Reception
At the time of introduction, the only competitors were 8-bit processors (mainly Intel 8080, Z80, and MOS Technology 6502 based systems). The MicroEngine could compile Pascal source code in a fraction of the time (typically about 1/10) required by contemporaries. Fast compilation made the MicroEngine especially nice as a developer's machine, and the inclusion of a semaphore primitive in the microcode was particularly useful for multi user enhancements, which were developed in Melbourne for the Canberra Australia based Ortex Company, extended to be a multiuser system and often sold with a bundled pharmacy management system, also delivered on the Sage IV computers under UCSD Pascal IV and enabled as a multiuser system using the Sage multiuser bios rather than by extending UCSD Pascal IV to add a semaphore. This performance advantage was eroded by the later availability of p-code to native machine code translators, and mainstream 16-bit microprocessors such as the Intel 8086 and Motorola 68000.
When first announced the MicroEngine accumulated a very large number of pre-orders (for the time). The first boards shipped were poorly designed (power and ground traces the same size as signal traces, very few capacitors), required a large number of modifications, and even then did not work reliably. A couple of years would pass after introduction before a well-engineered MicroEngine was available. Between a damaged reputation and the introduction of the IBM PC, in the end the MicroEngine was only modestly successful.
A further example of a commercial product based on the MicroEngine was the AVAB Viking lighting control system, which used the Modular MicroEngine boards along with some custom hardware.
Read more about this topic: Pascal Micro Engine
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