Tulip System I is based around the Intel 8086 microprocessor with a 16-bit architecture, running at 8MHz, almost twice the speed of the IBM PC XT which was launched only a few months earlier in July 1983.[2]
The standard configuration includes 128KB of RAM, expandable to 896KB (much more than the 640KB of the original PC) in units of 128KB increments.[1][4]
The video display generator could also display graphics with a 384 × 288 or 768 × 288 (color) or 768 × 576 (monochrome) pixel resolution using its built-in NEC 7220 video display coprocessor,[4] which had hardware supported drawing functions, with an advanced set of bit-block transfers it could do line generating, arc, circle, ellipse, ellipse arc, filled arc, filled circle, filled ellipse, filled elliptical arc and many other commands.
It has the possibility to use an Intel 8087 math coprocessor,[4] which increased the speed to > 200 kflops, which was near mainframe data at that time.
It included a SASI hard disk interface (a predecessor of the SCSI-standard) and was optionally delivered with a 5MB or 10MB hard disk. The floppy disk size was 400KB (10 sectors, instead of 8 or 9 with the IBM PC) or 800KB (80 tracks).
Software
After initially using CP/M-86, it quickly switched to using generic MS-DOS 2.00. There was a rudimentary IBM BIOS-emulator, which allowed the user to use WordStar and a few other IBM-PC software, but Compudata B.V. shipped WordStar and some other software as adopted software for this computer. There was programming support by Compudata B.V. with MS-Basic, MS-Pascal and MS-Fortran.
On a private base, TeX and Turbo Pascal were ported to the Tulip System I.
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