was losing out to other companies in the intelligent workstation market. In particular it seems worried about IBM’s PS/2 range. The market for intelligent workstations is growing and ICL reckons that by 1991 80% of its terminal sales will be for intelligent networked micros. It has already got off to a flying start with its DRS 30 8086 machine of which it has sold 10,000 units to date and, it claims, is currently shipping 1,000 units a week. The two new models are 80286s with a switchable processing speed of 16MHz or 8MHz and run MS-DOS 3.3. Both models have a standard 1Mb of RAM expandable up to 5Mb via two 2Mb memory board slots on the motherboard. The Model 40 is available with single diskette drive only, or with drive and 20Mb fixed disk, or with drive and 40Mb fixed disk; while the Model 45 has a 40Mb fixed disk and drive with optional expansion up to 80Mb enabling it to be used as a small file server. ICL stressed that the DRS range is highly integrated into networks through RS232 connections, as well as the proprietary Oslan 100/200, and Microlan 2 connect. The workstations are pronounced totally IBM compatible and operate in the MS-DOS, VME and Unix environments. Another selling point pushed by ICL is the graphics capability of the machines which have VGA graphics on board and are compatible with EGA, CGA, Hercules and MDA display modes. Both models are ready to ship now with prices starting at UKP1,100 for Model 40, and UKP2,000 for Model 45. At those prices you get the box with 1Mb memory, VGA graphics, keyboard, and MS-DOS 3.3 software.
