Crumpets and tea: British home computers of the 1980s and 1990s

Just like I did with American computers, I'm starting this thread to mention some British computers of the 1980s and 1990s I find interesting. During this period many British manufacturers took advantage of government loans to jump on the bandwagon of home computers, which back then was a new and promising area of business. Some of these computers became hits, but many others didn't. Some found some success in foreign markets, but others never found their footing outside the UK and remain relatively unknown for hobbyists and emulation enthusiasts.

I'll try to keep things more or less in chronological order, but I can't promise anything. Some of the timelines of these computers overlap, and others are best described in isolation because of their uniqueness.

I plan to cover machines such as the Dragon32/64, the BBC Micro or the Oric-1 and Atmos.

 

My first post is going to cover the Jupiter Ace, and 8-bit computer sold between 1982 and 1984 by Jupiter Cantab.



If this is not your first rodeo, you may have noticed that the case of this computer is very similar to the one of the Sinclair Z80, which I covered on the ZX Spectrum thread. That is no coincidence. Jupiter Cantab was founded by some of the people who worked in the ZX Spectrum project. But rather than attempting to compete with the new machine, their only computer is more like a competitor to the Sinclair ZX81/ZX81 computers. It was build on the cheap (more on that later) and at first it was only sold by mail order. Only around 5.000-9.000 units were sold and machines in working condition are hard to find these days.

Inside the case, there aren't many surprises. There's a Zilog Z80A CPU running at 3.25 MHz, 1 Kb. RAM (which could be upgraded to 49) and another 2 Kb. reserved for video memory. Actually, the CPU was a Japanese clone, the NEC D780C-1, which probably was cheaper. The main feature of this computer was also likely a consequence of its cheapness: No BASIC! Intead, the Jupiter Ace used another programming language known as FORTH. It is true that FORTH had some adavantages over BASIC when running on such a limited machine, such as speed and memory efficiency, but a part of me also thinks Jupiter Cantab just didn't want to spend their money on a Microsoft BASIC license.

Its use of FORTH is the main feature of this computer, but was also part of its undoing. With many users learning BASIC variants, the Ace was of little interest for them or schools. In these conditions, Jupiter Cantab close in 1983, and the Ace became the property of Boldfield Computing. Bolfield tried to promote development of more software titles and addons for the computer, but its main goal was just to sell the remaining of the computer stock.

Despite all this, the Jupiter Ace is not a bad computer. At least it's better than the Sinclair ZX80/ZX81 machines, because it was developed a bit later. They could display monochrome graphics at a 64x48 resolution and had minimal sound hardware (a beeper with just one channel), which is something the ZX80/ZX81 lacked. It just arrived too late and had too little software available when compared to the ZX Spectrum.

We can emulate the Jupiter Ace with MAME / MESS or the ZX Spectrum emulators EightyOne and ZesarZX. In this guide we will be using EightyOne.

Programs are loaded through tape, just like in the original computer. The commands we'll be using are:

LOAD to see the contents of a tape. We don't need to go through the whole tape for this, once we see the program we want to load and run we can stop searching and reset the computer.

LOAD <FILENAME> to load said program.

And finally <FILENAME> to run said program.

For example, let's run the game Tetris under EightyOne:





The game library? The current TOSEC set covers around 65 games. Most of them are PD titles or unreleased during the computer's shelf life. They are mostly action games and puzzles with simple graphics, plus a few text adventures.


Amazing maze


Centipede


Frogger

But I actually think they are a step up from the ZX80/ZX81 games.

 

The Dragon 32/64 are two 8-bit computers developed by Welsh manufacturer Dragon Data, Ltd. between 1982 and 1984, and by Eurohard SA between 1984 and 1987. Both models use a Motorola 6809E CPU running at 0.89 Mhz, a Motorola MC-6847 video chip and a BASIC developed by Microsoft. They came with either 32 or 64 Kb. RAM sizes, hence the name of the models.

They are very peculiar machines, in the sense that they don't resemble any of the other European 8-bit computers of the time. Instead, they are almost identical to the Tandy Color Computer and Color Computer 2 sold in the USA. These two computer lines are in fact almost compatible. BASIC programs are known to work often in both the Dragon and the Color Computer, while ASM programs are incompatible because of the different memory mapping.

This case of almost-plagiarism seems unintended. Both Tandy and Dragon Data were following instructions from Motorola about how to build a computer around the 6809E CPU and ended with very similar products. At least one of the sources I checked thinks some of the incompatibilities were introduced by Dragon Data on purpose in order to prevent a lawsuit by Tandy.

The Dragon machines were succesful in the UK during the early 1980s, and with the help of software developer Microdeal and the magazine Dragon User they had a pretty active community. They sold around 40.000 units, but the computer had important limitations when compared to newcomers like the ZX Spectrum and the Amstrad CPC. Their graphic modes were more limited and they couldn't display text in lower case, which also prevented them from being adopted by schools. In 1984 Dragon Data, Ltd. ceased to exist and several companies expressed interest on the Dragon. One of them was Tandy, which could have used the computer to enter the European market.

Finally it was Spanish manufacturer Eurohard SA who relieved Dragon Data. They moved production to Spain and manufactured a new model, the Dragon 200, which could display lower case text and had other improvements. But despite obtaining some educational contracts business didn't pick up. By the time they closed in 1987, Eurohard was gravitating towards the MSX standard. In fact, a Dragon MSX is known to exist as a prototype.



Hardware-wise, the Dragon 32/64 are interesting because of their use of the Motorola 6809E CPU. It's an 8-bit CPU, but one which allows some 16-bit operations, and was much more powerful and expensive than the MOS 6502 or the Zilog Z80 employed by other 8-bit computers of the time.

Unfortunately, the Motorola MC-6847 video chip only allows for some low resolution color modes, such as 64x32 and 9 colors, 128x96 and 4 colors and 192x128 and 4 colors. The highest graphic mode available is 256x192 with only two colors. Even worse, the palettes are locked, which means that graphics are reduced to either low resolutions and garish colors (white and green are predominant) or a slightly higher resolution but only in black and white.


Donkey King


Airball

The Dragon 32/64 also equipped a 6-bit DAC, capable of playing 1 voice under BASIC and 4 voices using ASM. More than enough for such a modest computer.

Dragon32/64 software can come in the form of tape, disk or cartridge images. The first two required external units back in the day, while cartridges were loaded through a slot in the right side of the computer.

As for emulators, we have two main options.

Option 1 is the dedicated emulator XRoar. It emulates the Dragon 32/64, the Dragon 200, the Tandy CoCo and CoCo2 and even some more obscure variants, such as the American Tano Dragon or the French Matra Hachette Alice. Unfortunately, it doesn't include the required BIOS files, but you can obtain them here.

The main advantage if we use XRoar is the ease of use, because pretty much every program can be loaded and run from the option File --> RUN, no matter if it's a tape, a cartridge or a disk.


Chucky Egg

Option 2 means using MAME / MESS. Which implies collecting the necessary BIOS files for every system variant, and also learning the different commands for loading stuff.

Tapes are loaded with either CLOAD or CLOADM, sometimes followed by RUN.



Disks are often loaded with BOOT, but if that fails we'll need to type DIR:1 to see the contents of the disk, and then RUN"1:FILENAME-WITH-ITS-EXTENSION" to load and run an especific program.

The games... my current sets contain just a few disk games, around 30 cartridges and more than 500 tapes. Among these there are enough classics to keep you bussy. Most of them are platform games such as Jet Set Willy or Hunchback, plus some boardgames and text adventures like Colossal Cave or Adventure Land by Scott Adams.

There's even something resembling a mascot for the system, the Cuthbert games by Microdeal.


Cuthbert And The Golden Chalice

Eurohard SA also produced their own games to promote their system in Spain, which means a portion of the Dragon software library is in Spanish.

 

Today I bring you the awesomeness that is the (Acorn) BBC Micro.



The BBC Micro and variants were sold in the UK from 1981 to 1994, and were incredibly popular computers in schools and other areas. But before I talk about them, let me warn you, this is going to be quite an encompassing entry on the series.

For instance, I need to tell you that in 1981 Acorn were by no means novices when it came to computers. From 1979 they had been selling the Acorn Atom, based on the MOS 6502 CPU. The Atom was as successful as any computer could become in those days, but I won't be covering it in this article, although it does have some games.

However in 1981 the BBC started what they called the BBC Computer Literacy Project. Essentially, they were starting to understand the importance of computers and they planned to educate their audience on their fundamentals and their applications. To this end, they started contacting British computers manufacturers such as Tangerine (the future makers of the Oric computers) and Dragon Data, who would eventually sell the Dragon 32/64 computers.

However, the BBC's demands were steep for the time, and none of the machines they reviewed matched them. The BBC expected to demonstrate programming, graphics and sound, artificial intelligence and teletext on air. Enter Acorn, who were working on a replacement for the Atom at that point, and their machine was selected by the BBC. And despite this, it wasn't love at first sight, because the BBC would have preferred a machine based on the Zilog Z80 CPU that was also compatible with CP/M.

Instead, the BBC Micro series still used the MOS 6502 CPU at 1.8 Mhz, and shipped with 16, 32 or 64 Kb. RAM. They could display graphics at 160x256, 320x256 and 640x256 resolutions with 16, 4 or 2 colors and play sounds using three standard channels plus an extra noise channel.

The Micro saw widespread use in schools, radio and TV channels during this era. Some of those uses are what one would expect: programming lessons, TV credits... others are quite interesting. For instance, the TV quiz The Adventure Game had contestants navigating mazes and solving riddles, with the BBC Micro providing graphics to ilustrate the adventure:

To Acorn the Micro was a great success. It sold around 1.5 million units, gave them brand recognition and even allowed them to experiment on the RISC architecture, which would become their main source of income in the future years. However, the machine had an important handicap: it was too expensive to attract home users. To that end they designed a slower, cut-down 32 Kb. version of the BBC Micro, which became known as the Acorn Electron. It became available in 1983:



And in 1986 yet another variant of the system was introduced, the BBC Master. This was, extrictly speaking, the successor of the BBC Micro, with a revised BASIC, RAM sizes starting from 128 Kb. and sometimes 80186 or 65C02 co-processors.



These three computers are supposed to be more or less compatible with each other. But since they have different TOSEC sets and the Acorn Electron was slower than the BBC Micro, you are better off using different emulators.

The whole BBC Micro line was succeded in 1987 by the Acorn Archimedes, which were based on 32-bits RISC CPUs, although they were either sold or supported until 1994.

For the BBC Micro and BBC Master computers, the best emulator available is BeebEm.

Once launched, we should see the BASIC welcome screen:



Games usually come in tape or disk formats. Our best option is to obtain disk versions, and bootable ones if possible. In the TOSEC database, said images carry the text [bootfile] at the end of the filename.

This is, of course, because they work without user intervention. For those disks that don't boot on their own, I've been told to use these commands:

But to be honest, I haven't found them very helpful.

Oh, and tapes work with these commands:

*TAPE
CH.""

Or:

*TAPE
*RUN

If you plan to emulate the Acorn Electron, my advice is to use the emulators ElectrEm or Elkulator and follow these instructions.

As for the games... the game library is not as huge as in, say, the ZX Spectrum or Amstrad CPC. Nevertheless, the web MobyGames covers 562 for the BBC Micro and 331 for the Acorn Electron. Even admitting there will be some overlapping between both systems, that's pretty impressive.

Among those games there are plenty of classics from other platforms, such as Arkanoid...



Barbarian...



...or Way of the Exploding Fist, seen here in all its 160x256x4 glory:



There's even a very nice homebrew port of Prince of Persia, although it only works in BBC Master machines because it requires 128 Kb. RAM.

 

Just for now, I'm going to abandon chronological order. This will allow me to speak of the Acorn Archimedes and Risc PC , the successors of the BBC Micro , rather than continue with other 8-bit computers.



The Acorn Archimedes was launched in 1987. The BBC Micro and its replacements were falling behind the competition, and Acorn reacted by releasing what can only be described as a beast of a computer. It was built around a ARM-2 32 bit RISC CPU ( ARM-3 in future models) running at between 4 and 8 Mhz. This CPU alone was four or five times faster than the one in the Amiga 500 , but it was also accompanied by dedicated chips managing memory, video and controls. The Archimedes was also the first home computer to use the RISC architecture.

The rest of the computer specs were closer to contemporary 16 / 32-bit computers: 512 Kb RAM, upgraded to up to 16 Mb. in later models, plenty of graphic modes, including both 640x480 and 640x512 with 256 colors, 8 channel sounds and a graphic desktop ( Arthur , later renamed to RiscOS ) included in the ROM. Software was loaded through 800 Kb. 3'5 floppy disks, although harddrives were also supported.


RiscOS 3 desktop

Compatibility with earlier BBC Micro software was achieved through emulation. And even better, compatibility with IBM PC clones was possible through hardware addons.

As expected, the new computer was embraced by schools and universities, riding on the success of the BBC Micro. It also became present on radio and TV stations, but had trouble expanding beyond these areas of market. To the home user its powerful CPU was of little use, and 16-bit computers such as the Atari ST and the Commodore Amiga were cheaper and had much more software available.

Acorn did what they could to lower the prices of subsequent Archimedes models, but they could do very little to get more software available for the computer. The Acorn Archimedes was eventually replaced by the Risc PC in 1994.

The best emulator for the Acorn Archimedes is likely Arculator by Sarah Walker. It requires an Image of RiscOS to run, which we'll copy to the Arculator\roms\<OS version> folder. The first thing we'll be asked to do is to create a computer profile. For gaming, a 305/310 model with 1 Mb. RAM should suffice.



Once we do this, it's as simple as double clicking on the machine profile and wait until RiscOS is done loading.



Then we insert our game floppy image (they use the ADF format, just like in the Amiga) and double click on the disk drive icon at the bottom of the screen.



Then we double click again on the game icon, and voilà :



The games themselves remind me a lot of their Amiga counterparts. There's only a bunch of them, but they include classics such as Cannon Fodder , Chuck Rock , Dune II , Flashback , Simon the Sorcerer and Wolfenstein 3D , so no complaints.

Of course, the larger games will likely require a harddisk, but I still haven't learned how to set one up, so there's that.

Now, the RiscPC :



These were the second generation of RISC computers by Acorn. They were released in April 1994 and at first ran an ARM610 CPU at 30 Mhz. Their main feature is that the motherboard is now allowed for a secondary 486 or 586 CPU. No more costly IBM PC addons! The RiscPC could now run both Acorn and PC software natively.

Other innovations were the separate video RAM and 32-bit data bus, which removed two of the Archimedes bottle necks. Graphics and sound were also significantly overhauled. The RiscPC could now display 800x600 graphics with 16 million colors and even 1280x1024 with 256. And the sound was upgraded to a 16-bit stereo synth, compatible with the Sound Blaster PC cards.

The OS was once again RiscOS, 3.50 or better, loaded from ROM, although assets were loaded from the computer's harddrive.

And their usage was even narrower than the Archimedes. They seem to have been popular machines for musicians using the Sibelius scorewriting software, and in TV stations, were they were used to automate the broadcasts. The end of production was announced in 2003, although some machines have been produced since then by other companies than Acorn, presumably to replace the aging machines.

As far as I know, the RiscPC is only emulated by RPCemu, and again it requires a RiscOS ROM image to run. Unlike the Archimedes, a formatted harddrive seems almost essential to get things going. Luckily some pre-formatted disk images are available at the emulator's website for those interested.

For ADF games, usage is just like in the Archimedes: load desktop, insert disk, explore unit for icons. Most Archimedes games seem to work fine.





As for especific RiscPC games, there are a few commercial titles such as Syndicate and Dune II , but they're hard to find.

There are, however, several freeware games for the system, and even Risk ports of DOSBox , ScummVM and FreeCiv .

 

Back to 8-bit systems, today it's the turn of the Oric .



What you're seeing here it's an Oric-1 computer produced by Tangerine . It was first released in 1983, with the idea of competing against the ZX Spectrum . Unfortunately, it was hampered by a ROM full of bugs, which made loading and saving data to tape a nightmare. This is what likely prevented many software publishers from supporting it. On the other hand, it sold for pretty much the same as a ZX Spectrum, but had a better keyboard, connectivity and sound. Despite its problems, it sold 160.000 units in the UK and around 50.000 in France.

Unlike the Spectrum, the Oric-1 used the MOS Technology 6502 CPU , just like the Apple II, the Atari 8-bit computers or the Commodore VIC-20. Here it ran at 1 Mhz. Available RAM sizes were between 16 and 64 Kb, although the later often appears as 48 Kb. because the ROM hides the upper RAM section. Graphically, the computer had a 40x28 text mode with 8 colors, and a graphic mode using 240x200 with 6-bit per pixel. It shared the "color clash" limitations of the ZX Spectrum. Finally, the sound chip was a General Instrument AY-3-8912 with four channels, as in the Amstrad CPC or the Spectrum models from the Spectrum 128 onward.

Th BASIC was your standard dialect licensed by Microsoft, but with a funny quirk: Sound commands! Type for instance PING or EXPLODE at the BASIC prompt and listen.

Tangerine was dissatisfied with the sales od the Oric and sold the computer rights to Edenspring in 1984. It was Edenspring who sold the following model in the series, the Oric Atmos , also during 1984.



The Atmos had a better keyboard and solved most of the ROM issues that plagued the Oric-1. It also came with 64 Kb. RAM advertised as 48 Kb. Unfortunately, the improved Oric model now was more expensive than the ZX Spectrum, while the software was far less plentiful. After a disastrous Christmas season, only the French section of the company was left standing.

And that was not because the computer, but of a certain peculiarity in the French computer market, Minitel .



Minitel was a computer service that used the French telephone lines. It looked and acted like a hybrid of Teletext and what would eventually become the Internet. Between 1982 and 2012, millions of French used the service to read the headlines, book tickets, chat and send / receive e-mails. The service was so succesful that it eventually delayed the adoption of the Internet in France!

Ad how did the French access Minitel? There were dumb terminals available, but they could also employ their computers. Machines like the Thomson TO / MO series, the Exelvision / Exeltel and now, the Oric . It's not like the Oric sold like hot cakes in France, but it did well. Well enough for the French section of Edenspring to develop a third Oric model, the Stratos or Telestrat :



Which unfortunately only sold 6.000 untis before the company collapsed in 1988. This last Oric model is better suited to Minitel, but it also includes a floppy disk unit controller.

We emulate the Oric computers with the Oricutron emulator by Peter Gordon . It comes in Windows, Mac OS X and Amiga OS 4 versions.



We insert tape and disk images with the menu that appears with either F1 or the right mouse button:



Tapes load with the command LOAD"" If we have any issues finding any symbols, we can use a virtual keyboard, the option to show it is Keyboard options --> Show keyboard .

As usual, disks are a bit more complex than tapes. The Oric could use three different disk interfaces, Microdisc (the official one), Jasmin and Prevetz . We need to go to Hardware options and choose one of the first two:



The emulator will now prompt us for a system disk, but don't panic. Just enter the path to the disk image you want to run, reset the emulator with F4 and the disk will boot. Most of the times:



If a disk won't boot on its own, we need to insert a disk with OS first. Sedoric3 is a good choice and it's included in the TOSEC set, so... Then we switch disks and use the BASIC commands !DIR X (where X is a number from 0 to 3 meaning you unit number) to see a file list, and !LOAD PROGRAM.EXT to load and run a file.

There's a final exception, Infocom text adventures. These require an interpreter called Pinforic to be loaded first. It runs with the command INFOCOM .



In this screen we switch disks and we're set.



The game library. As I said, the Oric has nowhere as many games as the ZX Spectrum or the Commodore VIC-20. What we have, though, it's pretty much great and pretty unique, especially if you are into Infocom text adventures or games by French developers such as Loriciels or Infogrames .


L'aigle d'or

And we also have some great homebrew games, such as Pulsoids :

 

Until now this thread has covered relatively known British machines. But now the time has come to speak of those machines that can't defend themselves. The failures, the orphans, the weak have now a new defender, as the thread readies to welcome the Enterprise 64/128. Energize!



The Enterprise was the creation of Intelligent Software, but was marketed by Enterprise computers. And the reason you probably haven't heard of these people is that the Enterprise was an utter failure. It was announced as early as 1983, but didn't hit the shops until 1985. By that time not only home computer sales had estagnated, but the market was dominated by the ZX Spectrum, the Amstrad CPC, the Commodore 64 and the BBC Micro. Two Enterprise models were produced, the 64 and 128, but units made it into shops only in small quantities. Larger retailers were not interested in a new computer, while smaller shops were reluctant to sell a product rejected by bigger chains. Around 80.000 machines were manufactured, with as many as 20.000 being shipped to Hungary, where a small but active community was formed around the computer. Apart from poor distribution, the computer suffered because of the lack of software and a higher selling price than the above-mentioned computers.

Did the Enterprise deserve this? Not really. Even in 1985 it was one of the most powerful and versatile 8-bit computers available. It had a Zilog Z80 CPU running at 4 Mhz, 64 or 128 Kb. RAM (that could be upgraded up to 4 Mb.), and custom audio and video chips comparable to the ones in contemporary computers. BASIC came in a separate cartridge, which meant it could be easibly replaced with another one. The default system cartridge included EXOS BASIC and a word processor, but there was a separate ZX Spectrum ROM available that provided a high compatibility with those computers. Even the back of the computer offered connections beyond the ordinary: RGB, RS-232, Centronics printer port, two joysticks, two tape units, ROM cartridges and an expansion port.

The Enterprise computers only have a bunch of games available. They are these ones:

Abyss, The (Entersoft)
Airwolf (Elite)
Alien Highway (Vortex)
Batman (Ocean)
Beach Head (US Gold)
Beatcha (Romik Software)
Bruce Lee (Datasoft)
Bumpy (Loriciels)
Catacomb (Entersoft)
Chains (Artifical)
Cyrus Chess (Inteligent Software)
Devil's Lair (Loriciels)
Five in a Row (Entersoft)
Happy Letters (Bourne Educational)
Happy Numbers (Bourne Educational)
Heathrow ATC (Hewson)
King Of the Castle (Entersoft)
Lands of Havoc (Entersoft)
Nodes of Yesod (Odin)
Orient Express (Entersoft)
Raid over Moscow (US Gold)
Spanish Gold (Chalksoft)
Starstrike 3D (Realtime Games)
Steve Davis Snooker (CDS Software)
Super Pipeline II (Taskset Ltd)
Wriggler (Romantic Robot)

However, many other games are currently available. I'd say most of them are Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum ports made by Enterprise users.

The best emulator I've heard of for this computer is Ep32 - Enterprise emulator. It also emulates the Amstrad CPC and the ZX Spectrum, so make sure you run it from the ep128emu icon.





Games are found in a variety of formats. CAS files are tapes, IMG disks, and files with extensions such as BAS or COM need to be copied into disk images using the program Virtual Floppy Drive.

Just for once, disks are the easiest format to use. We enter them through the menu Options --> Disk --> Configure... and they run with either the command START or by pressing F1.

The emulator website itself offers a collection of game disks, which mostly consist of Spectrum and Amstrad CPC ports:





But if you want something closer to the real thing, you'll need to set up an Enterprise with an external tape unit. You do that by selecting a configuration from File --> Configuration --> Load from ASCII file. EP_128k_Tape.cfg from the folder ep128uk should be fine.

You then enter tape images from Machine --> Tape --> Select image file (or by pressing ALT+T) and load them with the LOAD command. Don't forget to press play on tape with ALT+P. Loading will then start automatically.





Those seem like a lot of extra steps, but it's simpler than it looks.

 

Damn you, Soviet Russia! You killed the Memotech, prepare to dieeeeeeeeeeeeee!



Well, actually Soviet Russia didn't kill the Memotech. More on that later.

The Memotech MTX is the only computer manufactured by Memotech, unless you count the RS-128, which is basically the same computer. Memotech was a small British company that had found a niche selling expansions for the Sinclair ZX80/ZX81 computers. The MTX was released in 1983, and like the Spectravideo SVI-318 / 328 and the Sord M5 we could consider them predecessors to the first generation of the MSX standard. They have very similar hardware, but they are not compatible with said standard, and therefore their software library is limited to what their manufacturers could get.

Externally and compared to the competition, these computers look quite sophisticated. Their cases are made of brushed aluminium and have a full stroke keyboard. Even their peripherals looked great. Here's a FDX expansion, which includes two disk drives and extra room for further expansions:



Internally, however, everything is pretty similar to the MSX1: A Zilog Z80 CPU running at 4 Mhz., between 32 and 128 Kb. RAM which could be expanded up to 768 Kb., and TMS9918 and Texas Instruments SN76489 chips controlling video and sound. They provide graphics up to 256x192 resolutions with 16 colors and 32 sprites and 3-voice + 1 pink noise channel sounds. A BASIC variant was provided in ROM, which also included a Z80 assembler / disassembler. Like in other computer of the period, CP/M 2.2 was also supported when using a disk drive.

The Memotech MTX wasn't a bad computer. In some aspects, it was superior to the ZX Spectrum or the BBC Micro, but when it arrived these machines were already dominating the home and aducational markets. And the business market was already gravitating towards the IBM PC.

Under these circumstances, it's no surprise that Memotech soon found themselves in financial trouble. And this is when the USSR enters the game, because they were looking to renovate their aging computer fleet. At first they looked for brand new DOS machines, but after it became clear that the west wouldn't allow such "advanced" technology to be sold to Soviet Russia, they settled for the next best thing, computers that could run CP/M software.

Memotech was one of the companies that could supply them, but they had to modify their computers for the Russian market and asked for a loan to the British government. The UK government was at that time very generous when it came to loans for computer manufacturers. It's one of the reasons why so many of them appeared during that period. But for whatever reason, they only gave Memotech a fraction of the money they needed. Desperate, Memotech, then asked the USSR for a forward payment, and the USSR declined. Memotech wasn't their only option, and they finally ended up buying MSX computers from Yamaha and Daewoo.

Memotech finally entered bankrupcy in 1985, and this made British government reconsider their generosity towards computer manufacturers. Companies such as Sinclair, Acorn and Apricot would suffer in the future because of that.

Prototypes of the Russian Memotech do exist, and they look awesome:



They would have had a cyrillic keyboard and a ROM translated to Russian.

Emulation of the Memotech? There's a dedicated emulator called MEMU which seems to be excellent. However, it is run through the command line, and the only frontend I've heard of requires Python.

I'd rather use MAME / MESS. It's only inconvenient is that then tapes need to be in WAV format instead of MTX in order to load. As for games, we have around 40 titles. They strongly resemble MSX games, but most of them are especific to this machine.

Once we're emulating the MTX, tape games load using the LOAD"" command. Don't forget to press PLAY on the virtual tape as well.





CP/M disk games are supposed to exist, but I couldn't find any of them. Cartridges are also supported, but they seem reserved for programming languages rather than games.

 

While I was researching the Memotech MTX, I heard of an interesting homebrew game for the system. It's called HEXTRAIN and uses pre-rendered graphics to give us something like a 3D train simulation.



I thought you may find it interesting. Here's its homepage, since the game is not yet in any of the TOSEC sets.

 

Summer is almost over... I think it's time to wrap up this thread. There are probably more British computers worthy of mention, but right now I can't think of any. So unless I hear of any others the last one I'll mention is the Tatung Einstein.



Tatung is a Taiwanese company that still exists today. But they don't make computers anymore, they work in computer networks, appliances and automation. It's good to hear that their adventures in computing didn't end them.

My only interest on them, however, is the Einstein, an 8-bit computer they sold from 1984. Although the company is based on Taiwan, Tatung designed and manufactured their computers on Telford, Shropshire. The reason for that was likely the financial support the UK government gave to computer manufactures at the time. Tatung build two models, the Einstein TC-01 and the Einstein 256.

Their hardware was pretty similar. A Zilog Z80A CPU running at 4 Mhz., 64 Kb. RAM and a General Instrument AY-3-8910 3-voice chip for sound. They differ only in the video chip and its dedicated RAM. The first model has a Texas Instruments TMS9129 with 16 Kb. VRAM, while the second uses a Yamaha V9938 with 192 Kb. They displeyed graphics at a resolution of 256x192 with 16 simultaneous colors.

The Einstein also employed Hitachi 3' floppy drives, like the Amstrad CPC / PCW and the ZX Spectrum +3.

The hardware is not too different from the first generation of the MSX standard, and these computers are sometimes grouped with other pre-MSX machines such as the Spectravideo SVI-318 / 328.

The SO is proprietary and quite interesting. It's called Xtal DOS and it's CP/M compatible. It also includes a BASIC interpreter, Xtal BASIC. However, it seems that an external 80-column addon is needed for full CP/M compatibility.

Another addon worthy of mention is the Speculator by SintaxSoft. It's a module containing hardware similar to a ZX Spectrum and a cassette port, and it allowed the Einstein to run many Spectrum games.



The instructions also mentioned how to convert many more so they would load on the Einstein.

The Einsteins were large, solid computers with plenty of software available, especially when recurring to the CP/M library. However, they had little especific software and were expensive. They did however find a very interesting use: until the IBM PC and the Atari ST became popular, many developers used them to convert games among the most popular 8-bit formats. If you ever wondered how they converted games from ZX Spectrum to, say, Amstrad CPC, well, this is one of the answers.

The only emulator I know for the Einstein computers is MAME / MESS. It emulates both models, but our best option is to emulate the Einstein 256, for the extra RAM.



Usage is pretty simple. Games come in the shape of disk images, and most of the time they run just by inserting them and pressing CTRL+BREAK, which in the PC keyboard are mapped to Left CTRL and ALT. This is how we've load Elite:



If a game refuses to load this way, we enter DIR to see the contants of the disk, then the name of the COM file we want to run.





The game library is small, of around 70 games, but it contains plenty of classics: Chucky Egg, Jet Set Willy, Manic Miner... and as seen above, the best version ever of Oh Mummy! Not too shabby for an almost unknown computer.

 

I'm going to post a small addendum after all. That's because I hadn't heard of the Camputers Lynx until last week.


This is AFAIK the only computer by Campers and no, the name of the company is not a typo. I guess it's either a joke or a play on Cambridge, but I'm not sure.

The three different Lynx models were sold only from 1983 to 1984, and were likely created to compete against the BBC Micro , the Oric-1 and the ZX Spectrum . They didn't catch on, mainly because they were poorly designed. They had a very good BASIC and were based on the Zilog Z80A CPU running at 4-6 Mhz depending on the model, but their graphic and sound capabilities were subpar. The three different models (48, 96 and 128) differ in their RAM size. Also, the CPU runs at 4 mHz. in the 48 Kb. models only.

They also carry a Motorola 6845 video chip, capable of 256x252 resolutions and 8 simultaneous colors, and a 6-bit sound DAC. The main limitations of the computer come from the video chip or, more especificaly, the way it's handled. The computer always runs in high resolution mode, and video updates are slow and cumbersome. Many games for the system avoid scrolling altogether to bypass these limitations. And the 6-bit DAC was also below what was expected from a computer from this era.

That the Lynx sold for more money than the competition and its small software library were also contributing factors on its failure. In 1984 the computer rights were bought by Anston Technology , which planned for a re-release and more advanced models, but finally settled for provinding support for previous users.

The best option to emulate the Lynx is the dedicated emulator jinxemulator by Jonathan Markland. It includes the necessary BIOS files and runs tape games automatically. On the other hand, I don't see an option to run disk images. Since the Lynx machines equipped with an external floppy drive could run CP/M , this means a part of their software library is off limits. If you really want to run those disk images, you should check out MAME and their Lynx software lists.



We run tape games by typing either MLOAD "FILENAME" or LOAD "FILENAME" followed by RUN . In order to learn FILENAME we must type LOAD"" from the BASIC prompt, which is a bit cumbersome.

Fortunately, jinxemulator allows you to run tapes directly using the File --> Run TAP File... option.

Games... there should be like 120 of them, but my TOSEC set only contains around 60. This said, it's not a bad selection, and as always there are a few classics of the era worth checking out.


Centipede


Oh Mummy!


Pengo

 

GHOST OF NEVILLE'S FATHER: Avenge me, oh my son. Time has come for you to assume your duty, and right the wrongful death of your ancestor!

NEVILLE: Oh, beloved father. Does it it need to be now?

GHOST OF NEVILLE'S FATHER: But of course! Why doth you even asketh?! Remember that your evil uncle rules the kingdom of Denmark, his unlawfully obtained crown resting on his traitorous forehead. And that he hath seduced and married the supermodel I had reserved for myself, who is now your stepmother. And that's not even the worse. Since he murdered me without confession, now every night I have to return to the pits of hell, wher I am tortured in thee most gruesome and undignified fashions. For this, my son, you must avenge me. Avenge meeeeee!

NEVILLE: I will, father. But today I realised that since until 1997 Hong Kong was still British territory, and because all the oceans are interconected, and because the Thames goes through London, I now have an excuse to talk about the EACA EG2000 Colour Genie and the VTech Laser in this thread.

GHOST OF NEVILLE'S FATHER: But.. but... Revenge! And hell, and...

NEVILLE: Oh, shut the fuck up, will you? You'll have your revenge. Eventually. But now I have other things to do.

GHOST OF NEVILLE'S FATHER: But...

NEVILLE: Enough. Let's talk about the EACA EG2000 Colour Genie.



So once upon a time in the early 1980s, there was this Hong Kong manufacturer who had made some profit selling clones of the Tandy TRS-80 computer, that monochrome computer that had become a great hit in the USA since the late 1970s. They were known as Video Genie and also reached West Germany and Australia, were they were sold under the Dick Smith label.


A Dick Smith System 80, variant of the Video Genie

This was a standard Dick Smith move (pun intended). Smith was an Australian entrepenour who owned Dick Smith Electronics, a chain of stores dedicated to electronics such as car and CB radios. During the 1970s and 1980s he was known for his publicity stunts -such as towing a fake icebeg into the Sydney harbor- and for distributing foreign computers in Australia and New Zealand. In many cases, he would re-brand said computers with his name, like he did with the Dick Smith Cat -an Apple II clone- or the Dick Smith Wizzard, which was a VTech CreatiVision.

Anyway, when in 1980 Tandy substituted their monochrome TRS-80 with the first of their Color Computers, EACA was caught off guard. And now what? Should we keep selling clones of an outdated computer? Or should we make clones of the Color Computer instead?

EACA decided to do neither of the above. Rather than clone the Color Computer, they created their own evolution of the TRS-80. They added color modes to the Video Genie, but at the same time they decided to keep the old Zilog Z80 CPU, while the Color Computers used the Motorola 6809. This meant that the new Colour Genies were not compatible with the Tandy Color Computer, but they could run TRS-80 and Video Genie software through an external program. And even better, with some small modifications Colour Genie disks could be read in a TRS-80.

The Colour Genies were sold between 1980 (or 1982 depending on the source) and 1983. They did well enough for such a small computer. Unfortunately in 1983 EACA went bankrupt while developing a 16-bit computer, and that meant the end of their run.


The hardware:

CPU: Zilog Z80 @ 2'2 Mhz. Normally a clone was used, either a NEC D78 (Japanese and unlicensed) or a SGS Z80 (European).
RAM: 16 Kb, which could be expandeded to 32.
OS: BASIC by Microsoft.
Gráficos: CRTC Motorola 6845, which could output graphics at 160x102 dots and 4 colors.
Sound: General Instruments AY-8910, with three sound channels and an extra noise channel.

Graphically the Color Genie was inferior to the first Tandy CoCo. It had less resolution and couldn't mix graphics and characters. On the other hand it was better build, with a more robust case, a mechanical keyboard and had more ports, one for two joysticks, another for lightpens and even a RS-232 communications port.

Programs were mostly loaded from tape, although 5.25 disk units were available. Disks could carry as much as 720 Kb.


Emulation:

As usual, MAME has emulation for this system, but we'll need the files cgenie.zip, cgenie_fdc.zip and cgenienz.zip. But it's easier to use the dedicated emulator Genieous by Attila Grósz.



Games for the system can be found in its TOSEC set or in MAME's software lists.

And programs load just like they did in the TRS-80:

BASIC programs load with the commands CLOAD and RUN.

And programs in machine code load with SYSTEM plus the first letter of the program. And if the program doesn't start by itself, we enter /.

Under Genious we don't even need to bother with these instructions, because we can run programs directly from the menu File --> Autostart file...



There are around 60 games available, many of them clones of hits from the era, such as Frogger , Jetpac or Donkey Kong .





And here you can see several of them in action:

 

Now that we opened the can of worms that is the Hong Kong computer manufacturers, it's time to talk about the VTech Laser series, and more especifically of the Laser 200/300 models.



As you can fathom from the previous sentence, the 200/300 model is part of a longer running series of computers. As far as I know, the series consists of the following computers:

The Laser 100/200/300 are computers based on the design of the Tandy TRS-80. Thus, they're based on the Zilog Z80 CPU, use Microsoft BASIC and the ROM is almost identical. But whereas the TRS-80 was a monochrome computer, the 200/300 models have a few color modes. So no, they're not compatible and were sold worldwide as entry level computers starting from 1983. Dick Smith released them as the Dick Smith VZ200/300 in Australia and New Zealand, while they were known as Texet TX8000 in England and the Salora Fellow in northern Europe.

The Laser 128 from 1984 was probably VTech's biggest success at the time. It was an Apple II clone inspired by the Apple IIc but considerably cheaper. Apple sued VTech over it but lost in court, since VTech had reverse-engineered the Apple ROM instead of cloning it, and had even licensed the same BASIC from Microsoft. It's widely regarded as one of the best Apple II clones ever made because of its high compatibility.



The Laser 350/500/700/750 substitute the previous 100/200/300 series. They started production in 1985 and are similar to the MSX. VTech intended them to compete against the MSX and they're comparable but not compatible. They use a Zilog Z80 CPU at 3.7 Mhz., carry 128 Kb. RAM and can load software from tape or disk.



VTech also sold IBM PC compatibles until the arrival of the 80486 CPUs, and has dabbled on computers for kids, portable consoles and videoconsoles.


The hardware:

This guide will be centered in the Laser 200/300 models.

CPU: Zilog Z80 A running at 3'58 Mhz.
RAM: Between 2 and 22 Kb. depending on the model. Could be upgraded to 64 Kb.
Graphics: Motorola 6847 controller, the same as in the Tandy Color Computer, it can display graphics up to 128x64 in resolution and 4 simultaneous colors.
Sound: 1 channel internal speaker.
SO: Microsoft BASIC.
Storage: External cassette and disk units.

Model 310 has a mechanical keyboard and more RAM.

These computers were advertised as the cheapest color computers available, and true to their word were marginally cheaper than a ZX Spectrum with 16 Kb. RAM. They couldn't be compared to the newer batch of 8-bit domestic computers (ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, MSX) but were a better deal than the aging Sinclair ZX80/81 or Commodore VIC-20.

The Laser 200/300 didn't do well in Spain or the UK, but saw some use in Australia and New Zealand, were they were sold under the Dick Smith label. A small but active community formed around the computer in those countries, and some user clubs survived until the 1990s.


Emulation:

Once again, MAME comes to our aid when it comes to obscure systems like this one. However, you may prefer to use VZEM, which I had to obtain from Emu-France because their website is down.



The BASIC is pretty similar, if not identical, to the one in the Tandy Color Computer and their British cousins, the Dragon 32/64. I don't think Microsoft put much thought into it. But then, they're very similar machines.

Games... there are around 50 of them, and some of them instantly remember hits from their era. I mean, what could possibly Arkaball be about?



So I didn't have to search much to find a Space Invaders clone.

Tapes load with CLOAD and RUN, as usual:



And there you go:



Some software on disk should exist as well, but I couldn't find any. If you find it, chances are it will load just like in the Tandy Color Computer.