That was very nostalgic! As a child, I got my parents to get me one of these (the German "Mister X" variant) because I was fascinated with electric typewriters and wanted to do the typing course. When I found the BASIC mode, however, I forgot all about typing and spent all my time learning that. The one-line display was really the limiting factor here, so at one point I convinced my parents to upgrade me to a C64 (which would even let you _save_ programs, so you wouldn't have to type them in each time!). Even as a child, I realized that despite the happy colors and tunes, the potential of this machine went far beyond everything you'd usually see in a "toy". I went on to do a PhD in Computer Science, but it all started here. Thank you so much for refreshing those memories!
if tou needed computer but had no cash like no cash at all, it could of been a good option, only let down by a full lack of any save or load BASIC OS, at all, almost all the not great bit you could of lived with, even lack printer, serial port, the no way save or load, at all, was complete no go ? 😞
I learned BASIC on this thing as a kid. I loved it so much. I have one in a box with a few carts because I love it so much. It was my first introduction to programming. I should bring it into work and let everyone see how I learned. Good job showing it off!
16:27 There are actually two bytes in the cartridge header, which determine what to do with the data. There are trivia-only ones (compatible with VTech devices using a different screen), but they can also include raw Z80 code. A "special" header can even make the code auto-run on boot, which is very handy for development, as it skips the lengthy intro 🎶 More info is available in my unofficial SDK called "VGLDK".
Interesting! I did a bit of searching online and didn't find anything about doing development on it. Posting URLs here usually gets the comment deleted by the TH-cam censor bots, so could you give me a few choice keywords to help me search for more info if there is any online?
Hey Bernhard - nice to run into you again! I’ll be using your vgldk on my mod with this. I was telling Robin my excitement to put cpm on it, and then told him I was surprised to see you already had done it! Expect shoutouts
@@logiciananimalThere was a battery-backed 32KB SRAM cartridge available. And a bespoke PC-Link cable that attached to the printer port (for models that came with one), which allowed some limited data-exchange. EDIT: But it only seems to support the 2000 model (2-row LCD) and up. Also, the PreComputer 1000 Basic ROM does not seem to have any LOAD/SAVE commands. But, using a custom ROM cartridge I managed to "bit-bang" 9600 baud TTL serial data through the printer port.
@@hotkeymucWould that SRAM cartridge work on the PreComputer 1000? It doesn't appear to have BASIC support for it unless I'm missing something. Or I suppose the SRAM cartridge itself could add commands to BASIC somehow?
I was a bit bored and was looking for a nice video to watch. Perfect time to upload 🥰 14:50 What is the capital town of Marocco. Time to go to science😂
This thing would be a blast for a kid in the early 80s. It could make several kids interested in programming, just because a relative gave them this as a random gift without really knowing what it is.
My mom got me one of these in the early 90s. Man, you couldn't tell me anything!! I would carry it to school and everyone was so jealous I knew a little BASIC (but I was a big nerd anyway) and could type do fast. It's all thanks to this device. I'm looking to find one on ebay and your video unlocked a memory, I know I need to look for the book, too. Thank you!
I'm genuinely impressed. I think, this works much better for educational purposes than I would have expected back in the day. I guess, the restriction to one display line actually helps, as you can't do video games and rather focus on the built-in educational programs, which were probably still fun as you were biding time with a computer. And doing so, you could actually learn something.
I got this for Christmas for either 4th or 5th grade and played around on it for about a year or so - the keyboard was one of its nicer features although keep in my mind my fingers at the time were quite a bit smaller so it was a perfect fit. I also already knew how to, more or less, touch type at around 30-40 WPM (which was otherwise unheard of in my school) and had been using computers since I was approximately 3 years old. The fact that it had a simple programmable BASIC was the other nice feature -- I wrote some simple programs and even was able to modify some pre-existing BASIC programs from books I got at the school library. I wrote them down in a spiral notebook which, sadly, has been lost to time. I eventually just moved to program on our 386 as by 6th grade we had more regular access to computers at school and it was no longer a "once-a-week special treat".
This video brought back some memories, I had a Dictée Magique when I was a kid. I also had a Vtech "computer" where I could write some basic music. I used them a lot.
At school a friend had the German version of that computer called "Mister X". I remember that I wrote a small Basic program on it. I had no instruction manual, but just typed in a few lines like I would do on my Commodore 64 and then RUN and I was surprised that it really worked - the one line display is a limiting factor on what programs make sense to run on that computer.
Yeeees! That "Mister X" (i.e. PreComputer 1000 in a clam shell case) was my *very* first encounter with BASIC and it was magical! 💖Now, 30+ years later, I am a software engineer 🤓 Thanx, VTech!
Hahaha, one of my friends as a youngling had the Whiz Kid. He had to stop bringing it to class as every other kid wanted to play with it, myself included, because it was that nifty. Also as I understand it, a lot of these kids' toys' keyboards were membrane due to the high possibility of spills or peanut butter-related disasters, so it was a case of design flaw by design.
For the z80, the DJNZ instruction can be effectively infinitely long.. its a crazy single instruction good for copying large chunks of data around, though not the most efficient way of doing it since there's conditional per iteration.
My little sister had one of those "Pre[-]"computer 1000s. What's interestingly ironic to me is that the first consumer computer with a keyboard, the original Commodore PET, has a keyboard that doesn't even have regular, full keys or the standard positioning, while this VTech toy does (or at least _almost_ full)! And another interesting thing is that VTech also makes cordless landline phones.
Oh geez, I never made the connection between the "VTech" that made toy computers (and the Laser Apple clones before that) and the one that makes phones now. I'm glad they've found a way to survive, I guess, though I hope they have a plan for the future when even landlines become extinct.
Oh my goodness. I remember seeing these in the shops back in the early 90s when I was a child. I never thought much of them until about 3 years ago, and I bought one on eBay. These were quite popular back then. I had a few other VTech toys as a child, including a Pre Computer 1000 Junior and a Talking Lesson One. These PC 1000s are rather plentiful on eBay, and they're not too expensive either.
2:20 I wonder how many young children are learning the alphabet as Q-W-E-R-T-Y- … -V-B-N-M. 6:20 At least the key columns are staggered, unlike with the PET-2001. 9:10 Oh, that's what "Vtech" means. I've mostly seen the name on cordless phones. 13:10 It's very US-centric for a product in a Canadian box! 18:19 Yeah, what age range is this product targeted at? 23:55 That's at least double-precision float. 24:45 It's interesting just how many devices a smartphone/tablet replaces. Though, I guess a smartphone can't give you touch-typing practice. 37:45 The 6502 accesses the system bus on every clock cycle, which helps with throughput per clock cycle. 41:19 Instead of a maze, a one-line display prints letters: "VIINININM".
I remember typing at school in grade 3 (1989) on one of those "Type-right" models as show 1:08 #12. I have fond memories of ecstatic students when the teacher brought them out.
My father gifted this "Lern-Computer" to me when i was a kid. I am with him right now and i talked about you. How your videos bring back memories of me and him sitting on the c64. To my surprise he still has this vtech machine! Here in Germany it was sold as "MisterX" by "Yeno Spielwaren" Words can't describe the joy you bring to us right now. Thank you from the bottom of my heart! Greetings from germany. Stay safe and healthy.
I wish that I could remember what happened if I tried Commodore-specific pokes on my little sister's VTPC 1000, like screen colors, etc. (or if I even remembered to try them at all). But... I guess she gave it to the thrift store a long time ago.
Your video is timely because I just picked one up from a thrift store here in Edmonton. It came with the General Knowledge II cartridge. The keyboard is yellowed but the faceplate not so much and the battery cover is intact. I realized quickly that my "General Knowledge" is very poor. 😁
I just got a Super Memory Expander which adds 32K to the Pre Computer 2000 and can be used with Power Pad, Power Pad Plus and other Vtech machines with Basic built in! (not Pre Computer 1000 sadly) Bearing the cartridge came out in 1992, mine was sealed and the CR2025 Battery that came with it still works! You can store up to 7 programs into the Ram Cartridge and load them back into memory. I saved 8 programs to test it, so the manual is clearly wrong. It uses Save ", Load ", Erase, Format and even Dir commands to list saved programs on the cart. Saving onto a Ram Cartridge for me means it's much more than a kids toy. It uses Microsoft Basic 80. I am using it on a Power Power Plus which has a display of at 4 lines. I am going to type in some simple word and numbers programs. I'm hoping I can get a text adventure I help write in TI Basic for my TI74/CC40 to work on my Vtech. I love the thing!
10:27 I'm Canadian too, albeit living in the US, and the only reason I know the answer is from dialog from a popular 90's-era cartoon: "Six white stripes, seven red stripes, and a helluva-lot of stars!". I'll leave the name/episode of the cartoon as a bonus trivia question 🙂
I'm pretty sure mine is up in the attic. I enjoyed using it, I was around 11 at the time. I was thinking of looking for it awhile ago. I'll keep an eye out on DJ's channel.
The single-line display allowed you to concentrate on and individually enjoy each line generated by 10 PRINT! Also I laughed when that “rock and roll” sample came up again twice during the patron scroll! 😂
Friend of mine had a VTech computer pretty similar to this one. The small display was really inconvenient. And in the early 90s basic was really old school and both of us didn't care much for it.
I actually picked one up maybe a month ago from a recycling center for 8€. Untested but it was in great unyellowed condition and it came with a SPELLER cartridge. I posted one short of it on my channel. I was delighted to see this video. Would've been very nice to have before I got it before I bought batteries for it! I'm trying to flip it because it has the cartridge I can profit maybe 5x and batteries are too expensive for me to keep it. It's very fun and I've recently been interested in equipment like this. Totally worth picking up if you have the chance!
It can actually be powered from a wall adapter, but it uses a somewhat non-standard input jack (looks like a 3.5mm headphone style plug) that isn't labeled...
The problem with trying to guess the speed of the cpu relative to the same code on a 6502 is the different architectures and basic interpreters heavily influence the results. While the 6502/6510 is more efficient on a per cycle basis, the Z80 has a deeper register set. Each cpu requires different optimizations in order to run at their best and when running code optimized for each system the speed difference is closer to 2:1. Furthermore, even when comparing Z80 systems, the basic interpreter that system uses often makes a massive difference in the results. For example, with Noel Retro Lab’s BASIC Benchmark the ZX spectrum clocked a time of 87 seconds compared to 37 seconds for the Microbee Series 2. Both machines actually run the same 3.5 Mhz Z80 processor but if we assumed the ZX’s speed based on the results then it would have come out as 1.5 Mhz. So it is quite possible the PreComputer has a 4Mhz cpu and the poor results are due more to a slow basic than a slow cpu.
Oh yeah, wow. The timing was off with its release, but I would have loved to have had this as a kid of about 8 or 9, maybe 10.. I would have been floored. Never heard of it before, and it came out when I was 18, but yeah, I could have totally gotten into this for the trivia and other stuff, not to mention the BASIC learning it sported. Just the wrong time for me.
Ameuricauns doun't beulieuve iun extrauneous "U"s 🤣Thanks for the vid, Robin, I remember these kinds of special purpose computers and it's amazing the price differences between them and their big brothers, the personal computers. Remember how much those little Casio pocket organizers used to cost?
The ROM is basically a hacked up copy of TRS-80 Level II BASIC, though of what vintage I'm not sure. It was possibly even derived from a TRS-80 clone computer. All they did was nuke half of the keyword table (including PEEK and POKE) and reuse the freed up space. It uses a regular ROM chip, so it's easy to replace it with your own. There's also another half of the ROM which is your typical Math Quiz type stuff.
it seen to be very close Microsoft extended basic TRS-80 colour, and may in been the trs-100 (the one you show a picture of in the video) , can case clones (bagged models) it got all the advanced math. stuff, that lot lessor version basic where missing, and machine become, in the none toy, section where missing?
Interesting that that manual continues in this weird way. I wonder why they didn't just make it like a normal one. Anyway... at least that device came with a physical manual!
A lot of typing instruction books use that top-bound (ringed, whatever) format as it's easier to stand up or position beside the keyboard for transcription. I had a similarly-arranged book in my typing class in high school.
If it had a 4x20 text display or a dot matrix comparable to the Z80-based TI graphing calculators...then it would be *something*. Surely that would have been feasible by the latter half of the 1980s without busting the budget?
I just looked; the TI-81 (which was the first Z80 calculator they released) retailed for $130, and wasn't released until 1990, so I don't see a $70 product from two years earlier managing that, as much as I would have liked it.
Have you tried for the one-liner to use another line number? Maybe only 0 line behave that way. I saw in the example that they do not use line 0, start with line 2.
At the time, the TRS-80 Model 100 was one of the few very portable devices with a good keyboard, so it was popular with journalists and other people who wanted to be able to electronically store what they typed. It also had an optional modem so they could upload their text documents from the field.
@@HelloKittyFanManFWIW the TRS-80 Model 100 is a full computer with I/O options and, iirc, also has a swappable ROM bay for supplementing the on-board software. It's full 8-line by 80 character LCD display also makes it possible to use other productivity software like a spreadsheet package or have a usable serial terminal experience.
A VIC-20 would be a lot more fun in every other way, but this was very portable and battery operated, with the (limited) built-in screen. I would have enjoyed having this in the car on a long trip, or whatever.
Ha, the thing I dislike about that "Pre..." 1000 is that its screen is only one line tall; that would make it really hard to see what you're doing! And I like what you said about this too.
The PreComputer 2000 (aka. Genius Leader 2000) had two lines 🥳And the 4000 series had 4 lines. Later models (6000/7000/8000) came with a graphical LCD. Then they switched from Z80 to a weird CompactRisc (CR16B) CPU that is really an oddball.
@@hotkeymucTo be fair that cpu was 16-bit and might have been something they could cheaply source. It also seems there was a line of CompactRisc microcontrollers based on the CR16B, so maybe that was part of their decision making process.
@@jnharton Yep, pretty sure about that! The CR16B is a yet-to-be discovered wonder of vintage computing - no one is talking about it EVER. VTech did put them in pretty much EVERY device. And, yet, the compiler and tools are (almost) lost to time! (Still found the SDK installer on the internet archive, tho). Anyone interested in helping to find out more about the CR16B CPU? I have already started coding an assembler and disassembler... But it's really hard... 😓
@@hotkeymuc VTech would seem to have shared the basic philosophy that the developer of the original gameboy (Gunpei Yokoi) felt was a valuable principle. Basically the concept is to look at mature technologies that are readily available and ask how you could re-purpose them... --- en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi#Lateral_Thinking_with_Withered_Technology
"You don't need a TV.", well the display could have been a lot bigger if it did heh. My ideal VTech computer would have a 160x160 monochrome LCD in either 1bpp or 2bpp. Regardless, awesome keyboard for such a low price.😉
Yeah that is strange that limited character displays are still are kind of pricey compared to plain LCDs. You'd think they'd be dirt cheap now.@@jnharton
Hey I'm thinking of buying one of these to modify! Could you please tell me how stepped the keycaps are? It looks similar to an Apple IIC and I'm wondering if the caps shape feel as comfortable (irregardless of membrane)
Unfortunately I don't have this anymore so I can't measure the step of the keycaps, if that's what you mean. I'd guess it's maybe 3 mm from memory? But yeah, it is similar to an Apple IIc in appearance, but definitely cheaper. I found it very comfortable for a toy keyboard. The keys kind of wobble around but I could type decently on it as shown.
@@8_BitThank you! I think 3mm is about the same level of steepness as the Apple IIC. Could you tell if the keyboard keycaps are the same diameter as standard keyboard keys?
The enter thing is proably aimed to protect a battteries from draining out if your program loops long enough .... So you need to step manually ?? ..... just guessing really.
Can you explain a little more about the twinkle twinkle program? How does the DATA variable work? It looks like you're overwriting it four times and the for loop doesn't even reference it. Obviously that's not the case, so how does that magic happen?
Line 10 does all the work. Each time through the loop READ F,D reads two of the numbers in the DATA statements, starting at line 2. After the first READ, F=21 and D=4. Then the SOUND is played at frequency F and duration D. Then the next time through the loop, another 21 and 4 will be read and played. Next time through, F=28 and D=4, etc.
I would've killed for one of those as a kid. I only ever got to use a computer at school, at least until junior year of high school. I did have a device that came with the World Book encyclopedias that my parents bought, but it had far fewer functions and only a d-pad and a couple of other buttons. One of these days I'd like to fix it because it has some battery corrosion now.
Wow, only 2K of RAM?! Man, it would be a wonder to be able to program just about anything halfway usable on that machine without one of its cartridges!
I wasn't aware these were hard to find - I saw one at my thrift store a few months ago and passed up on it. "Those darn Americans" Isn't VTech a Korean company?
Interesting it seems like the vtech computers slowly got dumbed down their first products were proper computers that were competing against the apple 2 and vc20. but then they started making this like this and by the 90s they were just locked down toys with no way to program or add new software. i grew up with a 90s version of this that had a very low res screen but at least had multiple lines and a robotic voice. but no way to program or add new features to it with a cartridge .
As there's that old-school standalone electronic Bible, I'd also like to see a Book of Mormon device like that, to go hand-in-hand with the Bible one (I'd like the Bible one to be KJV though).
Not bad for a toy. I understand way they are forced to one line display. THis screen probably is used in a big volume in certain thing like fax machine, so they can get them pretty cheap. But, like really, two line would have helped. Also, the limit of the line happens to be 40 ???, isnt this the buffer limit of the 44780 for one line ?. Or it was 20. It seems very slow., just as a 44780 would do
The ROMs for these systems have been dumped, so you can google for it and have a look. As far as I can tell, there aren't any such commands. I suspect such functionality was stripped from the version of BASIC they used for this system/toy.
Oh, I remember to used a V-Tech. It scolled so slow that I forgot the first part of the question. And I was disappointed about its amount of storage for BASIC. I learned Turbo Pascal instead. I learned QBasic some years before. (When my brother was not at home.) In this years I learned English too. Because it was (an illegal copy) in English and my mothertongue is german. Without internet this was only feasible by reading a German-English dictionary. I was around 8 years old or around 10 - I am not sure. I don't regret it, but my English is not very good. I learned some bad habits.
This is a great comouter to teach kids these days even baasic computer coding and programming. I still have mine and i was borb in 90s and now my 10 year old uses it and has been for about 6 months and he can now code on his raspberry pi and make anything he wants and simple games so its not just a toy its a toy that actually taught kids a usefull skill unlike todays toya
Unfortunately it has no connectors besides the cartridge port (which as far as I know doesn't carry any sort of video signal, but I've never seen the pinouts) and the DC power jack.
@@hotkeymucShould be able to use that to communicate with all sorts of stuff no? I imagine you could strap a UART/parallel port driven video output to it, although you'd need a custom software cartridge to make use of such a feature...
@@jnharton The Z80 is fast enough to output some nice "1 Bit" PCM sound. And through bit-banging you can output around 19.2 kBaud (maybe 30k with some assembly wizardry) with the CPU on full load. But that's about the highest bit rate I have been able to push through the parallel port. Anything beyond that would require a custom cartridge with some extra chips. At which point you are close to completely flipping the concept around and only using the VTech as a text terminal and do everything else on an external chip... 🙃
@@hotkeymucI don't see why you would "flip it around", at least if you're actually interested in the Z80. My point was just that you essentially have a software driven output port that's suitable for a range of one way/write-only communication applications. Seems like it would be relatively easy to strap on video and audio functionality that way using discrete/74 series logic and/or a PAL/GAL/CPLD. And there's no reason you couldn't use the cartridge port for any number of software loading solutions. It would be hilariously to see a floppy drive hooked up that way (basically have a simple ROM emulator combined with an FDC chip and a circuit designed to do load on read/insert -- insert floppy disk, wait for data to load, and then initiate a reset/select cartridge).
to be fair: Some very minor hardware modding required... (The internal ROM ChipSelect must be disabled and connected to an external SRAM chip). But then it runs ZORK! 😁
You end the 10 PRRINT line with a GOTO and no line number and assume it defaults to the start of the program and seem surprised that you need to press ENTER after each character. Did you consider that that GOTO without a line number was acting as a PAUSE/BREAK statement? Did you try using a line number?
I didn't try that exact program with a specified line number, but all the programs I wrote (including those starting on line 10, with a specified line number after a GOTO - the trick only works with line zero) waited for enter to be pressed after each PRINT. I assume the designers did this to ensure the user could see all the output that would otherwise immediately disappear due to the single-line display.
Always happy to listen to you Robin - idea for you - how about high level languages on the C64 and other systems that aren't Basic? I'm a huge fan of Pascal and there are some compilers? interpreters? for the C64 - I'm biased on language but maybe people will enjoy a little dive into the alternatives, who dared challenge Basic in the 80s? a mortal?
Thanks Johnny! There are a lot of other languages for the C64 like Pascal, C, even COBOL (I did a video on that once) but many of them are disk based compilers and just so tedious to use that I'm just not having fun. Edit code, save the code, load the compiler, run the compiler, test the object code, reload the code, repeat. Each one is a slow step. Plus a lot of the compilers were just written by one guy and not actually used or tested or updated all that much, so they can be pretty buggy on top of it all. One language I have been meaning to do a video on though is COMAL which actually got a decent user base back in the day. Thanks for the suggestion.
@@8_Bit - oh my apologies, I'd not want suggest you do something you're not into - your videos are all the more enjoyable because you're passionate about your topics or are excited to share something with us - I can read up any time I like :D COMAL I've not heard of but I'm already dreaming of the one line COMAL maze :P take care
Thanks for the shoutout, Robin! Great video and sorry you had to rush itl
You have a knack for finding these rare gems in the wild.
That was very nostalgic! As a child, I got my parents to get me one of these (the German "Mister X" variant) because I was fascinated with electric typewriters and wanted to do the typing course. When I found the BASIC mode, however, I forgot all about typing and spent all my time learning that. The one-line display was really the limiting factor here, so at one point I convinced my parents to upgrade me to a C64 (which would even let you _save_ programs, so you wouldn't have to type them in each time!). Even as a child, I realized that despite the happy colors and tunes, the potential of this machine went far beyond everything you'd usually see in a "toy". I went on to do a PhD in Computer Science, but it all started here. Thank you so much for refreshing those memories!
Oh I feel you!!! "Mister X" was also my first programming encounter - it actually "changed my life" and how I saw computers from that moment on!
Robin, this had me on the floor...
V-Tech- What is the capitol of Morrocco?
Robin- Time to go to Science!
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Haha, okay, now FOUR people liked the same joke. I think that's a record! :) Thanks for watching, Sloopy.
That one line display is definitely this computer's Achilles Heel. But as "kid's computers" go, it is definitely a step above 99% of them out there.
My mom got me one of these from Montgomery Ward for Christmas. That manual was impressive and a great introduction to Basic.
if tou needed computer but had no cash like no cash at all, it could of been a good option, only let down by a full lack of any save or load BASIC OS, at all, almost all the not great bit you could of lived with, even lack printer, serial port, the no way save or load, at all, was complete no go ? 😞
I learned BASIC on this thing as a kid. I loved it so much. I have one in a box with a few carts because I love it so much. It was my first introduction to programming. I should bring it into work and let everyone see how I learned. Good job showing it off!
16:27 There are actually two bytes in the cartridge header, which determine what to do with the data. There are trivia-only ones (compatible with VTech devices using a different screen), but they can also include raw Z80 code. A "special" header can even make the code auto-run on boot, which is very handy for development, as it skips the lengthy intro 🎶
More info is available in my unofficial SDK called "VGLDK".
Interesting! I did a bit of searching online and didn't find anything about doing development on it. Posting URLs here usually gets the comment deleted by the TH-cam censor bots, so could you give me a few choice keywords to help me search for more info if there is any online?
Hey Bernhard - nice to run into you again! I’ll be using your vgldk on my mod with this. I was telling Robin my excitement to put cpm on it, and then told him I was surprised to see you already had done it! Expect shoutouts
Sounds like one might be able to get persistent storage that way. How does the Z80 do I/O? I forget.
@@logiciananimalThere was a battery-backed 32KB SRAM cartridge available. And a bespoke PC-Link cable that attached to the printer port (for models that came with one), which allowed some limited data-exchange. EDIT: But it only seems to support the 2000 model (2-row LCD) and up. Also, the PreComputer 1000 Basic ROM does not seem to have any LOAD/SAVE commands.
But, using a custom ROM cartridge I managed to "bit-bang" 9600 baud TTL serial data through the printer port.
@@hotkeymucWould that SRAM cartridge work on the PreComputer 1000? It doesn't appear to have BASIC support for it unless I'm missing something. Or I suppose the SRAM cartridge itself could add commands to BASIC somehow?
I was a bit bored and was looking for a nice video to watch. Perfect time to upload 🥰
14:50 What is the capital town of Marocco. Time to go to science😂
This thing would be a blast for a kid in the early 80s. It could make several kids interested in programming, just because a relative gave them this as a random gift without really knowing what it is.
This was great, also "moulting"/"molting" elicited the same response I regularly give to Wordle 😁
Good thing Mom was a newspaper reporter with a Tandy 102. Great vid as usual!
My mom got me one of these in the early 90s. Man, you couldn't tell me anything!! I would carry it to school and everyone was so jealous I knew a little BASIC (but I was a big nerd anyway) and could type do fast. It's all thanks to this device. I'm looking to find one on ebay and your video unlocked a memory, I know I need to look for the book, too. Thank you!
I'm genuinely impressed. I think, this works much better for educational purposes than I would have expected back in the day.
I guess, the restriction to one display line actually helps, as you can't do video games and rather focus on the built-in educational programs, which were probably still fun as you were biding time with a computer. And doing so, you could actually learn something.
You can actually do some simple games similar to those found in some books on BASIC programming as long as the program and variables fit in memory.
You've happened to stumble across a niche that I've been developing for years. You've merely scratched the surface of toy computers. Nice video.
I got this for Christmas for either 4th or 5th grade and played around on it for about a year or so - the keyboard was one of its nicer features although keep in my mind my fingers at the time were quite a bit smaller so it was a perfect fit. I also already knew how to, more or less, touch type at around 30-40 WPM (which was otherwise unheard of in my school) and had been using computers since I was approximately 3 years old. The fact that it had a simple programmable BASIC was the other nice feature -- I wrote some simple programs and even was able to modify some pre-existing BASIC programs from books I got at the school library. I wrote them down in a spiral notebook which, sadly, has been lost to time. I eventually just moved to program on our 386 as by 6th grade we had more regular access to computers at school and it was no longer a "once-a-week special treat".
This video brought back some memories, I had a Dictée Magique when I was a kid. I also had a Vtech "computer" where I could write some basic music. I used them a lot.
Wow Toys in the 80s can do that.. that's amazing.. thanks for the video 👍❤
I had one of these. I loved that thing.
Interesting keycaps. Reminds me of the keyboards Apple was making in the late '80s-except with worse alignment than a Trabant's body panels!
At school a friend had the German version of that computer called "Mister X". I remember that I wrote a small Basic program on it. I had no instruction manual, but just typed in a few lines like I would do on my Commodore 64 and then RUN and I was surprised that it really worked - the one line display is a limiting factor on what programs make sense to run on that computer.
Yeeees! That "Mister X" (i.e. PreComputer 1000 in a clam shell case) was my *very* first encounter with BASIC and it was magical! 💖Now, 30+ years later, I am a software engineer 🤓 Thanx, VTech!
Hahaha, one of my friends as a youngling had the Whiz Kid. He had to stop bringing it to class as every other kid wanted to play with it, myself included, because it was that nifty. Also as I understand it, a lot of these kids' toys' keyboards were membrane due to the high possibility of spills or peanut butter-related disasters, so it was a case of design flaw by design.
I had one of these as a kid. Loved playing on it at the time but man if it had had an RF output to output to the TV I'd have been in heaven.
For the z80, the DJNZ instruction can be effectively infinitely long.. its a crazy single instruction good for copying large chunks of data around, though not the most efficient way of doing it since there's conditional per iteration.
My little sister had one of those "Pre[-]"computer 1000s. What's interestingly ironic to me is that the first consumer computer with a keyboard, the original Commodore PET, has a keyboard that doesn't even have regular, full keys or the standard positioning, while this VTech toy does (or at least _almost_ full)! And another interesting thing is that VTech also makes cordless landline phones.
Oh geez, I never made the connection between the "VTech" that made toy computers (and the Laser Apple clones before that) and the one that makes phones now. I'm glad they've found a way to survive, I guess, though I hope they have a plan for the future when even landlines become extinct.
Thanks for the upload - this was my first computer - man it was quite a machine
🙂
Oh my goodness. I remember seeing these in the shops back in the early 90s when I was a child. I never thought much of them until about 3 years ago, and I bought one on eBay. These were quite popular back then. I had a few other VTech toys as a child, including a Pre Computer 1000 Junior and a Talking Lesson One. These PC 1000s are rather plentiful on eBay, and they're not too expensive either.
Me and my sister had this same computer as a kid and a few of the cartridges. Taught me how to use BASIC.
Totally had one. Wash over me, sweet sweet nostalgia
2:20 I wonder how many young children are learning the alphabet as Q-W-E-R-T-Y- … -V-B-N-M.
6:20 At least the key columns are staggered, unlike with the PET-2001.
9:10 Oh, that's what "Vtech" means. I've mostly seen the name on cordless phones.
13:10 It's very US-centric for a product in a Canadian box!
18:19 Yeah, what age range is this product targeted at?
23:55 That's at least double-precision float.
24:45 It's interesting just how many devices a smartphone/tablet replaces. Though, I guess a smartphone can't give you touch-typing practice.
37:45 The 6502 accesses the system bus on every clock cycle, which helps with throughput per clock cycle.
41:19 Instead of a maze, a one-line display prints letters: "VIINININM".
I remember typing at school in grade 3 (1989) on one of those "Type-right" models as show 1:08 #12. I have fond memories of ecstatic students when the teacher brought them out.
My father gifted this "Lern-Computer" to me when i was a kid. I am with him right now and i talked about you.
How your videos bring back memories of me and him sitting on the c64.
To my surprise he still has this vtech machine!
Here in Germany it was sold as "MisterX" by "Yeno Spielwaren"
Words can't describe the joy you bring to us right now. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
Greetings from germany. Stay safe and healthy.
I wish that I could remember what happened if I tried Commodore-specific pokes on my little sister's VTPC 1000, like screen colors, etc. (or if I even remembered to try them at all). But... I guess she gave it to the thrift store a long time ago.
This was a way to get home computers into the minds of common people.
Your video is timely because I just picked one up from a thrift store here in Edmonton. It came with the General Knowledge II cartridge. The keyboard is yellowed but the faceplate not so much and the battery cover is intact. I realized quickly that my "General Knowledge" is very poor. 😁
I just got a Super Memory Expander which adds 32K to the Pre Computer 2000 and can be used with Power Pad, Power Pad Plus and other Vtech machines with Basic built in! (not Pre Computer 1000 sadly) Bearing the cartridge came out in 1992, mine was sealed and the CR2025 Battery that came with it still works! You can store up to 7 programs into the Ram Cartridge and load them back into memory. I saved 8 programs to test it, so the manual is clearly wrong. It uses Save ", Load ", Erase, Format and even Dir commands to list saved programs on the cart. Saving onto a Ram Cartridge for me means it's much more than a kids toy. It uses Microsoft Basic 80. I am using it on a Power Power Plus which has a display of at 4 lines. I am going to type in some simple word and numbers programs. I'm hoping I can get a text adventure I help write in TI Basic for my TI74/CC40 to work on my Vtech. I love the thing!
Thank you for this great video. 😊
10:27 I'm Canadian too, albeit living in the US, and the only reason I know the answer is from dialog from a popular 90's-era cartoon: "Six white stripes, seven red stripes, and a helluva-lot of stars!". I'll leave the name/episode of the cartoon as a bonus trivia question 🙂
I recall my cousins having one as a kid. Another one to look at is the IQ Unlimited, which verged on being something useful!
I have one of them, and I love it.
I'm pretty sure mine is up in the attic. I enjoyed using it, I was around 11 at the time. I was thinking of looking for it awhile ago. I'll keep an eye out on DJ's channel.
it's a-maze-ing!!! Thanks for another fun 10 PRINT walk through! The tours of these vintage computers and software a a lot of fun! Thanks for sharing!
"Time to go to science" made me laugh.
The single-line display allowed you to concentrate on and individually enjoy each line generated by 10 PRINT!
Also I laughed when that “rock and roll” sample came up again twice during the patron scroll! 😂
Friend of mine had a VTech computer pretty similar to this one.
The small display was really inconvenient.
And in the early 90s basic was really old school and both of us didn't care much for it.
I actually picked one up maybe a month ago from a recycling center for 8€. Untested but it was in great unyellowed condition and it came with a SPELLER cartridge. I posted one short of it on my channel. I was delighted to see this video. Would've been very nice to have before I got it before I bought batteries for it! I'm trying to flip it because it has the cartridge I can profit maybe 5x and batteries are too expensive for me to keep it. It's very fun and I've recently been interested in equipment like this. Totally worth picking up if you have the chance!
It can actually be powered from a wall adapter, but it uses a somewhat non-standard input jack (looks like a 3.5mm headphone style plug) that isn't labeled...
@@jnharton Is it a 3.5mm jack like those universal PSU's?
@@jnharton I tested my universal PSU but yeah, non standard looks like 3,5mm as you said, so yeah no luck.
@@jnharton I tested my universal PSU but yeah, non standard looks like 3,5mm as you said, so yeah no luck.
Oh wow, I’m really liking that little thing! Anyone have any suggestions for a drop-in replacement (electrically, not necessarily physically) screen?
The problem with trying to guess the speed of the cpu relative to the same code on a 6502 is the different architectures and basic interpreters heavily influence the results. While the 6502/6510 is more efficient on a per cycle basis, the Z80 has a deeper register set. Each cpu requires different optimizations in order to run at their best and when running code optimized for each system the speed difference is closer to 2:1. Furthermore, even when comparing Z80 systems, the basic interpreter that system uses often makes a massive difference in the results. For example, with Noel Retro Lab’s BASIC Benchmark the ZX spectrum clocked a time of 87 seconds compared to 37 seconds for the Microbee Series 2. Both machines actually run the same 3.5 Mhz Z80 processor but if we assumed the ZX’s speed based on the results then it would have come out as 1.5 Mhz. So it is quite possible the PreComputer has a 4Mhz cpu and the poor results are due more to a slow basic than a slow cpu.
Oh yeah, wow. The timing was off with its release, but I would have loved to have had this as a kid of about 8 or 9, maybe 10.. I would have been floored. Never heard of it before, and it came out when I was 18, but yeah, I could have totally gotten into this for the trivia and other stuff, not to mention the BASIC learning it sported. Just the wrong time for me.
I bet you might be able to use a Battery door from the NES Satelite on that thing. (It seems similar shape and size)
Ameuricauns doun't beulieuve iun extrauneous "U"s 🤣Thanks for the vid, Robin, I remember these kinds of special purpose computers and it's amazing the price differences between them and their big brothers, the personal computers. Remember how much those little Casio pocket organizers used to cost?
Had one when i was a kid!
The ROM is basically a hacked up copy of TRS-80 Level II BASIC, though of what vintage I'm not sure. It was possibly even derived from a TRS-80 clone computer. All they did was nuke half of the keyword table (including PEEK and POKE) and reuse the freed up space. It uses a regular ROM chip, so it's easy to replace it with your own.
There's also another half of the ROM which is your typical Math Quiz type stuff.
Even in 1988, I couldn't imagine plunking down any cash for this thing.
For 88?
That's a full on budget pc for that time i would guess
it seen to be very close Microsoft extended basic TRS-80 colour, and may in been the trs-100 (the one you show a picture of in the video) , can case clones (bagged models) it got all the advanced math. stuff, that lot lessor version basic where missing, and machine become, in the none toy, section where missing?
Interesting that that manual continues in this weird way. I wonder why they didn't just make it like a normal one.
Anyway... at least that device came with a physical manual!
A lot of typing instruction books use that top-bound (ringed, whatever) format as it's easier to stand up or position beside the keyboard for transcription. I had a similarly-arranged book in my typing class in high school.
Oh yeah, @@8_Bit, OK, cool. Thanks for explaining that. I didn't notice at first that that was the thing with the typing stuff in it.
If only it had a 8x64 KB memory module.
We had one of these!
Nice and interesting video, as usual.
This keyboard looks like an Apple //c keyboard :)
It's not half bad for basically a toy. If I got it as little kid, I would have lots of fun with it.
I was born in 1982 and I remember for certain using one of these as a child. The only problem is that I don't where or exactly when.
Haha, on that Smart Start they even put some indentations in the shape of a fake floppy disk drive.
"So I'll just run it off the DC power today."
It only runs _on_ DC power though, whether that's on the batteries or that AC adapter.
Haha, the name of the French version of the Speak & Spell is The Magic Dictation or Magic Speak.
In France they were often branded "YENO Compusavant", in Germany they were called "VTech Genius Leader". Different look & ROM, same internals.
If it had a 4x20 text display or a dot matrix comparable to the Z80-based TI graphing calculators...then it would be *something*. Surely that would have been feasible by the latter half of the 1980s without busting the budget?
I just looked; the TI-81 (which was the first Z80 calculator they released) retailed for $130, and wasn't released until 1990, so I don't see a $70 product from two years earlier managing that, as much as I would have liked it.
Have you tried for the one-liner to use another line number? Maybe only 0 line behave that way. I saw in the example that they do not use line 0, start with line 2.
Only line 0 allows a GOTO without a specified line number. If you want to GOTO any other line number, then it needs to be specified.
I have the same exact one !
The font choice is very close to the PET font!
Holy cow, you'd have to be crazy to spend anywhere NEAR US$800-1000 on one of those things! (Actually, I should say even Can. too.)
At the time, the TRS-80 Model 100 was one of the few very portable devices with a good keyboard, so it was popular with journalists and other people who wanted to be able to electronically store what they typed. It also had an optional modem so they could upload their text documents from the field.
@@8_Bit: Oh, I didn't realize it was that serious.
@@HelloKittyFanManFWIW the TRS-80 Model 100 is a full computer with I/O options and, iirc, also has a swappable ROM bay for supplementing the on-board software.
It's full 8-line by 80 character LCD display also makes it possible to use other productivity software like a spreadsheet package or have a usable serial terminal experience.
oh neat, i had one of these as a kid. if i can find it, i might try getting cp/m running on it.
As cute as that little PC is. By '88 you could have gotten a leftover VIC20 with a bunch of software for the same price or better.
A VIC-20 would be a lot more fun in every other way, but this was very portable and battery operated, with the (limited) built-in screen. I would have enjoyed having this in the car on a long trip, or whatever.
Ha, the thing I dislike about that "Pre..." 1000 is that its screen is only one line tall; that would make it really hard to see what you're doing! And I like what you said about this too.
The PreComputer 2000 (aka. Genius Leader 2000) had two lines 🥳And the 4000 series had 4 lines. Later models (6000/7000/8000) came with a graphical LCD. Then they switched from Z80 to a weird CompactRisc (CR16B) CPU that is really an oddball.
@@hotkeymucTo be fair that cpu was 16-bit and might have been something they could cheaply source.
It also seems there was a line of CompactRisc microcontrollers based on the CR16B, so maybe that was part of their decision making process.
@@jnharton Yep, pretty sure about that! The CR16B is a yet-to-be discovered wonder of vintage computing - no one is talking about it EVER. VTech did put them in pretty much EVERY device. And, yet, the compiler and tools are (almost) lost to time! (Still found the SDK installer on the internet archive, tho). Anyone interested in helping to find out more about the CR16B CPU? I have already started coding an assembler and disassembler... But it's really hard... 😓
@@hotkeymuc Why is it hard? --- This wasn't too hard to find while googling: my.eng.utah.edu/~cs3710/handouts/cr16.pdf
@@hotkeymuc VTech would seem to have shared the basic philosophy that the developer of the original gameboy (Gunpei Yokoi) felt was a valuable principle. Basically the concept is to look at mature technologies that are readily available and ask how you could re-purpose them... --- en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi#Lateral_Thinking_with_Withered_Technology
"You don't need a TV.", well the display could have been a lot bigger if it did heh. My ideal VTech computer would have a 160x160 monochrome LCD in either 1bpp or 2bpp. Regardless, awesome keyboard for such a low price.😉
It's a shame that 40x4 lcds are/were a bit pricy. One of them would have made this a much more useful device.
Yeah that is strange that limited character displays are still are kind of pricey compared to plain LCDs. You'd think they'd be dirt cheap now.@@jnharton
Hey I'm thinking of buying one of these to modify! Could you please tell me how stepped the keycaps are? It looks similar to an Apple IIC and I'm wondering if the caps shape feel as comfortable (irregardless of membrane)
Unfortunately I don't have this anymore so I can't measure the step of the keycaps, if that's what you mean. I'd guess it's maybe 3 mm from memory? But yeah, it is similar to an Apple IIc in appearance, but definitely cheaper. I found it very comfortable for a toy keyboard. The keys kind of wobble around but I could type decently on it as shown.
@@8_BitThank you! I think 3mm is about the same level of steepness as the Apple IIC. Could you tell if the keyboard keycaps are the same diameter as standard keyboard keys?
@@Internatube The keys felt about the right size; if they're smaller than standard it's not by much.
Laser PC4 vid?
The enter thing is proably aimed to protect a battteries from draining out if your program loops long enough .... So you need to step manually ?? ..... just guessing really.
Can you explain a little more about the twinkle twinkle program? How does the DATA variable work? It looks like you're overwriting it four times and the for loop doesn't even reference it. Obviously that's not the case, so how does that magic happen?
Line 10 does all the work. Each time through the loop READ F,D reads two of the numbers in the DATA statements, starting at line 2. After the first READ, F=21 and D=4. Then the SOUND is played at frequency F and duration D. Then the next time through the loop, another 21 and 4 will be read and played. Next time through, F=28 and D=4, etc.
Heh, I knew what the first question would be when it got to 'how many st'
Fun toy, the screen is a bit annoying tho.
I would've killed for one of those as a kid. I only ever got to use a computer at school, at least until junior year of high school. I did have a device that came with the World Book encyclopedias that my parents bought, but it had far fewer functions and only a d-pad and a couple of other buttons. One of these days I'd like to fix it because it has some battery corrosion now.
Wow, only 2K of RAM?! Man, it would be a wonder to be able to program just about anything halfway usable on that machine without one of its cartridges!
Sadly the cartridges don’t have write capability so you can’t use it for expanding ram.
I never said you could, @@DJSures. But cartridges are programmed, are they not?
I wasn't aware these were hard to find - I saw one at my thrift store a few months ago and passed up on it.
"Those darn Americans" Isn't VTech a Korean company?
Interesting it seems like the vtech computers slowly got dumbed down their first products were proper computers that were competing against the apple 2 and vc20. but then they started making this like this and by the 90s they were just locked down toys with no way to program or add new software. i grew up with a 90s version of this that had a very low res screen but at least had multiple lines and a robotic voice. but no way to program or add new features to it with a cartridge .
6 c cells!? my Tandy 102 only takes 4 AA's lol but it was much more than the PC 1000
As there's that old-school standalone electronic Bible, I'd also like to see a Book of Mormon device like that, to go hand-in-hand with the Bible one (I'd like the Bible one to be KJV though).
Not bad for a toy. I understand way they are forced to one line display. THis screen probably is used in a big volume in certain thing like fax machine, so they can get them pretty cheap. But, like really, two line would have helped. Also, the limit of the line happens to be 40 ???, isnt this the buffer limit of the 44780 for one line ?. Or it was 20. It seems very slow., just as a 44780 would do
That moment when the toy from 1988 has a better HID than the latest 1000 dollar whizz bang pocket computer device from 2023.
Somebody, maybe look mum no computer, circuit bent a retro electronic bible like that one you mention at 1:50
Circuit bent to get interesting / weird / new audio out of it? I don't even remember it making sound! I'll have to find this...
Doesn't have much memory at all just 128x128 memory locations and a Vtec EPROM that contains the BIOS and other firmware.
It would be amazing to dump the rom and see if a hidden peek, poke, debug command exists.
The ROMs for these systems have been dumped, so you can google for it and have a look. As far as I can tell, there aren't any such commands.
I suspect such functionality was stripped from the version of BASIC they used for this system/toy.
Oh, I remember to used a V-Tech. It scolled so slow that I forgot the first part of the question. And I was disappointed about its amount of storage for BASIC. I learned Turbo Pascal instead. I learned QBasic some years before. (When my brother was not at home.) In this years I learned English too. Because it was (an illegal copy) in English and my mothertongue is german. Without internet this was only feasible by reading a German-English dictionary. I was around 8 years old or around 10 - I am not sure. I don't regret it, but my English is not very good. I learned some bad habits.
I have one of these.
This is a great comouter to teach kids these days even baasic computer coding and programming. I still have mine and i was borb in 90s and now my 10 year old uses it and has been for about 6 months and he can now code on his raspberry pi and make anything he wants and simple games so its not just a toy its a toy that actually taught kids a usefull skill unlike todays toya
Does it have any connectors for video out?
Unfortunately it has no connectors besides the cartridge port (which as far as I know doesn't carry any sort of video signal, but I've never seen the pinouts) and the DC power jack.
Unfortunately not. But one some models, a printer port can be retro-fitted. This port can also be used for PC communication.
@@hotkeymucShould be able to use that to communicate with all sorts of stuff no? I imagine you could strap a UART/parallel port driven video output to it, although you'd need a custom software cartridge to make use of such a feature...
@@jnharton The Z80 is fast enough to output some nice "1 Bit" PCM sound. And through bit-banging you can output around 19.2 kBaud (maybe 30k with some assembly wizardry) with the CPU on full load. But that's about the highest bit rate I have been able to push through the parallel port. Anything beyond that would require a custom cartridge with some extra chips. At which point you are close to completely flipping the concept around and only using the VTech as a text terminal and do everything else on an external chip... 🙃
@@hotkeymucI don't see why you would "flip it around", at least if you're actually interested in the Z80.
My point was just that you essentially have a software driven output port that's suitable for a range of one way/write-only communication applications.
Seems like it would be relatively easy to strap on video and audio functionality that way using discrete/74 series logic and/or a PAL/GAL/CPLD.
And there's no reason you couldn't use the cartridge port for any number of software loading solutions. It would be hilariously to see a floppy drive hooked up that way (basically have a simple ROM emulator combined with an FDC chip and a circuit designed to do load on read/insert -- insert floppy disk, wait for data to load, and then initiate a reset/select cartridge).
Very interesting that this "Pre[-]"Computer 1000 can be hacked to have CP/M installed on it!
to be fair: Some very minor hardware modding required... (The internal ROM ChipSelect must be disabled and connected to an external SRAM chip). But then it runs ZORK! 😁
You end the 10 PRRINT line with a GOTO and no line number and assume it defaults to the start of the program and seem surprised that you need to press ENTER after each character. Did you consider that that GOTO without a line number was acting as a PAUSE/BREAK statement? Did you try using a line number?
I didn't try that exact program with a specified line number, but all the programs I wrote (including those starting on line 10, with a specified line number after a GOTO - the trick only works with line zero) waited for enter to be pressed after each PRINT. I assume the designers did this to ensure the user could see all the output that would otherwise immediately disappear due to the single-line display.
Two players are suppose to be looking at that tiny screen? I don't think so.
Not just _like,_ but they ARE simplified computers.
But can you make it run Doom?
19:42 The answer is actually 4.20. FTFY
"Dictionaries or... dictionaries"?
Always happy to listen to you Robin - idea for you - how about high level languages on the C64 and other systems that aren't Basic? I'm a huge fan of Pascal and there are some compilers? interpreters? for the C64 - I'm biased on language but maybe people will enjoy a little dive into the alternatives, who dared challenge Basic in the 80s? a mortal?
Thanks Johnny! There are a lot of other languages for the C64 like Pascal, C, even COBOL (I did a video on that once) but many of them are disk based compilers and just so tedious to use that I'm just not having fun. Edit code, save the code, load the compiler, run the compiler, test the object code, reload the code, repeat. Each one is a slow step. Plus a lot of the compilers were just written by one guy and not actually used or tested or updated all that much, so they can be pretty buggy on top of it all.
One language I have been meaning to do a video on though is COMAL which actually got a decent user base back in the day. Thanks for the suggestion.
@@8_Bit - oh my apologies, I'd not want suggest you do something you're not into - your videos are all the more enjoyable because you're passionate about your topics or are excited to share something with us - I can read up any time I like :D COMAL I've not heard of but I'm already dreaming of the one line COMAL maze :P take care