verry good

Have original SOL 20 from 1977 ...think I still have the original tapes.
jwallach@drig.com

In the late 1970s I'd designed and implemented a distributed Medical Genetics database and reporting system in which the SOL-20 played a central role.

In my laboratory I began by using SOL-20 machines to run a highly customized version of PILOT for local input and initial processing of medical genetics data. This was very convenient for daily reports etc. Long-term though, the data set would be massive; well beyond the limited storage and processing capabilities of the SOL.

The UC San Francisco (Medical Center) had an IBM System/370 running RAMIS II (tm), a then-new relational-like database system. Both largely were used with card stacks for input and line-printers for output.

Terminal connectivity was only slowly expanding, and there were only a few "modem" I/O lines. Nonetheless, I wangled an allotment of "time on the machine" via phone modem amounting to only a few minutes each day. But fortunately, in the aggregate - I could break it up any way I pleased.

So I devised a database structure in RAMIS appropriate to the data entered/stored on the SOL - faking a relational system as I did so. Then, via a custom 2-way communication driver written in 8080 assembler on the SOL, I "slaved" the IBM/370 for a few minutes each day.

On demand, it became both a "big hard-drive" and a fast analytical engine for the SOL. My locally processed data on the SOL could be uploaded to the IBM for both "unlimited" off-line central storage and into RAMIS II for more sophisticated analysis either on- or off-line.

Another custom "command & control" driver allowed my remote SOL to be a *very* "smart terminal", able to query RAMIS for sophisticated analysis and reports from the entire huge database, either for display/printing or further local analysis.

All very cool. It netted me several fast promotions. And it spread!

By the time I left UCSF six years later the system included seven laboratories in three States. As many as a dozen or more SOL-20s (I never really knew) were operating as a networked consortium sharing a common database.

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Begun a few years earlier, the work was first published only in 1978; more followed:

Loughman, W. and D.C. Mosher: A New Cytogenetics/ Medical Genetics Computerized Data Management System. (Abstract). Am. J. Hum. Gen. 30: 87A (1978).

Mitchell, J.A., W.D. Loughman, and C.J. Epstein: GENFILES - An Information Network in Medical Genetics. In: Proceedings of the Sixth Illinois Conference on Medical Information Systems. Urbana, Illinois (1980).

Loughman, W.D., J.A. Mitchell, D.C. Mosher, and C.J. Epstein: GENFILES: A Computerized Medical Genetics Information Network. I. An Overview. Am. J. Med. Gen. 7:243-250 (1980).

Mitchell, J.A., W.D. Loughman, and C.J. Epstein: GENFILES: A Computerized Medical Genetics Information Network. II. MEDGEN: The Clinical Genetics System. Am. J. Med. Gen. 7:251-266 (1980).

Mitchell, J.A., C.J. Epstein, and W.D. Loughman: GENFILES: A Computerized Medical Genetics Information Network. III. CHROMO: The Cytogenetics Database. Am. J. Med. Gen. 7:267-278 (1980).

Mitchell, J.A., W.D. Loughman, and C.J. Epstein: A Medical Genetics Information System. J. Clin. Computing 11(1):1-43 (1982).

Additionally, on or about 1978-79, I was an ad hoc "new developments" speaker at that year's IBM SHARE Conference in San Francisco. ...Their "token user", as the introducer put it.

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NB:
John Starkweather inter alia was the inventor/maintainer of PILOT and Director of UCSF's Computer Center.
Doug Mosher was a very Senior Programmer at UCSF, my direct mentor, and he who first advised my use of microprocessor computers. Apple was his choice; SOL-20 was mine.
Charles Epstein (my boss) was Director of UCSF Medical Genetics; later and consequently(?) one of the "Unabomber's" unfortunate targets.
I was the newly-appointed Director of the UCSF Cytogenetics Lab at the time. Otherwise a real newbie in the computer world - until I purchased my first SOL.

- Bill

Wow!... I learned programming on a SOL. I built mine as a kit back in '78 or '79. It got me started in the computer field. The SOL was the best of any of them in that time. Well designed and rock solid except for the 16kb dynamic memory module which was a disaster. I wish I had mine back... sold it for $600 many years ago.

aquillen@sbcglobal.net
Built a sol20 from scratch in 76' from a board and manual - no kit, begged probably the last personality module from a "janitor" at processor tech who was cleaning out the place after they had actually closed, without that would have never got it working, powersupply was hacked together from an erectorset to hold the parts, homemade case, etc., scrounged chips for a year on my meager budget, nothing worked, days with a scope and testing to get it to run, learned to prgram in machine and basic from that sol20, modified a junk selectric with papertape reader/writer to interface and print at about 8 char/sec, wrote code to troubleshoot s100 memory boards for my sol, swung a deal/swap to get a Northstart drive and board, figured out the interface to use that disc drive - wow - big league then with a whole 60K of disc space per floppy..., built a radiation detector that would print plots of x-ray machine beam outputs. built a reader/writer s100 board to copy/burn 2708, 2716 and 2732 chips to copy atari 2600 games and made a bunch of those (should have been caught and jailed I guess), hooked up that sol20 to a lot of stuff over the years and eventually learned to work on everything short of full mainframes, , software, etc., all thanks to that old Sol20. was the best and most influential computer in my life to this day!

I'm enthusiastic to find your site exclusively dedicated to this 1977 marvel : The SOL 20.

I got my kit as a Christmas present from my family in 1977. It cost, including tax and shipping $1,770.00. Within a week it was assembled, the little B/W tv-set adapted and it worked as promised - like a charm. I'm, not quite sure why nobody in the writing of history gives any credit to this little company "Processor Technology" to have created, if I am not completely wrong, the first "useable" home computer.

Of course, it wasn't perfect. It was supposed to come with a tape based BASIC, - but that came a few months later and worked at anyones desire.

I am writing this because the SOL 20, as I am aware, has become the first PC to be used in an industrial environment. At the time I was working in a shipyard with some 400 employees and oversaw accounting and data processing with a Honeywell mainframe.

Once an adaptation to 8" diskettes was available, that must have been end of 1978, I bought on the market some 10 SOL 20s and used them as a basic input devices of all data, personnel, accounting, etc. to the Honeywell mainframe. My punchgirls absolutely loved it ! Of course I had to write a conversion program from ACCII to EBCDIC in machine language - no mayor problem.

Then I used three SOL 20s on Towboats running on the Mississippi river to measure by a combination of the twist of the mainshafts and connected fuel flow meters the total horsepower output of the engines and fuel consumption in order to optimize cost per mile of the towboats. This was done using the then available BASIC burnt into a 16K memory board and connected to a thermosensitive printer.

The result was that after any trip of each towboat Mississippi river up from New Orleans to Minneapolis or Springfield and back, (a trip of some 3 weeks) I received a daily print-out of (hour by hour) engine rpm, fuel consumption, horsepower generated and total economy. I sincerely believe that after some resistance from the traditionally minded captains we generated an economy of at least 10% of then rather expensive fuel, which made all the difference to the bottom line of the company.

After 30 years I am still looking for anyone with any of the early computers to have made an economic impact thanks to one of these early computers. They were, as I understand it hobby ware except the SOL 20 from Processor Technology properly used.

If this story helps you in any way to highlight the merits of this little marvel I will be happy.

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