Comart Communicator: The clean simplicity outside... conceals the pedigree inside

Comart - based in St. Neots, Huntingdon - was founded in 1976 by David Broad and John Lamb as a mail-order supplier of imported software and S-100 boards[source: There is expert support with Comart CP-100 Communicator, PRAC, June 1981, p. 56], but by 1977 was reselling products from Cromemco, Imsai, North Star, Dynabyte and Franlkin, before dropping the mail-order business and concentrating solely on North Star and Cromemco micros imported from the US. 

It soon started building its own third-party boards for North Star machines as these were apparently hard to source[source: https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/comart-communicator.78270/].


[picture: northstar_wp_praccomp_jan80.webp|One of Comart's North Star Horizon boards - the Comart VDM display module, which included VDM *Star word processing software, so the machine could become an instant "word processor". From PRAC, January 1980]

[picture: comart_crom_percw_jan81.webp|An advert for Comart the reseller, showing the Cromemco Z-2, which had been around since 1977. From PCW, January 1981]

Before long, it was building its own entire systems, including the subject of the main advert - the CP100 Communicator, released around 1980. 

This was largely based on compatibility with Cromemco system boards, leading to the CP-100 being what PRAC described as "a [North Star] Horizon substitute with Cromemco manners". According to Comart itself, the design:

~"reflects current current and anticipated future requirements for information storage, retrieval and exchange"

Comart also claimed that the S-100-based CP100 Communicator was "specifically developed to suit British operating conditions and communications requirements". 

This included support for Prestel - the dial-up viewdata service that had been launched in 1979, a feature which was helped by the fact that the system had already been approved for connection to the British Telecom network.

It ran CP/M - the popular operating system of the day - on a Zilog Z80 CPU. Comart was still selling the CP100 model as <a href="pcw_1983-10-00_016_comart">late as the end of 1983</a>.

[picture: comart_praccompsupp_mar83.webp|An advert for the Communicator, plus one of Comart's newer smart terminals. From a PRAC supplement, March 1983]

In its June 1981 review of the CP100, PRAC concluded that:

~"The CP100 is very much a system for the business user, owing to its cost and the need for external support. Comart should consider freeing the design from restrictions imposed by loyalty to Cromemco boards which are not the easiest to work with, nor are the most up to date. Notwithstanding the CP100's shortcomings, the quality of the existing hardware and the availability of expert support make it an attractive machine[source: Comart CP100 Review, PRAC, June 1981, pp. 56-58]".
