RM Nimbus: Success breeds success

After selling what seems like the same machine since forever, or at least 1977 - the Research Machines 380Z - RM has finally stepped into the world of the [#IBM PC].

Except that it's not quite - it ran MS-DOS 3.1, but wasn't actually fully IBM compatible. 

Nevertheless, the advert suggests that "a vast range of generic MS-DOS software" ran on it.

It also one of relatively few micros that used Intel's [!80186] CPU, otherwise known as the iAPX 186. 

Produced as an update to the 8088/8086 line of chips, the '186 - which was was originally intended to be an embedded processor - wasn't compatible with the support chips that had grown up around the more popular CPUs, and so most manufacturers chose to wait for the [!80286] instead.

[picture: RM_nimbuspc_prac_apr85.webp|Part of an earlier advert for the Nimbus from April 1985's PRAC]

The advert mentions networking capability as a feature. Apparently, most Nimbus PC-186's were intended as workstations in a local area network setup and had no hard disks of their own[source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RM_Nimbus], although Winchester disks were available as an option. 

As such, they started from floppy disk or remotely over the network - very much an antecedent of the "thin client" idea that became popular in the late 90s.

When launched earlier in the year, the entry-level Nimbus PC 2, with 192K RAM and two 720K 3½" Sony-style floppy disk drives, retailed for £1,695 plus VAT, which is about [[1950|1985]] in [[now]].