The One Per Desk, or OPD, was an innovative hybrid personal computer/telecommunications terminal based on the hardware of the Sinclair QL. The One Per Desk was built by International Computers Limited (ICL) and launched in the UK in 1984. It was the result of a collaborative project between ICL, Sinclair Research and British Telecom begun in 1983, originally intended to incorporate Sinclair's flat-screen CRT technology. Rebadged versions of the OPD were sold in the United Kingdom as the Merlin Tonto and as the Computerphone by Telecom Australia and the New Zealand Post Office. The initial orders placed for the One Per Desk were worth £4.5 million (for 1500 units) from British Telecom and £8 million from Telecom Australia, with ICL focusing on telecommunications providers as the means to reach small- and medium-sized businesses. Hardware From the QL, the OPD borrowed the 68008 CPU, ZX8301/8302 ULAs, 128 KB of RAM and dual Microdrives (re-engineered by ICL for greater reliability) but not the 8049 Intelligent Peripheral Controller. Unique to the OPD was a "telephony module" incorporating an Intel 8051 microcontroller (which also controlled the keyboard), two PSTN lines and a V.21/V.23 modem, plus a built-in telephone handset and a TI TMS5220 speech synthesiser (for automatic answering of incoming calls). The OPD was supplied with either a 9-inch monochrome (white) monitor, priced at £1,195 plus VAT, or with a 14-inch colour monitor, priced at £1,625 plus VAT. Both monitors also housed the power supply for the OPD itself. Later, 3.5" floppy disk drives were also available from third-party vendors. Software The system firmware (BFS or "Basic Functional Software") was unrelated to the QL's Qdos operating system, although a subset of SuperBASIC was provided on Microdrive cartridge. The BFS provided application-switching, voice/data call management, call answering, phone number directories, viewdata terminal emulation and a simple calculator. The Psion applications suite bundled with the QL was also ported to the OPD as Xchange and was available as an optional ROM pack, priced at £130. Other optional application software available on ROM included various terminal emulators such as Satellite Computing's ICL7561 emulator, plus their Action Diary and Presentation Software, address book, and inter-OPD communications utilities. An ICL supplied application was used to synchronise a national bingo game across hundreds of bingo halls in the UK. The integral V.23 dialup modem was used to provide remote communications to the central server. Several UK ICL Mainframe (Series 39)