CST Thor - Thor XVI

The Thor XVI was developed in collaboration with the Danish company DanSoft and was announced at the Personal Computer World Show in September 1987. Unlike the previous models, the Thor XVI's hardware was of a completely new design, based around an 8 MHz 68000 processor plus a 2 MHz 68B02 co-processor for audio and I/O processing. 512 KiB of RAM was included as standard (expandable to 2 MiB, later 6.5 MiB). The video hardware provided QL-compatible video modes as well as a new 16-colour mode. Floppy disk, SCSI, Centronics, dual RS-232, PC/AT keyboard, mouse, QL expansion bus and QLAN network interfaces were provided. Mass storage options were similar to the previous Thors, plus 40 MB hard disk and diskless network workstation configurations. The Thor XVI was housed in a case similar to that of the Thor PC.

The Thor XVI included in ROM a QDOS-compatible operating system derived from QDOS 1.13, called Argos. Like its predecessors, the XVI was bundled with Xchange.

Production started in early 1988, and around 250 Thor XVIs were built in the UK. Prices were slightly higher than the Thor PC. Later in 1988, a joint CST/DanSoft marketing operation, Thor International, was formed in Denmark in an attempt to increase sales to the European market. The Thor XVI hardware was revised slightly and production was moved to Brüel & Kjær in Denmark. Plans were also made to build Thors under license in Russia, but this came to nothing.

The following year, Thor International (and CST) collapsed amid acrimony and legal action over the disputed transfer of assets from the UK by the partners.