Yesterday, I received a 2nd MicroEngine board, unfortunately in a worse state than my first one. Also, probably an earlier patch level as there is less patch cableing on the board. Nevertheless, nice to have.
Also, if you look for images for boot floppy disks, you can find them under ftp://ftp.dreesen.ch/WD9000/MicroEngine.zip.
Recently, while searching for another computer, I found a computer in a box in another box that I obviously bought some years ago, but then completely forgot about it. What was even funnier is that I saw this exact model on ebay some days ago and actually thought about bidding for it (which I didn’t). This computer finally sold on ebay for over €850 or $960 even without power supply or joysticks. I do not remember, but I am pretty sure I did not pay that type of money whenever it was that I purchased it.
Okok, to the point: Let me introduce you to the VideoBrain, sometimes also called the VideoBrain Family Computer, the sole model produced by a company called Umtech from 1977 on.
Very unusual for a home computer was the full travel, 36-key keyboard it featured. However, it is said to be poorly designed and difficult to use. Certainly, the choice of functions on it looks very weird.
The VideoBrain had no built-in computer language. However, there was one language available as a cartridge from December 1978. If you would had to guess which language one should offer to home consumers, only a few people would come up with the choice of VideoBrain: APL/S. APL is a programming language which (according to its Wikipedia page) is influenced by “mathematical notation” and influenced itself such crowd pleasers as “MATLAB” and the “Wolfram Language” :-).
Regarding the VideoBrain and APL/S there is a magnificient audio recording from the Third West Coast Computer Faire conference in 1978. This recording was made during the presentations of the Conference. Thir first and second presentation are:
and you can listen to them in very good quality using the last link in the references.
And, you heard it here first, the $150 APL/S cartridge actually had not only ROM, but also more RAM (if you listen to the presentations from the last paragraph). This is also hardly surprising as 1 kB of RAM is hardly enough for a (later) Sinclair ZX81 with its efficient, token-based program representation, let alone APL, a language that can handle entire number arrays with a single operator. <update>[Brown78] states that the cartridge had 13 kB of ROM and 1(!) more kB of RAM.</update>
When you listen to the presentation of Robert G. Brown, you can also hear his rationale of offering APL as opposed to Basic, namely the higher productivity and better degree of programming structures. These are, of course, honorable reasons for a computer scientist, but seem a little bit odd for an entry-level computer with hardly enough memory to actually have program readability problems :-).
The above presentations are also contained as text articles in the Proceedings of the Third West Coast Computer Faire conference. But if you are interested in the APL dialect, also Byte had an article by Robert G. Brown, the author of APL/S in the December of 1979 issue, and this issue is online (see references below).
The main differences of APL/S to APL are:
APL/S uses a two-part user interface. In the lower half the user can enter and execute code. The upper half is reserved for bar charts. For variable names, only the first four characters are used.
The VideoBrain was the first home computer system where the software was available as cartridges. These could contain of up to 12 kB of ROM. Fewer than 25 software titles were ever markteted for the VideoBrain.
The used CPU is quite old and exotic. It is a Fairchild F8, which consists of two chips (the CPU and the “Program Storage Unit”. This sounds awkward, but was actually a technical achievement in 1975, at a time when earlier CPU designs distributed the needed functionality over a larger number of chips (sometimes 7 or more chips). Later on, CPUs assembled all functions in one chip. As a result, the F8 was quite economic, which, according to [CPU Museum], made it in 1977 to “the world´s leading microprocessor in terms of CPU sales”. However, as we know, the number of computers exploded only after 1977, and these computers used other CPUs. Therefore, it is not surprising, that there aren’t that many F8-based computers. There is the VideoBrain, and there is Fairchild’s own console, the Channel F Video Entertainment System from 1976.
Due to the high cost of RAM at that time, the machine came only with 1 kB. However, it had 4 kB of ROM, providing four built-in programs: a simple text editor, a clock, a count down timer, and a color bar generator.
The basic computer itself does ntot have any possibility to save data, you had to buy the “Expander 1” if you wanted to have cassette tape recorder interfaces (and two RS232 interfaces). The “Expander 2” was a 300 baud modem.
Graphics on this machine seems to be complicated. [SeanRiddle] says “This document describes the VideoBrain grapics hardware. It is a sprite engine, capable of displaying 16 sprites simultaneously. The control registers are documented pretty thoroughly. The sprites are monochromatic, but each can be a different color. There is one bit each for RGB, and 2 bits of intensity info (but maybe only 2 intensity levels are usable). The registers allow for a sprite up to 248×256 pixels, positioned on a grid 256×512 pixels in size. Sprites can be displayed at twice their horizontal or vertical size. There are 2 “display lists” for setting the y position and drawing priority of the sprites. There is also a mode called “xcopy” that replicates the first byte of a sprite horizontally.”
The computer was not widely available, but was sold for a short time by Macy’s department store. As you can imagine, the VideoBrain was not a large success, and it vanished from the market after 3 years.
The Wikipedia article on the VideoBrain talks about the fact that the VideoBrain had no real defined target audience and therefore could not satisfy anyones needs (in contrast to the Apple II), and that’s certainly true. From my point of view, the VideoBrain tried to be both a games console (small memory, cartridge slot, 4 joystick interfaces, no cassette interface) and a computer (full keyboard, programming language available from 1978, computer interfaces available in expansion module), but did both things badly.
Technical Data
References
As you may have noticed by now, Soviet Bloc computers are not in any way a speciality of mine. Still, there was one model that I longed for since some time because there was also some sort of Forth version of it: the Hobbit. So, recently I was able to finally buy one out of Ebay.
The Hobbit was in one way the typical Soviet computer. It is a Sinclair Spectrum clone, made mainly for the Soviet market. In another way, the unusual thing about it that it was (briefly) sold also in the West as an upmarket version of the Spectrum in the 1990s.
So I thought, writing a short blog entry was easy: there are comparatively many (for a Soviet computer) English information pages on the Hobbit on the Internet. There is no picture of the PCB, so, that’s what I could contribute.
But then parts started not to fit together. My machine (clearly labelled Hobbit) did not really fit most descriptions that I found. Soon, it became clear to me that the Hobbit is really a small family of different machines, but nobody in the English-speaking world seems to be aware of that. So I conjectured and made up wild theses, but found in the end a Russian page which cleared up things. So, what’s what?
There are three versions of the Hobbit:
The (original) Hobbit
It is the earliest model. It is a “Super Spectrum” with its full keyboard, 3.5MHz Z80, 64 kB RAM, 64 kB ROM, (serial) network capabilities, 3 joystick ports, up to 4 5.25″ floppy disk drives connectable, Centronics port, CP/M clone OS, and so on. This is also the version for which there were many different EEPROM images available, offering Basic, Logo, Forth, and so on. (This is also the version I wanted to have :-).
The Hobbit console (Игровой автомат or ИА Хоббит (IA Hobbit))
The Hobbit console is to the Hobbit what the C64GS was to the C64: basically the same computer but without a keyboard and lacking most of the peripherals. The Hobbit console had a tape connector (but no module slot), and two joystick ports. It was produced in 1989-1990 and was sold at a price of ~1000 rubles in 1990 in the Soviet Union (but apparently not in the West). An external keyboard (sold separately) could be connected. As there was normally no keyboard, but the computer is still basically a Spectrum, the ROM was modified so it issued a LOAD “” automatically after startup.
The “Programmable Console Hobbit” ((“Программируемый Игровой Автомат Хоббит”, or ПИА Хоббит or PIA Hobbit)
This is the version that I have. It looks a little bit like the pale, less posh version of the Spectrum+. It is the Hobbit console plus an integrated keyboard. Like the console, it does not have any floppy or network interfaces, only a tape interface. It has only two joystick interfaces. It has 64 kB of (Sowjet production) RAM, but in the ROM socket there is only a 16 kB (Taiwan) EEPROM chip, possibly a replacement. It is unclear whether a 64 kB EEPROM can be used. It has an original Zilog Z80 CPU soldered in. The keyboard has English keys, but on the left top side there are three buttons with Kyrillic text above it. These read “Network”, “Video” and “Reset”. Now, you might want to ask me: Why a “Network” button? I have no idea. Interestingly, this button is as yellow as the normal keyboard while the other to buttons are paler in color. Maybe they had paper labels on them because the user did not speak Russian and the “Network” button was never used? BTW, the “Video” button is a “radio button” that stays down when pressed, whereas the other two buttons are reset-type buttons. This model dates to 1992.
That’s the underside. Apparently, one can calibrate the colors here with a screwdriver?
That’s the back. From left to right: TV, Tape, Joystick 1, Joystick 2, power cord. Yes, one of the last owners has fitted a TV output connector to it, danngling quite loosely out of the case. On the top left corner it even says “ПИА” (PIA).
That’s the computer with the top cover removed (use the four lowest screws on the back). Note that the keyboard has a “1992” stamp on the metal on the right.
Voila, finally a PCB picture. As you can see, the keyboard is connected to the main PCB by a series of single, very thin wires. All in all the Hobbit seems to require a lot of hand soldering. There seems not be a possibility to fit a network interface in the back.
Numberwise, it is not clear how many Hobbits were made. The 1990 article, Rage Hard colports a number of 15000 Hobbits the manufacturer claims to have sold until then. Nowadays, on Ebay a Hobbit is a quite rare thing.
Knowing the things above I can even correct two incorrect pages on the Hobbit:
And I still need to find an original Hobbit for myself 😉
I want to thank Anastasiia Iurshina for translating the text on the case of my PIA Hobbit!
As I wrote in my entry for the GRiD Convertible, GRiD was legendary computer manufacturer that produced a lot of “firsts”.
This one is (by and large) the first mobile pen computer. It was released in 1989, two years before NCR released their NCR 3125. It is quite heavy (2 kg) and the pen is connected to the tablet via wire, but it was the first time a company had the vision to give users something like an electronic notepad. In order to do that it offered (restricted) handwriting recognition. The project that led to the GRiDPAD was developed by Jeff Hawkins who would later on found Palm, and then Handspring.
Software- and hardware-wise it was quite far away from what GO and Apple would have in their (later) devices. Instead of an ARM-class CPU, and a special operating system fully exploiting and supporting the possibilities of an electronic notebook, the GRiDPAD has a meager 8086 and MS-DOS (the latter is at least built in and does not need to boot). Apart from a few applications, pen support mainly means that you can fill out text fields with the pen. No harddisk is needed (or offered) as it uses up to 2 battery buffered RAM storage cards as mass memory (up to 2 MB in total).
It is said that 10’000 GRiDPADs were sold in 1990 (probably its most successful year). It was marketed as a niche product mainly towards users with bookkeeping needs.
A later model 1910 had a built in 20MB harddisk, 2MB RAM, a NEC V20 CPU, and a backlit screen. The price for the 1910 was initially $3750.
The (probably) last model of the series was the GRiDPAD SL in 1993 that weighted 2.5 kg and costed initially $4395. This model could also run GO’s PenPoint operating system.
The HTC Dream, also known as the T-Mobile G1, was the first Android phone on the market. It was released in September 2008.
According to Wikipedia, ” An early prototype had a close resemblance to a BlackBerry phone, with no touchscreen and a physical QWERTY keyboard, but the arrival of 2007’s Apple iPhone meant that Android “had to go back to the drawing board”. Google later changed its Android specification documents to state that “Touchscreens will be supported”, although “the Product was designed with the presence of discrete physical buttons as an assumption, therefore a touchscreen cannot completely replace physical buttons”. By 2008, both Nokia and BlackBerry announced touch-based smartphones to rival the iPhone 3G, and Android’s focus eventually switched to just touchscreens.”
Although probably done “after having gone to the drawing board”, it seems this phone still breathes the before-touchscreen era having not only a keyboard, but also dedicated “phone up” and “phone down” buttons, as well as a trackball(!).
Although a 2008 phone, you can already load the battery using (mini) USB so there is no need for a proprietary power supply.
So it is a historically important smartphone, but is it also a rare one? Wikipedia quotes “In April 2009, T-Mobile announced that it had sold over a million G1s in the United States, accounting for two thirds of the devices on its 3G network.” So, not really rare 🙂
I bought on Ebay a 1993 workstation from a manufacturer
The manufacturer is Intergraph, a company that started in 1969 on engineering for government agencies. It became one of the leading CAD/CAM suppliers in the 1990s, and stopped making hardware in 2000. Today, Intergraph is a 4000 people company working in the Geographical Information Systems area.
The workstation, a “2700 Series” model, is interesting mainly from a CPU point of view. It uses the last model of the “Clipper” family of CPUs (and not an ordinary PC processor, SPARC, MIPS, PA-RISC, or POWER chip, these are for common people :-).
The following paragraphs contain mainly passages from the [Wikipedia entry]. Clipper CPUs started their live when Fairchild decided to develop a 32-bit RISC CPU that was available from 1986. The first model was called C100. In 1987 Schlumberger, who owned Fairchild from 1979 on, sold Fairchild to National Semiconductor in 1987. They also sold the Clipper technology to the biggest customer of this technology, Intergraph. National Semiconductor would probably not be interested in Clipper, anyway, because they had their own 32-bit CPU the NS320xx family (in fact, it was the first 32-bit general-purpose microprocessor). It was developed earlier, and it was not RISC (but it was also not commcercially successful even if the list of computers incorporating this CPU is impressively large).
So in 1988 Intergraph developed a new model of the Clipper family, the C300. In 1990, finally, the last model of the family, the C400 was released. It was the first processor to integrate both architectural techniques, superscalar and superpipelined operations. Superscalar instruction dispatch means executing more than one operation at a time. Superpipelined operation means that some of the stages of a pipeline are broken up into smaller sub-stages in order to increase the performance. As a consequence, in 1990 the C400 with its 33 MIPs and 9 MFLOPs compared favourably to its competitors, e.g. early SPARC or POWER processors.
The Clipper architecture used a simplified instruction set compared to earlier CISC architectures, but it did incorporate some more complicated instructions than were present in other contemporary RISC processors. These instructions were implemented in a so-called Macro Instruction ROM within the Clipper CPU. This scheme allowed the Clipper to have somewhat higher code density than other RISC CPUs.
Unlike many other microprocessors, the Clipper processors were sets of several distinct chips. The C400 consists of four basic units: an integer CPU, an FPU, an MMU, and a cache unit, but the MMU and cache unit were combined into one CAMMU chip. Therefore, the C400 consists of 3 separate chips. Funnily, the largest chip is the CAMMU.
The strength of Intergraph (short for Interactive Graphics) computers was always graphics. Not so much the 3D graphics for VR and animated movies, but the 2D and 3D graphics for CAD/CAM-like applications. Therefore, also their workstations came with good graphics capabilities. My workstation even has a 2-display graphics card where everythings seems to exist twice: 2 x 2 MB Video RAM, 2 RAMDACS (yes, this was the time when RAMDACs were separate chips).
Intergraph workstations came for a long time in one of three combinations and names:
According to my favorite market resource, at least in Germany, 3 different models of the 2730 desktop workstation were sold:
So, what model do I probably have? Well, after reviewing the above models and knowing the configuration of my workstation (32 MB RAM, 426 MB HDD, double display card), it is probably a InterPro 2730-122, and a not upgraded one.
You have probably noticed that I do not have pictures from a running workstation. That is, because I do not have a monitor yet. One would hope that any 13W3 display could do, but probably I am way to optimistic about that.
Like Sun’s, also Intergraph had a Forth-based diagnostics tool accessible at the firmware level. As I am a big fan of Forth, I am curious to see what one can do with this one.
According to [Wikipedia], “Fairchild promoted the CLIX operating system, a version of UNIX System V, for use with the Clipper. Intergraph adopted CLIX for its Clipper-based systems and continued to develop it; this was the only operating system available for those systems.” Later on, Intergraph ported Windows NT to Clipper computers, and even demonstrated such systems. However, Intergraph cancelled this project before its release. However, there is a 3.5″ floppy disk in my disk drive and it’s labelled “NT 3.5.1 21/21”. I’m very curious what this means. As soon as I get a monitor, I will tell you…
The last Clipper-based computer was the 2830 model which (I assume) is a 2730 with a 50 MHz (instead of a 40 MHz) C400. In 1995, Intergraph gave up this line of computers and sold exclusively x86 systems with Windows NT or Solaris.
The outer design of the workstation is quite standard and boring:
However, the build quality and the industrial design of the machine is really good. If we remove the heavy gauge steel cover by removing three screws we see a nicely laid out interior:
The right third is the PSU- The PCB on the bottom is the graphics card. Here is it in more detail:
The top part of the interior is a cage with the HDD and the FDD. It is so well designed that you can swivel the entire cage up after removing a thumb screw:
And underneath you find the SIMM slots to the left and the CPU on the right:
Four slots filled with 8 MB of RAM each, and another 12 slots empty. The chip with the big heat spreader (the one with the hole) is the CAMMU, the other two are CPU and FPU. If you want to see how the chips look like underneath: la voila!
Manufacturer: Intergraph
Model: 2700 Series
Introduced in: 1993
Initial price: ???
CPU: Intergraph Clipper C4 (a.k.a. C400) @40 MHz
RAM: 32 MB (128 MB max)
HDD: 426 MB (externally max: 9.4 GB)
FDD: 3.5″, 1.44 MB
Graphics: “GT+ Graphics”
Colors: 256
OS: CLIX
Interfaces: RS232, parallel, Ethernet, SCSI, keyboard, mouse, plotter, screen (13W3)
From time to time I like to acquire computers that a so obscure that the Internet cannot tell you what they are. You have to get physical access and examine them (and then describe them for the Internet :-).
Update: I found out more about this computer. See the reveal at the end.
So I bought an allegedly “Soviet Spectrum Clone” from Ebay called “Pick-Master”.
The (rattly but) real keyboard is all-latin and has the original Spectrum key settings on some of the keys (even if the “J.J.” and “J.F.” keys seem quite strange). The grey metal top plate proudly tells you this is a “ZX-Spectrum original system” with a Z-80A CPU, Basic, and 48 kB RAM, and that it “run(s) with any tape recorder and TV set”. Compared to an original ZX Spectrum, the case is huge.
The bottom is boring, but has a paper sticker that seems to bear a serial number “00243”.
The bottom features two fold-out legs, ok, that’s nice.
The back
has 4 interfaces, all marked in latin:
RGB seems clear, JOY is probably joystick, DC5V seems clear enough. “TYPE” though: very strange. Maybe a typewriter interface? Now, the elephant in the room, of course, are connectors. I never saw these types of connectors. Each one has 8 pins.
So, this was the situation before I bought the thing. Google knows nothing at all about a “Pick-Master”. There is no photo that ressembles this thing. I am excited allthough I know that the number of Eastern Block spectrum clones are legion, that I cannot read kyrillic and that there are currently not enough resources in English on this topic.
Ok, what can we tell from the inside of our computer? This is our computer opened:
Now it is clear why the computer is so large: the functional parts are ordered around the keyboard, not underneath.
The build quality is good, the parts look hand-soldered. No helpful markings on the board. The keyboard baseplate is probably not designed for this model, it looks as if it has space for an additional row of function keys on the top and as if it was cut at the top right corner in order to give space to some components on this PCB.
Here is a picture from the interesting part of the PCB:
We find:
Ok, so this is definitively a Soviet Block Spectrum. Maybe designed to be exported to the West because the top is so much advertising the machine.
In every case a very, very rare machine, and an interesting one, too.
Update: Thanks to a very resourceful native Russian speaker (Hi, Anastasiia!) we found out more about this machine. Spoiler alert: it is still very rare and this variant is not yet described. So, what do we have here?
According to http://zxbyte.ru/pik.htm, this is basically a Soviet “Peak” computer, made by the “Terminal” (Терминал) company in Vinnitsa, Ukraine. If you are as able to read Russian as I am, here is the Google Translate link: https://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fzxbyte.ru%2Fpik.htm
The Russian model name is “Пик”, which translates to “peak”. The manufacturer was known “in the whole (Sovjet) Union” for its – terminals (hence the imaginative company name). So, still an industrial manufacturer 🙂
According to the above web page it has a Kempston joystick interface (which is to be expected). The “TYPE” interface I was wondering about is a – tape interface. Maybe a translation typo? The connectors are all the same, so there is the danger that you put e.g. the power cable into the joystick interface, ugh…
The ROM seems to contain a Sowjet standard image of the Spectrum software from Didaktik Skalica, copyrighted 1989. It was used also in other Sowjet Spectrum clones. The model itself seems to be made around 1992.
Now the best part: if you compare the pictures of the computer on the Russian page with mine you can see:
All in all, I am very pleased. Thanks to Anastasiia, I could find out who made this computer and when. It is an unknown export variant of a very rare Sovjet Spectrum clone. And, I agree to the author of the Russian page on the Peak, “one of the most beautiful clones of the Spectrum“.
GRiD was a legendary company that existed from 1979. In 1988 it was purchased by Tandy Corporation, whose computer manufacturing division in turn was then bought by AST Research in 1993, which in turn was bought by Samsung in 1996. It was always a company that targeted not the mass market, but niche markets where the price of a product was less important than the technical features. As a result, GRiD had e.g. the first
GRiD mainly sold solid computers to audiences with special needs, e.g. the military, or NASA.
Another one of their “firsts” was the first convertible computer, i.e. a model that could be used as a tablet and as a notebook computer: the two models 2260 and 2270 from 1992.
Except in the recent time there weren’t that many convertibles out there because a convertible needs a market demand for a tablet computer that then also shall be used as a notebook as writing text a lot is a pain on a tablet. Pen-based tablets were a hot topic in the first half of the 1990s. Afterwards, pen computing by and large vanished from the list of hype topics (with the notable exception of pen-based PDAs from 1996 to the early 2000s). Only with the (re-)advent of touchscreen-based User Interfaces by Apple’s iPhone from 2007, tablets re-appeared from 2009, this time without needing a pen. With the new interests in tablet computers, also convertibles re-appeared on the market.
Back to the GRiD 2270. In 1992, GRiD presented the convertible computer in two models (2660, 2670) that differed only internally. Both models were PCs that offered both a tablet mode using a Wacom pen subsystem and a notebook mode with a compact, but full-fledged keyboard. Both models had a 9.5″ 64 gray levels VGA LCD, a built-in HDD, and 4 MB of RAM. An external FDD could be connected to the parallel port. The 2260 used a 80386SL processor running at 25 MHz, the 2270 a 80486SL processor running also at 25 MHz.
There is a whole slough of names under which the two models are known. To the best of my research, these are officially the GRiD Model 2260 and 2270, respectively. My (German) manual to the 2270 has the title “GRiD Convertible GT” on the front. The Internet knows them also under the aliases “GRiDPAD 2260”, “GRiDPAD Convertible 2260”, and “GRiD Convertible 2260”. As AST models, they were known under the designation AST PenExec 3/25SL and 4/25SL, respectively.
There were two battery options, a small one and a big one. The batteries were NiCad and there are two peculiarities about it. First, you can load the battery directly from the PSU without a need for the computer as the battery has the power interface. As a consequence, you cannot power the computer without the battery because the computer does not have another power interface.
Second, the battery hangs on two metal heads from the computer. To connect the battery, after putting the battery on the heads, you move the battery to the right where a peg goes into a hole.
The peg is then secured by a flap that needs to be pressed down.
That’s a quite special arrangement. Especially as the big battery that I have cannot hand freely from the computer, but is some millimeters thicker than the computer case. As a consequence, when placing the computer on a flat surface, the battery raises away from the heads and looks awkward. Probably, the smaller battery fits better onto the case.
The system has the typical WACOM pen, and the usual problems finding a space at the device for storing it. Their solution was a somewhat flimsy pen holder in a niche on the right lower part. This solution is not ideal, so in order to fix it, there is an accessory which consists of a string attached to a cap which can be put on top of the pen. The other side of the string is to be attached in a hole that exists for that purpose in the case.
As you might or might not know, I’m rather interested in the PenPoint operating system. This machine falls right into the time period where it could run PenPoint, and there are contemporary GRiD models that were delivered with it, so the question is, was there a PenPoint for the 2260/2270 models? Well, I do not know for sure, but it seems not (according to Dr. Google…). However, there is a mention of a “2260 MIL for PenPoint” file in [http://www.sandyflat.net/digerati/ast486/drivers/grid/index.htm], so maybe PenPoint was initially targeted. We will never know. The hardware, however, could have been easily used, even if the screen in keyboard mode was oriented in landscape, not portrait mode.
Manufacturer: GRiD Systems (AST Research)
Model: 2270
Introduced in: 1992
Initial price: $2995
CPU: Intel 80486SL@25 MHz
RAM: 4 MB (up to 20 MB)
HDD: 80 MB or 120 MB
OS: MS-DOS 6.0, Windows 3.1
Screen: 9.5″, 640×480, black and white, LCD, 64 gray levels
Battery: NiCad, 2.3 Ah, 9.6V, 0.6 Kg (this might be the larger one)
Interfaces: serial, parallel (also used for external FDD), VGA, 1 Type 1 PCMCIA
Weight: 2.1 kg without battery
The Digital Equipment VK100 or „GIGI“ (General Imaging Generator and Interpreter) seems to be one of DECs approaches of creating an “intelligent” graphics terminal that is capable of processing complex graphic commands. It is not only the device for which the ReGIS system was developed, it even contained a Basic interpreter whose programs could be loaded, saved, and executed via the serial connection from the host computer. It used 8-color bitmap graphics and was based on the Intel 8085 processor. It offered a VT-52 and (some sort of) a VT-100 mode. It connected to an external Barco GD33 RGB monitor.
ReGIS, short for Remote Graphic Instruction Set, was a vector graphics markup language developed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). ReGIS supported rudimentary vector graphics consisting of lines, circular arcs, and similar shapes. Terminals supporting ReGIS generally allowed graphics and text to be mixed on-screen, which made construction of graphs and charts relatively easy.
One thing very nice about the machine is that there is a complete set of extensive manuals available electronically.
The GIGI Basic Handbook tells us the following:
“BASIC is provided as a tool to be used in making GIGI an intelligent terminal. For this reason, only a limited amount of user memory is provided with GIGI. It is therefore recommended that applications and instructional programming be done on the host computer as there is no guarantee of source language transportability between the BASIC in this version of GIGI and that provided in the future”. Now that’s a statement you will read rarely in any manual. Basic programs can have a length up to 7.8 kB.
It also tells us of two Basic modes in GIGI:
“One mode is called local BASIC. In local BASIC mode, the terminal user is in control of the GIGI BASIC system; […] The other mode is host BASIC. in host BASIC mode, the host computer is in control of the GIGI BASIC system; commands and programs come from the host computer, and all input and output default to the host computer.”
In other words: the local Basic mode is the one we know from any other computer, and the host Basic mode gets its instructions from the serial interfaces and write its output to the serial interface.
From a collector’s point of view, the VK100 is somewhat of a conundrum. On the one side it’s only a terminal and has no mass memory interfaces. Therefore, there is also no software for it. On the other hand it’s a full-blown computer with 32 kB of RAM (16kB of which are used for graphics!) and even Basic. It connects to a high-quality monitor and is one of the earliest examples of a terminal that is intended to execute code sent by a server. It is extremely rare and virtually unknown.
Manufacturer: Digital Equipment (DEC)
Model: VK100 (GIGI)
Introduced in: 1982
Initial price: $1500
CPU: Intel 8085A@ 3(?)MHz
RAM: 32 kB (16 kB System RAM, 16 kB Video RAM)
ROM: 28 kB (26kB are used)
Text Modes: 84×24, 42×24
Resolution: 768×240, 8 colors
Interfaces: RS-232C, 20 mA current loop, composite video, printer
Weight: 5.7 kg
Picture taken from https://histinf.blogs.upv.es/2010/11/22/amper-exelvisionexl100exeltel/
Exelvisions EXL 100 and Exeltel are some of the most interesting under-appreciated home computers of the 80s. This under-appreciation stems partially from the fact that they were available basically in only one country (France) and that they had stronger competition (Thomson) in this market. And, of course, that also had all the ingredients of computer models that often appear in this blog: from a consumer point of view they were neither price-wise nor feature-wise appealing.
The story starts with former employees of Texas Instruments France who take a lot of the technologies developed there for the TI CC-40 and build a home computer around it: the EXL 100 from 1984. The features that owe to this heritage are:
The system is highly modular, with detached keyboard and game controllers, the Basic is on a cartridge. Therefore, the ROM is with 4 kB very small.
The next (and last) model of the family is the Exeltel from 1986. As the name indicates, this model is all about communication (i.e. the communication that was broadly available around this time frame: telephone-line-based things). The main difference to the EXL 100 is the now integrated V.23 modem using, of course, a TI chip (1200/75 bps, it was an accessory for the EXL 100). Smaller differences are the upgraded CPU (now a TMS 7040 (this is the only computer with this CPU)), the possibility to connect a (better) keyboard, more RAM, and much more ROM (82 kB). The ROM still does not include the Basic, but a program that allows to exchange files between Exeltels via the modem, an answering machine feature (in some versions, uses an attached cassette recorder), a speech synthesizer program, some educational programming language, and some windowing support. Exeltels also come with 16 kB RAM module bundled with them.
From now on, newer models differ only in ROM content, not in hardware.
The Exeltel VS renders the Exeltel into a Prestel terminal supporting the French Prestel standard, Minitel. For our younger audience I have to explain what Prestel, Minitel, BTX, etc. actually is. You see, kids, before the Internet took off widely, in Europe people thought it would be a good idea to have some sort of cloud network on some central computers that ordinary people can use by small computers and telephone modems, possibly connected to TVs. The computers would be so small (and cheap) that they were not expected to execute programs, but to display pages with text and pseudo graphics as well as forms that could then be send back to the cloud. Using this simple system, users could use electronic telephone books, send messages to each other or do Electronic Banking. For a limited amount of time (say, 1983 to 1993) this was very popular, also because it was by and large the only alternative and because it was offered by the national telephone companies. The first of these systems was Prestel in the UK. Later on, Minitel in France, and BTX in Germany offered similar systems. The systems were roughly the same, but were not standardized completely (although some partial standards were used).
The Exeltel VS is said to have bundled also a connector module that offers a serial and a parallel interfaces as well as a mouse interface.
The next model is the Exeltel VX, which is an Exeltel VS, but with multi-norm Prestel support, namely for:
Now, you might think, ok, so this is your model, right? Are we done? Well, the answer is: not yet. You see, I got an *Amper” Exeltel VX. So, what’s the difference?
Well, Exelvision wanted to expand into other European markets, in this case the Spanish market. Therefore, they partnered with the Spanish telecommunication manufacturer Amper, owned by the national Spanish telco, Telefonica. The firmware is translated into Spanish, even the speech synthesizer is fitted with a new software version that can output Spanish sentences. Also software is translated into Spanish (in the end about 50% of all titles are also available in Spanish). The Amper Exeltel is sold exclusively via the Spanish “El Cortes Ingles” chain of shops. Apart from giving its name Amper is not involved too much in the lifecycle of the devices, however, they do Quality Assurance for the Spanish models and also After Sales Service.
The Spanish market in the 80s has a funny peculiarity: If you import a computer into Spain with 64 kB RAM or less, you have to pay some hefty additional fee (like 90 Euros). Therefore, there exist models like the Amstrad CPC 472 which has an additional 8 kB RAM soldered on the PCB that is non-functional. Exelvision solves this problem (as it has nominally only 2 kB RAM) by bundling a battery-buffered 64 kB RAMdisk module with the Amper Exeltel.
As in Spain, Prestel is not widely used for a long time (until this changes in 1992), the Amper Exeltel is not a success. Especially as Exelvision closes down for good in 1991.
Manufacturer: Amper
Model: Exeltel VX
Introduced in: 1986
CPU: TMS 7040@4.9 MHz
RAM: 66 kB + 64 kB Ramdisk
ROM: 38 kB
Text Mode: 24 x 40
Resolution: 320 x 200, 8 colors
Interfaces: cartridge slot, exelmémoire slot, expansion slot, tape-recorder, keyboard, IR, power, telephone line, RGB video output
http://www.ti99.com/exelvision/website/
The premier resource (in French). Most of the information in this entry were taken (and translated) from that site.
Rare & Old Computers 
