If you are thinking of buying more than one PC - think again

It's another all-British (for a definition ignoring the fact that most of the chips came from the Far East or the US) multi-user system, this time from Jarogate of Brixton in London, for its MP5 CP/M Multiprocessor.

As was the case with other competitors of the day, such as [=bromcom_superstar_prac_jun84|Bromcom's SuperStar], it's multi-user in that each of the up-to 16 users has their own memory and CPU hosted in the base system - in this case a 6MHz Z80B, 64K memory and access to an S-100 bus - and needed a terminal to act as the actual "computer". 

If CP/M and a Z80B processor was considered as a bit old-skool, there was also support for Intel's recent iAPX 286, or 80286, processor. However, it doesn't look like it went as far as to support MS-DOS.

Entry-level pricing of the MP5 was from £1,995, or about [[1995|1984]] in [[now]].

Jarogate had been founded by Robin Tracey in 1979, but by 1990 had racked up £750,000 of debt - about [[750000|1990]] in [[now]] - and was sold to Data Dynamics at the beginning of 1991, having been in receivership since the autumn of the previous year[source: https://www.techmonitor.ai/technology/jarogate_ltd_currently_in_the_hands_of_receivers_from_finnie_co_says_that_a_uk_buyer_has_already_been_found_for_the_firm]. 

It looks like Data Dynamics had already bought fellow multi-user micro company [@Shelton], as it was already selling the Sig/Net range. The combined company had an installed base of around 8,000 systems, with 4,000 coming from Jarogate. Tracey remained in the new company as sales director[source: https://www.techmonitor.ai/technology/bankrupt_jarogate_acquired_by_data_dynamics_which_thereby_doubles_size/].


