Dynalogic Hyperion

Keyboard Builders' Digest / Keyboard Spotting

Dynalogic Hyperion

This gorgeous Dynalogic Hyperion, a Canadian luggable from the early '80s, was posted by u/snuci.

KBD.news
Published June 5, 2022

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Santo Nucifora aka snuci posted this Dynalogic Hyperion on r/retrobattlestations (and won the DOS Compatible Week Contest btw).

He owns some of these beauties, and the one in the picture above is from 1984 I guess.

The first Canadian computer I just had to collect was the Dynalogic Hyperion. It was a luggable computer with a unique design. The keyboard snaps into place for transport and had it’s own transport bag – snuci (source).

Maybe this is a better photo to demonstrate how the computer can accommodate the keyboard (in contrast to the foldable approach of e.g. Kaypro models and the IBM Portable 5155):

Pic:

Dynalogic

Founded by C. Murray Bell in 1973, Dynalogic was an Ottawa-based company designing minicomputers, desktop calculators, and various computer parts. In 1981, the company was taken over by Bytec Management Corp., and the Hyperion was introduced in the same year.

It was a portable desktop microcomputer, compatible with IBM PCs* – designed and manufactured by Dynalogic Info-Tech, a Bytec subsidiary (source).

According to snuci, the Dynalogic Hyperion (sold for C$4995 in 1983) was able to run IBM DOS, however, it was not 100% compatible. Dynalogic used to maintain DOS compatibility lists of software to try to keep up with IBM. You can see some of them here.

Commenter Netsurfer_x2 seems to be familiar with this model too:

A spot of trivia: If it looks like it bears more than a passing resemblance to an Apple LISA, there's a reason why. Guess which company poached the designer of this computer. Guess what his first machine was at the new company.

Keyboard

The keyboard sports Key Tronic foam & foil switches, just like my Kontron PSI 80 introduced last week – with proper foils but without the pink springs this time.

This means the keyboard is capacitive, and it has one of the coolest PCB patterns (photo from deskthority but also by snuci):

Pic:

Manufactured in the early '80s, before the standardization of keyboards, it slightly resembles the IBM Model F XT as well (Key Tronic offered Model F clones!) – with all the stepped keys and ten F-keys, albeit arranged differently.

You can find much more photos of this Dynalogic here: https://vintagecomputer.ca/dynalogic-hyperion-a-canadian-classic/.

And check out Santo's entire site, which is full of awesome relics: https://vintagecomputer.ca.

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Published on Sun 5th Jun 2022. Featured in KBD #81 (source).

Keyboard Builders' Digest / Keyboard Spotting