Cromemco Z-2

The Cromemco Z-2D computer was a Z80–based microcomputer system which differed from a Z-2 by having one or two Wangco 5¼" disk drives, a disk power supply and a 4FDC disk controller in a Z-2 chassis. The Z-2D was available in assembled and kit form. The Z-2D was also called the "System Two". ==Cromemco Z-2H==

The Cromemco Z-2H computer was based on the Z-2D, but in addition had an 11 megabyte internal hard disk drive. While the Z-2 and Z-2D had 21 S-100 slots, the Z-2H was limited to 12 expansion slots due to the size of the internal hard disk. Over 1000 Z-2H systems were sold in the first six months on the market. ==Notable installations==

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) adopted Cromemco Z-2 microcomputers as the backbone of the CME trading floor, employing a total of 60 Z-2 systems. For a 10-year period every trade at the CME was processed by these Cromemco systems. In 1992 the Cromemco systems were replaced by IBM PS/2 computers. Z-2 computers were well-suited for data acquisition and analysis applications. One example was work in profiling the deceleration of trains during braking in the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system during actual operation. Cromemco Z-2D computers were employed both for data acquisition and analysis to develop an exact model of the braking profile under a variety of track conditions and train loadings. In 1979 the United States Navy (at the Applied Physics Laboratory) used a Cromemco Z-2 computer to generate speech output for the Aegis Combat System in the Combat Information Center. The United States Air Force deployed 600 Cromemco Systems from 1985 to 1996 as Mission Support Systems for the F-15, F-16, and F-111 aircraft. During this period Cromemco systems were used for the planning of every combat mission for these aircraft, including missions during the First Gulf War. These systems were based on the Cromemco Z-2 computer, but utilized the Motorola 68020 32-bit processor, and had a custom, removable hard drive to meet the Air Force need to be able to physically secure all flight plan information. Cromemco received a patent on this technology. ==References==