RM C-Series Desktop Computer from 2002 - Educational PC for Schools in UK and Ireland

Posted by Ok-Emergency-245@reddit | retrobattlestations | View on Reddit | 7 comments

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TMWNN@reddit

In the US, after Dell pioneered the large-scale mail-order PC business in the 1980s, by the 1990s Dell, Gateway, Micron, Zeos, and many other companies competed in the market. What were their local UK equivalents?

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Ok-Emergency-245@reddit (OP)

Time Computers is the closest thing that comes to mind or Tiny computers were both big UK computer brands, RM were solely for education as far as I'm aware (apart from home computers for teachers). There are hundreds of small local UK computer companies but I think Time and Tiny were definitely the biggest

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KingDaveRa@reddit

RM went in heavily on education, they had all the custom software (Window Box) to run teaching environments, basically all designed to be foolproof for teachers to run. They also pushed a lot of management contracts and other stuff. My understanding was they were VERY expensive. Viglen moved into education in their later years with all in one systems, same with Stone (they were more public sector). Escom are a bit of a forgotten entity who probably deserve more recognition, as they did design a lot of their own motherboards and systems.

Time and Tiny were massive. I worked on many a Tiny or Time machine back in the day, usually ram upgrades. Packard Bell had a major push into Currys and Dixon's (and I seem to recall their stuff in Argos at one point, along with Olivetti). Then there was Colossus, Dan, Quantex, and all the other magazine advert favourites. They'd all frequently appear in group tests reviews.

And yes, there was a proliferation of independent shops (I worked at one!) building custom systems. We built loads of custom desktops for Dr Solomon's once!

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Ok-Emergency-245@reddit (OP)

I'm always on the hunt for an RM Window Box machine! Rare for one to come up for sale however. I used to use the discovery license which had the most amount of software on (I still have the manuals for the individual programs to this day!) and on the final photo is a window box network manual which - as far as I'm aware - was just a rebadged RM connect network running RM Classmate.

Completely forgot about Viglen there! I think I remember them not doing too well with their network Viglen Classlink 2000 with a few forum posts stating how terrible it was. I own a promotional poster they did for it, "The Benefits of Broadband", wish I could include some photos here. Also had some few run ins with Stone computers but I dont remember much about them.

I partially remember Olivetti doing some design for the RM Nimbus but I could be wrong. As for Time and Tiny, I own quite a lot of Time "Free Software For Schools" CDs and I used to own a Tiny CRT monitor that unfortunately blew up. Never had a personal experience with DAN desktops but from what I heard they were alright machines

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KingDaveRa@reddit

There's an RM user group where you can actually experience the software - but at a cost.

https://www.rmusergroup.net/

RM has given them access to the old software, but only for a fee which is a bit much for casual playing about. I remain hopeful they might change that one day.

I've got a few Viglen Pentium 4 shirts they gave us back in the day (we used to buy loads of their machines at work). Still wear them now and then 😁

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Ok-Emergency-245@reddit (OP)

I'm already part of that community! Some great stuff they have in their collection and they have been a massive help with sourcing OEM images for this PC and the other F-series case I have