 The P2000
desktop series was the first Philips attempt to penetrate the home
computer market. It was released in March 1980 in two version, the
P2000M and the P2000T.
The main difference lied in the video interface. The T version, aimed
at home and educational use, could be connected to either a standard
TV set or a special RGB monitor. The M version, more professional, had
an additional 80-column card allowing to connect a monochrome
composite monitor. This version shipped with a monitor cabinet also
housing a dual 5.25" floppy drive.
The P2000 was a robust and well conceived machine. There was no
built-in language but only a 4 KB ROM holding system basic and I/O
routines. Two cartridges slots allowed to add ROM programs (slot 1) or
interface cards (slot 2) like a modem or a parallel printer interface.
Programs and data could be stored through the built-in mini cassette
drive which was seen by the user as a floppy drive with automatic
search for a program (CLOAD command) or free space (CSAVE). A command
also allowed to display the directory of a cassette tape.
The P2000 didn't meet a great success in Europe, except in the
Netherlands, its country of origin (although the machine was made in
Austria) where the very active Philips user group provided lots of
original software and hardware extensions like CP/M or disk drive
controller cards. The P2000 was also widely used in Dutch and German
schools.
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