ICL One Per Desk / BT Merlin Tonto
The QL's CPU, ZX8301 and ZX8302 ULAs and ZX Microdrives also
formed the basis of International Computers Ltd's (ICL's) One Per Desk
(OPD) - also marketed by British Telecom as the Merlin Tonto and by
Telecom Australia as the Computerphone. The result of a three-year
collaboration between Sinclair Research, ICL and British Telecom, the
OPD had the intriguing addition of a telephone handset on one end of
the keyboard, and rudimentary Computer-Telephony Integration (CTI)
software. This curious machine interested a number of high-profile
business customers, including certain divisions of the former UK
Customs and Excise Department, but its success was generally limited.
In the late eighties they were used in Bingo halls to allow a country
wide networked bingo game.
Useful Links
- ICL One Per Desk page on the RWAP Software website
- ICL, One Per Desk and BT Tonto entries on Binary Dinosaurs museum
- A full technical breakdown of the OPD by Murray McCabe
- One Per Desk entry on OldComputers.com museum
