Cromemco Z-1: This is the industry's most powerful microcomputer

This advert is for a Z80-based machine on an S-100 bus, similar in form to many of the computers of the time such as the Intel-based [#IMSAI 8080], which is not surprising as it was an IMSAI chassis with Cromemco innards[source: http://rwebs.net/micros/Cromemco/front.htm]. 

It makes claim to be the most powerful micro available - indeed the 4MHz clock speed of the [!Z80|Z80A] it used was nominally quite high for the time. 

It's not always a like-for-like comparison with the clock speed other processors. The [#PET|Commodore PET] and [#Apple II], which would be announced during this year, ran [!6502] processors at only 1MHz, however due to differences in the way the two CPUs worked this was roughly equivalent to at least a 2.5MHz or 3MHz Z80. 

The Z-1 retailed for $2,495, or about [[2079|1977]] in [[now]] and was Cromemco's first machine. It was originally released in August 1976.

Cromemco had formed after Roger Melen had purchased the second [#Altair 8800] off the production line for his friend Harry Garland to work with. The two of them had already been working together since 1970 writing articles for Popular Electronics[source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromemco]. 

They built several add-ons for the Altair before coming up with an advanced (for the time) graphics card called the "Dazzler"[source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromemco_Dazzler], which proved so popular that they incorporated Cromemco - named after their halls of residence at Stanford University, Crothers Memorial - in order to sell it together with their other add-ons. 

The Dazzler apparently found a home driving US TV weather forecast graphics for much of the 1980s.