Enterprise 64/128

The Enterprise home-computer line is known today as much for its marketing campaign and many name changes as it is for its technical achievements. As originally conceived during development in 1982 and 1983, the Enterprise was presented as a stylish entrant into the British 8-bit home computer scene offering top-line hardware. Delays, name changes and compromises in development led to a poor selling computer largely forgotten today.

Based around the Zilog Z-80 processor, a popular chip for early arcade machines as well as home computers like the ZX Spectrum or the TRS-80, the Enterprise added custom chips for memory management, video and sound. Video capabilities allowed for a palette of 256 colors, with a 256x160 16 color mode being most popular for most games. The system also supported a high resolution monochrome display mode and even a 80 column mode for its built-in word processor. Sound supported three channels with a fourth noise channel over eight octaves. A joystick was mounted directly onto the unit itself, to the right of the keyboard. Initially available with 64K of RAM, a later model shipped with no changes other than doubling the RAM. While the Enterprise had a cartridge slot, nearly all games were distributed on cassette.

Advertising and promotion began for the Enterprise as early as 1983, often touting the background of one of its founders as a chess champion. Originally promoted as the Samurai, and later Elan, both names were challenged by trademark holders, leading to settling on the name of Enterprise. Demo units went out to reviewers in late 1984, but production units didn't land in the hands of general consumers until early 1985.

While intended to stand out from its competitors with its styling and marketing, the Enterprise also chose to largely build of established components. Not launching until 1985 made the somewhat pricey Enterprise a hard sell against the Spectrum, or Commodore 64 or even the Amstrad CPC which was first to market with a dark color scheme reminiscent of the Enterprise case. Reviewers were split over whether the machine's appearance made it futuristic or toy-like and a non-standard port of BASIC meant an additional hurdle for the hobbyist market. A lack of third party support was the final nail in the coffin leading to poor sales and by some estimates as many as a quarter of the 80,000 units produced were shipped to licensees in Germany and Hungary. By the end of 1986, production had ended and Enterprise Computers was already out of business.

In Germany the computer was marketed as the Mephisto PHC 64 by Hegener + Glaser, which was known for its Mephisto line of chess computers. The license in Hungary was owned by Videoton which sold rebranded Enterprises as well as its own variants sold under the "TV-Computer" moniker.