Add-ons that FAILED for the various "Classic Computers".

[carlsson]

The Odyssey^2 probably is the strangest example of them all. There was some assembly language like training tool for the original console, and in Europe the BASIC module was released late (1984) for the Videopac+ (essentially the never released Odyssey^3). That module had its own Z80 CPU, own RAM and ROM.

 

Obviously there also was the Intellivision ECS with BASIC extension and keyboard which from what I understand was a last minute effort since Mattel never got to release the promised KCS and were fined a certain amount of money daily for delaying their promised computer addition.

 

Other worthy mentions would be e.g. the VTech Creativision which is a hybrid video game/computer which has a keyboard and connector for tape recorder. It also has a BASIC cartridge with its own RAM onboard. That never was a big system to start with (mainly an also-ran in Europe). I suppose the APF M(P)-1000 turning into the Imagination Machine would be worth mentioning here, and I understand that the Imagination Machine was sold to some lower end business applications, probably very good salespeople to get those out on the market.

 

XEGS as you mention is hard to classify. Same goes with the C64GS, which calls itself a console while it really is a C64 without the keyboard, some ports and one CIA stripped. There also is the Amstrad GX-4000 in this category, which at least is shaped like a console though it is a cartridge based CPC-6128+ (IIRC) inside. All three of these are examples of computers turned into video game consoles, rather than consoles turned into a computer like the Atari 2600 Compumate and all the other examples given.

 

There were some programming/hobby modules also for 1292 APVS (Interton VC-4000) and I think one somehow could convert the RCA Studio II into a Cosmac ELF compatible too. Not sure about the Channel F. The VideoBrain is similar to Channel F but as far as I can tell doesn't run the same software.

 

Also one should remember that Nintendo in Japan released the Family BASIC with separate keyboard and a fairly decent BASIC cartridge, also supporting a cassette recorder. Although I believe the Nintendo AVS package which Atari were intended to sell was shaped like a home computer as well, that is as far as Nintendo went on the home computer market. They showed that they would be able to pull it off if they thought there was a market, but decided to go all in on reviving console gaming instead. Sega of course released their first batch of systems, the SG-1000 console and SC-3000 home computer on the very same day, both using the same cartridges but also in that case they barely brought the SC-3000 outside of Japan (Australia/NZ and France through Yeno, I believe).

 

I'd like to add the MSX computers to this list. While those never officially were sold as consoles, Zemmix in Korea made some console versions of those and given the type of games it probably would have worked better than the C64GS and XEGS as consoles.

 

So yes, there have been quite a few examples of computer kit add-ons, hybrid video game/computers, parallel releases of consoles and computers and in the end computers repackaged as consoles. Some were more successful than others, but the majority probably worked best in its original form without dressing up as something it wasn't.

Edited November 18, 2020 by carlsson

[zzip]

37 minutes ago, carlsson said:

The Odyssey^2 probably is the strangest example of them all. There was some assembly language like training tool for the original console, and in Europe the BASIC module was released late (1984) for the Videopac+ (essentially the never released Odyssey^3). That module had its own Z80 CPU, own RAM and ROM.

I don't recall them marketing as a computer,  it was just a console with a keyboard.   But philosophically what is the difference between a console + keyboard + BASIC (or other languages) and a computer anyway?   Throw in some I/O device to save your programs and make it useful :)

[carlsson]

True, but the more items you left out from the original design and have to re-add later to make it a computer, the worse it likely will behave. In particular in a fierce market, if your add-on is not much cheaper than for the owner of the console to buy a brand new computer. Same probably goes for quite a bunch of computer extensions as well, trying to rebuild a cheap computer into something else.

[zzip]

16 hours ago, carlsson said:

True, but the more items you left out from the original design and have to re-add later to make it a computer, the worse it likely will behave.

Sure,  but there was a brief window in the market, when people would put up with something idiosyncratic just to have a computer, because the "real" computers were pricey.   This was when every console maker was announcing keyboard attachments.   Then the Commodore price war hit, and suddenly you could have a decent computer without breaking the bank, and all that other stuff fell to the wayside.

[leech]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Sure,  but there was a brief window in the market, when people would put up with something idiosyncratic just to have a computer, because the "real" computers were pricey.   This was when every console maker was announcing keyboard attachments.   Then the Commodore price war hit, and suddenly you could have a decent computer without breaking the bank, and all that other stuff fell to the wayside.

The sad thing is, it is likely the very price wars are what killed them.  Today companies get around undercutting hardware sales by taking a slice of software sales, but that didn't really happen back then.

[carlsson]

Indeed the price wars not only killed off competition in the actual home computer field, but also these hybrids and add-ons. This is what makes the 1984 release date for the BASIC module for the Videopac+ even more interesting. It is like Philips thought "what the heck, we have already spent money on developing this module so put it on the market regardless if anyone will buy it". I mean the same year the world saw the Apple Macintosh, the sequel to the Odyssey^2 dating back to 1978 finally saw a way to make your own programs on it (running on the Z80, not on the 8048 in the console nonetheless).

[doctorclu]

On 11/11/2020 at 7:36 PM, bluejay said:

I suppose the barcode reader for the TRS-80 Model 100. I don't think it was that heavily marketed, but I found that a small chunk of the Tandy laptop section of Tandy Catalogs to be devoted to the barcode reader. But I've yet to find a single example of one in real life.

Dad had a bar code reader for the TRS-80 Model 100.   Used it to scan bar codes for inventory at work.

[leech]

18 minutes ago, doctorclu said:

Dad had a bar code reader for the TRS-80 Model 100.   Used it to scan bar codes for inventory at work.

Does anyone else still read TRS-80 as Trash-80?  Like that is the only way I have heard it spoken.

[bluejay]

9 minutes ago, leech said:

Does anyone else still read TRS-80 as Trash-80?  Like that is the only way I have heard it spoken.

Never called any TRS-80 Trash 80, at least those that I've owned. Because they're far from trash. I loved each and every one I ever owned, which isn't that many, but still.

[carlsson]

It depends on which state they arrive in. This one I once received surely was worth being called that. I can't imagine what kind of add-on would have improved its function.

 

[DistantStar001]

5 hours ago, leech said:

Does anyone else still read TRS-80 as Trash-80?

Occasionally, but only lovingly.  My Model III has quickly become one of my favorite vintage machines.

Edited November 19, 2020 by DistantStar001

[DistantStar001]

3 hours ago, carlsson said:

It depends on which state they arrive in. This one I once received surely was worth being called that. I can't imagine what kind of add-on would have improved its function.

 

Although that poor guy might be referred to as depressingly.

[bluejay]

10 hours ago, carlsson said:

It depends on which state they arrive in. This one I once received surely was worth being called that. I can't imagine what kind of add-on would have improved its function.

 

A raspberry pi and a LCD.

[carlsson]

Yeah, perhaps something could've been salvaged. I gave away the carcass to a friend who had a friend who needed spare parts. Perhaps the drives still would work.

[Keatah]

15 hours ago, leech said:

Does anyone else still read TRS-80 as Trash-80?  Like that is the only way I have heard it spoken.

All the time.

 

[Keatah]

4 hours ago, bluejay said:

A raspberry pi and a LCD.

That's right. Cosplay for computers.

[carlsson]

Haha, that was a very accurate way to describe it!

[youxia]

16 hours ago, leech said:

Does anyone else still read TRS-80 as Trash-80?  Like that is the only way I have heard it spoken.

Goes to show that platform wars/elitisim were present since the very beginnig

 

I've never owned one (always have been rather scarce in Europe) but it's one of my favourites, a true underappreciated underdog.

[Mr SQL]

Memory expansion - because whatever the base system came with was the best bet for software developers to target the largest audience.

 

Consider VIC-20 games that required more than 5K of RAM reduced their market base by 90%

 

Similarly with the Atari 400/800 games that required more than 8K (later 16K) limited their base to mostly the 800. Like the VIC, only a small percentage of 400's were expanded beyond their stock RAM configuration in what became a growing trend to upgrade the whole machine with a new machine.

 

The C128 upgrade was badly overshadowed by it's C64 compatibility modes much larger market base as compared to nothing, so almost no C128 software was produced.

 

 

[carlsson]

I don't know about memory expansion. If you look at the now defunct vic20tapes.org, it lists 889 titles (a few duplicates). Those are broken down as following:

 

383 for unexpanded machine (43.0%)

50 for 3K expansion (5.6%)

126 for 8K expansion (14.2%)

106 for 16K expansion (11.9%)

224 where memory expansion is not specified (25.2%)

 

So at least 31% of the entire VIC-20 library was made for some sort of memory expansion. If those were that uncommon as you make it sound, certainly not almost one third of the library would require one.

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20190219145655/http://vic20tapes.org/

[Keatah]

3 hours ago, carlsson said:

Yeah, perhaps something could've been salvaged. I gave away the carcass to a friend who had a friend who needed spare parts. Perhaps the drives still would work.

Spare parts are always good to have for projects and repairs. Even cross-computer repairs, the 74LSxxx series is predominant in all classic rigs. Capacitors, resistors, transistors, diodes, various bits of wire. Scrap bits of PCB material, scrap metal for making brackets, and so much more can salvaged.

 

One time I was out and found this bit wire in the street. It looked like regular house wiring. Same gauge and all. Went to coil it up and it was as soft and bendy as string. Turned out to be multi-stranded. Hundreds of strands as fine as the bondwire you see in EEPROM windows. A great find and useful for fixing and modding anything that's really really tiny.

 

I guess this year I'm just into building up a cache of parts for the future. They don't take up much space

 

One thing I won't buy is the $39.95 Apple II speaker that pops up on ebay from time to time.

[Keatah]

17 minutes ago, Mr SQL said:

Memory expansion - because whatever the base system came with was the best bet for software developers to target the largest audience.

 

So true. In the Apple II world the early targets were 16K, 32K, and 48K. While 64K had been available and standardized in the II+ no one did much work with it. 64K was standardized through 3rd party 16K RamCards. People had the cards, but only technical software like "hi-dos" or languages used it. Same with ramdisks and variable storage - all highly vertical niche stuff.

 

Only when 64K came from the factory on the //e was it "required" and utilitized.

 

And despite the //e and //c machine being able to use several MB, most everything was written for the 64K & 128K base machines.

[Mr SQL]

1 hour ago, Keatah said:

Only when 64K came from the factory on the //e was it "required" and utilitized.

X2 only this caused significant market penetration of the bigger memory models and not the RAM add-on upgrades.

1 hour ago, carlsson said:

I don't know about memory expansion. If you look at the now defunct vic20tapes.org, it lists 889 titles (a few duplicates). Those are broken down as following:

 

383 for unexpanded machine (43.0%)

50 for 3K expansion (5.6%)

126 for 8K expansion (14.2%)

106 for 16K expansion (11.9%)

224 where memory expansion is not specified (25.2%)

 

So at least 31% of the entire VIC-20 library was made for some sort of memory expansion. If those were that uncommon as you make it sound, certainly not almost one third of the library would require one.

Excellent point that almost 1/3 of the library required some sort of memory expansion however the sales figures were not even close for that third due to a million people with an unexpanded VIC vs only a handful with memory expansion that were not even compatible with each other. 

 

[carlsson]

I don't have sales figures at hand, so I'll take your word for granted. Perhaps it boils down to only 10% of the VIC-20 owners actually used their computers, so it was for them the software companies released games both for unexpanded and expanded machine?

[zzip]

3 hours ago, Mr SQL said:

Memory expansion - because whatever the base system came with was the best bet for software developers to target the largest audience.

 

Consider VIC-20 games that required more than 5K of RAM reduced their market base by 90%

 

Similarly with the Atari 400/800 games that required more than 8K (later 16K) limited their base to mostly the 800. Like the VIC, only a small percentage of 400's were expanded beyond their stock RAM configuration in what became a growing trend to upgrade the whole machine with a new machine.

Atari never got held back by the 8K or 16K limits on some models though.   Especially once the disk game era arrived.  You can't run a floppy system on 16K so those fell by the wayside.    But most vendors limited their games to 48K to maintain compatibility with the 800.   A few would give enhanced features if you had 64K or even 128K