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Applesoft BASIC is a dialect of Microsoft BASIC, developed by Marc McDonald and Ric Weiland, supplied with the Apple II series of computers. It supersedes Integer BASIC and is the BASIC in ROM in all Apple II series computers after the original Apple II model. It is also referred to as FP BASIC because of the Apple DOS command used to invoke it, instead of INT for Integer BASIC.
The Dragon 32 and Dragon 64 are home computers that were built in the 1980s. The Dragons are very similar to the TRS-80 Color Computer, and were produced for the European market by Dragon Data, Ltd., initially in Swansea, Wales before moving to Port Talbot, Wales and by Eurohard S.A. in Casar de Cáceres, Spain, and for the US market by Tano of New Orleans, Louisiana. The model numbers reflect the primary difference between the two machines, which have 32 and 64 kilobytes of RAM, respectively.
The RadioShack TRS-80 Color Computer, later marketed as the Tandy Color Computer and sometimes nicknamed the CoCo, is a line of home computers developed and sold by Tandy Corporation. Despite sharing a name with the earlier TRS-80, the Color Computer is a completely different, incompatible system and a radical departure in design and compatibility with its Motorola 6809E processor rather than the Zilog Z80 earlier models were built around.
The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 as the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The series was successively upgraded to Atari 1200XL, Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, Atari 65XE, Atari 130XE, Atari 800XE, and Atari XEGS, the last discontinued in 1992. They differ primarily in packaging, each based on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU at 1.79 MHz and the same custom coprocessor chips. As the first home computer architecture with coprocessors, it has graphics and sound more advanced than most contemporary machines. Video games were a major draw, and first-person space combat simulator Star Raiders is considered the platform's killer app. The plug-and-play peripherals use the Atari SIO serial bus, with one developer eventually also co-patenting USB.
The Commodore 128, also known as the C128, C-128, C= 128, is the last 8-bit home computer that was commercially released by Commodore Business Machines (CBM). Introduced in January 1985 at the CES in Las Vegas, it appeared three years after its predecessor, the bestselling computer in the 80s Commodore 64.
The BallyAstrocade is a second-generation home video game console and simple computer system designed by a team at Midway, at that time the videogame division of Bally. It was originally announced as the "Bally Home Library Computer" in October 1977 and initially made available for mail order in December 1977. But due to production delays, the units were first released to stores in April 1978 and its branding changed to "Bally Professional Arcade". It was marketed only for a limited time before Bally decided to exit the market. The rights were later picked up by a third-party company, who re-released it and sold it until around 1984. The Astrocade is particularly notable for its very powerful graphics capabilities for the time of release, and for the difficulty in accessing those capabilities.
Locomotive Basic is a proprietary dialect of the BASIC programming language written by Locomotive Software on the Amstrad CPC and the later Locomotive BASIC-2 as a GEM application on the Amstrad PC1512 and 1640. It was the main descendant of Mallard BASIC, the interpreter for CP/M supplied with the Amstrad PCW.
Sinclair BASIC is a dialect of the programming language BASIC used in the 8-bit home computers from Sinclair Research and Timex Sinclair. The Sinclair BASIC interpreter was made by Nine Tiles Networks Ltd.
The Color Graphics Adapter (CGA), originally also called the Color/Graphics Adapter or IBM Color/Graphics Monitor Adapter, introduced in 1981, was IBM's first color graphics card for the IBM PC and established a de facto computer display standard.
The VTech Laser 200 is an 8-bit home computer from 1983, also sold as the Salora Fellow, the Seltron 200 in Hungary and Italy, the Smart-Alec Jr. by Dynasty Computer Corporation in Dallas, Texas for the USA, the Texet TX8000A, and the Dick Smith VZ 200 and the VTech VZ 200.
TI BASIC is an ANSI-compliant BASIC programming language interpreter built into the 1979 Texas Instruments TI-99/4 home computer and its improved 1981 version, the TI-99/4A.
The VIC-1211 Super Expander is a cartridge for the VIC-20 home computer. It was designed to provide several extensions to the BASIC interpreter on the computer, mostly to help with programming graphics and sound. It also provided 3 kB of extra RAM. The cartridge was created by Commodore Business Machines (CBM) and released in 1981.
Simons' BASIC is an extension to BASIC 2.0 for the Commodore 64 home computer. Written by British programmer David Simons in 1983, who was 16 years old at the time, it was distributed by Commodore as a cartridge.
The Super Expander 64 was a cartridge-based extension to the built in BASIC V2 interpreter of the then immensely popular Commodore 64 home computer: Since the 64 was developed in a hurry, Commodore simply adapted the BASIC V2 from the PET line of computers and the VIC 20 for their new machine, with no support for the advanced sound and graphics capabilities of the 64. To make use of the advanced hardware, BASIC programmers needed to memorize hardware addresses and "POKE" commands directly to the memory-mapped devices. Later 8-bit systems from Commodore had BASIC interpreters enhanced to support the special hardware, and with the Super Expander 64 cartridge, Commodore 64 users could "retrofit" their machine with a BASIC to match the hardware capabilities.
The DAI personal computer is an early home computer from the Belgian company Data Applications International. The DAI came to market in 1980. It provided many pioneering features such as high resolution color graphics, a maths co-processor, and a pre-compiling BASIC interpreter. However, it never became a commercial success.
The Panasonic JR-200 was a simple, relatively early (1983), 8-bit home computer with a chiclet keyboard somewhat similar to the VTech Laser 200. It's part of the JR Series.
ReGIS, short for Remote Graphic Instruction Set, is a vector graphics markup language developed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) for later models of their famous VT series of computer terminals. ReGIS supports rudimentary vector graphics consisting of lines, circular arcs, and similar shapes. Terminals supporting ReGIS generally allow graphics and text to be mixed on-screen, which makes construction of graphs and charts relatively easy.
The Matsushita JR series was a line of microcomputers produced by Matsushita Electric Industrial during the 1980s. Based on the success of the Sharp MZ and NEC PC-8000 series, it was an attempt by Matsushita to enter the personal computer market.
Text-based semigraphics or pseudographics is a primitive method used in early text mode video hardware to emulate raster graphics without having to implement the logic for such a display mode.
Oric was the name used by UK-based Tangerine Computer Systems for a series of 6502-based home computers sold in the 1980s, primarily in Europe.
References
- ↑ "JR-100". 計算機室. May 28, 2017.
- 1 2 "Operating Instructions - Personal Computer JR-100U" – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ "OLD-COMPUTERS.COM : The Museum MATSUSHITA National JR 100". www.old-computers.com.
- ↑ "Creative Computing Magazine (May. 1983) Volume 09 Number 05". May 10, 1983 – via Internet Archive.