The Dick Smith VZ-200 / VZ-300 computer.
The VZ-200 and the VZ-300 were sold by Dick Smith Electronics in Australia from 1983 to 1989.
In the U.K. and Asia regions, they were known as the Laser 210 and the Laser 310 computers, while in theU.S. the VZ-200 was sold under the name of TEXET TX8000A.
History...
The history of the VZ computer is in interesting one. It was built and designed around the Z80A cpu by thecompany Video Technology of down town Taiwan. It was released and the importing rights to the little 8 bit computercame to Australia in early to mid 1982. Dick Smith Electronics (Australia) bought the importing and the re-namingof the computer to the Australian and New Zealand public, somewhere close around may 1982.
Dick Smith got in contact with Tim Hartnell, whom at the time was a reasonably well known British / Australian computer programmer / designer / technical expert guru.
About...
The VZ-200 was initially released with 8 kilobytes of RAM, an 8 kilobyte MS-BASIC ROM chip, 2 kilobytes of video RAM, a 31 key keyboard.
The VZ-300 was initially released with 16 kilobytes of RAM, a slightly more updated 8 Kilobyte MS-BASIC ROM chip, 2k ofvideo RAM, a 32 key keyboard.
The Laser-210 and the Texet TX-8000A were basically an earlier version of the VZ-200, since it only had 4 kilobytes of RAM, rather than 8.Everything else was identical.
The Laser-310 was identical to the VZ-300, expect renamed for the U.K. and Asia regions.
While Dick Smith Electronics were selling the VZ-300, the keyboard went through four different design phases!. First was brown keys with three functions printed on the keys. Then four functions were printed. Then along came the cream coloured keys with three functions, then the cream keys with four functions printed on them were released. Interesting huh?
Video...
Video Resolution started off with 32 x 25, 9 colours in text mode (lo-res), and in graphics mode (hi-res), the resolutionwas 128 x 64.With some slight modifications to the video controller chip and the addition of another video RAM chip, one could achieve resolutions of up to 256 x 192.
RAM...
The 16 kilobyte RAM extension module originally was sold for around $80.00 and on the VZ-200, allowed a total of 24 kilobytes of RAM. Since the VZ-300 had 16k of RAM, the ram expansion module for the '200 would not fully work with the '300 due tothe different memory offsets and addresses, so the '200 expansion on a '300 would give a total of 24 kb of memory.
So the entreuprenariel Dick Smith Electronics modified the '200 expansion unit, gave it a '300 expansion name, and soldit for another $80.00 which would give '300 owners the full 32 kilobytes of RAM that they had paid for.For around $2.50, (one switch and one chip) an owner could modify their existing '200 ram expansion module to give a full 24k to the '200 and a full 32kto the '300.
A 64 kilobyte RAM extention module was released in 1984, unfortunately only the first 16k RAM bank could be used forBASIC, leaving the other 48k RAM to sit around until one learnt assembly language to envoke the banks to store information.
One interesting program that was written sometime in 1986 to 1987 by a Mr Bob Kitch, used the full 64k extenstion moduleto load up around 24 hi-res screen pictures and to then run another program which could display these screens as eithera slide show routine, or to display them quickly to give an animated appearance. 24 screens per second is close enough to give an animated appearance to the human eye.
A cassette recorder/player was sold for around $150. It loaded and saved data at 600 baud.
The Lightpen...
The lightpen was originally designed and made in Germany for the Laser-210, and none were sold in Australia by Dick Smith,although they could be imported from Germany. One could also make one from standard electronic components and withthe light pen software, it worked quite well.
A kit was published by ETI, that made the VZ become a data logger. Software came with all of the hardware to log an sort
of an electronic pulse, be it from a light beam, relay/solenoid, noise, heat etc.
Compumuse. (The VZ Adlib sound card)
Electronics Australia magazine published an article on the CompuMuse synthesised sound chip sometime in the mid eighties.It was based on the Texas Instruments SN76489AN Sound Chip. In the article, it described all of the parts, instructions andsoftware to enable most 8-bit computers at the time to have an amazing sound output, (one which we would now call an adlib card for 8-bit BASIC ROM'd computers).
Speech Synthesiser
In a similiar article, a Speech Synthesiser was designed for 8 bit computers as well. It was based on the Tandy ???Speech Synth chip. With the right software, one could have your computer merrily talking away to you.
The VZ mouse
A dedicated VZ user, converted a mouse which was connected to the VZ via the rs232 port. With software in hand, the little old VZhad its first and possibly the only mouse. Just shows what can done.
720k floppy
Speaking of what can be done, the same user, I must find his name..., also sucessfully converted an IBM-pc 720k 3 1/2" floppy diskdrive for the use of the VZ. Quite extraordinary!
1985
In 1985 the VZ-300 was released. It was impressive to all of the VZ-200 users, since it had double the RAM and had a near-proper push button keyboard with a full size space bar, and two shift keys.
1997
1987 was the year that the VZ disk drive was released. It could load a game into the computer faster than to rewind a tape!At the time, it was pretty awesome.
The disk drive and controller originally sold for around $399, so it was fairly expensive to load in games a bit quicker.VZ's DOS BASIC could not handle a filename associated with a parameter, so in a menu system for example, where
you may wish to have a choice of multiple filename's to load in, you had to use self-modifying code in BASIC to
achieve a multiple-filename-support menu type program. It was interesting to program self-mod code in BASIC.
1989 saw the year of the VZ Wordprocessor cartridge. It was pretty much an eprom with the word processing software
that DSE sold on tape. It was in a module that plugged into the back of the VZ, turn the computer on, and bang!
Probably one of the quickest word proessors to ever load in to a computer, since it was only about 10k in length.
By 1991, the VZ started to die from support, and at a guess by January 1992, the VZ was unfortunately pretty much dead.
Two or three clubs still existed, one continuing to struggle until mid 1993.
Go back to the VZ page