Luxor
More info
- Released
- 1923–
- Type
- Electronics manufacturer
- Owner
- Nokia (from 1985)
A radio and TV factory in Motala that, somewhat improbably, became Sweden's biggest home computer maker with the ABC 80.
Founded in 1923, Luxor spent most of the century as a household name for Swedish radios and television sets. In 1978 it launched the ABC 80, designed together with Dataindustrier (DIAB) and built around a Z80 with BASIC in ROM. It became the school computer across much of the country and was followed by the ABC 800 series and the Unix-oriented ABC 1600.
The machines were good; the market was too small. Swedish schools and offices were no match for the IBM PC and the Asian clones, and Japanese competition was squeezing the TV business at the same time. The state stepped in after a crisis in the late 1970s and in 1985 sold Luxor to Nokia, which shut down computer production. The brand survives on consumer electronics with no connection to Motala.