The Philips VG-8000, released in 1983, was the first Philips MSX computer, although it was not 100% compliant with the standard (as it lacked a Centronics printer port, expansion bus, or audio out, and had a custom video out). [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
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The VG-8000 was built in France, at Le Mans by Radiotechnique. [8] It was released in Belgium, Finland, Germany, and Italy (as the Phonola VG-8000). [1] [9] [10]
The computer had a poor chiclet type keyboard, with two cartridge ports above it. The keyboard layout was qwerty or azerty, according to the market the computer was sold. It had five double function keys (F1 to F10) on top, and four arrow keys on the right. There were three color LEDs: Power (red), Caps (orange) and Code (green). [9]
There were three versions of this machine: [9]
- VG-8000/00, with qwerty keyboard and PAL composite video output;
- VG-8000/19, with azerty keyboard and RGB video output (planned but never released according to service manual);
- VG-8000/20, with qwerty keyboard and RGB video output.
The machine was expensive and not successful. [1] [2]
