TI Logo in languages other than English

+Ksarul · March 20

Logo II (and to a much lesser extent, Logo I) are very interesting cartridges from a linguistic standpoint. There are multiple localized versions of the cartridge in the wild (Dutch, French, German, Italian, and Spanish), with printed TI manuals for some (French and Spanish), draft manuals (Dutch and German) and third-party manuals (Italian). I have been on a quest to complete a set of these very elusive cartridges for several decades. I eventually found copies of all of the varieties in the wild with one exception: Logo II in German. I knew it existed, as there were GRAM files for it floating around in Germany in the late 1980s, and I even found a prototype of Logo 1.1 in German with a draft manual, but no joy on any trace of a Logo II cartridge in German.

That search is now over, and oddly enough, the source was one I'd known since 1988 in Germany: Dr. Arnim Tölke. He and I talked at several gatherings while I was in Germany, but somehow, we never discussed the German variant of Logo even though I knew he was a Logo fan. His system was passed on to his son-in-law, who eventually decided to sell it on eBay. I saw a cartridge in the lot that I'd been looking for for ages--and apparently with a printed German manual. I won the auction after getting his permission to bid, as he did not want to ship things. I asked him to send me the things I was truly interested in (a medium-sized box) and once they cleared customs, I joyfully opened the well-packed box. Sure enough, the cartridge was really an original TI Logo II cartridge in German, made during the qualification run (normally 100-150 cartridges) that cleared them for a final production that never came. Two of the GROMs are identical to the ones used in TI Logo II in French, which suggests those two GROMs were probably in all of the language-localized variants. One GROM was unique to the German cartridge (and there was one unique one in the French cartridge as well), so that GROM is probably different for each language variant. I'll need to take a look in my other ones to confirm both conjectures--and to fill in some more blanks in my master GROM list.

The manual was the most interesting thing of all here. It was a German translation of the TI Logo II manual, but it had some extras. One of the appendices is a complete three-way cross-reference of the Logo keywords in English, German, and French. There is also a short epilogue at the back of the book that explains much about how these cartridges, and the book, came to be in the wild. The author noted that a small group of the qualification cartridges along with a draft of the manual were found at a TI facility in Switzerland during a clean-up/move in early 1984. The person who found them passed them on to the author for a nominal price instead of throwing them in the trash. The author then turned the draft into a print-ready book using TI Writer and sold the cartridges and the books to (mostly) Swiss users through advertisements in the Swiss Info99 magazine. I actually acquired a complete set of those magazines shortly before I left Germany. I took time to read them but I never thought to look through the ads at the time--as my life was in a bit of major turmoil about then. Now I have more fun things to dig into.

As to which localized cartridges exist:

Logo I in French, German, and Spanish. I still need confirmation of the French Logo I cartridge (no sightings in the wild and no GRAM files), although I do have the TI manual for it.

Logo II in Dutch, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. I have all five of these, and some form of manual for all except the Italian manual from Mondadori.

The French and Spanish versions of Logo II seem to be somewhat easier to find (easy when compared to the others, as all are exceedingly rare), with Italian being next. The only Logo I variant that shows up often enough to register is the Spanish one (both Logo I and Logo II in Spanish were somewhat widely released in South America but are nearly impossible to find anywhere else). There were several different sources for the French Logo II cartridge. @humeur graciously showed me pictures of his collection of the cartridges with different label variants several years ago.

Bodhi · March 20

What is the advantage of LOGO II compared to LOGO I?

+Ksarul · March 20

It corrected a few bugs and added speech capability.

humeur · March 20

I've never seen or found a LOGO 1 in French, and the LOGO II in French was already very difficult to find. A company called RAC la règle a calcul had the rights and was reproducing this module when TI had stopped.

JL

ti99iuc · March 20

This should be "TI LOGO I" in Spanish, right? probably, I still have never seen a Spanish TI LOGO II then

I have a lot of TI Logos but I am not sure what I have, still all in the boxes for the move and I don't remember all.
for example, I am pretty sure I have also a French RAC version of the TI-LOGO 2 maybe with manuals but I am missing a French TI-LOGO I, still... but maybe I will never have one, by now 😛

I have also to say that the LOGO in Italian is pretty rare too. I only found three of them in all the hunting years and only two with manuals.
It is written LOGO only but as you say it should be a LOGO II version.

Edited March 20 by ti99iuc

+Ksarul · March 21

46 minutes ago, ti99iuc said:

This should be "TI LOGO I" in Spanish, right? probably, I still have never seen a Spanish TI LOGO II then

I have a lot of TI Logos but I am not sure what I have, still all in the boxes for the move and I don't remember all.
for example, I am pretty sure I have also a French RAC version of the TI-LOGO 2 maybe with manuals but I am missing a French TI-LOGO I, still... but maybe I will never have one, by now 😛

I have also to say that the LOGO in Italian is pretty rare too. I only found three of them in all the hunting years and only two with manuals.
It is written LOGO only but as you say it should be a LOGO II version.

On the Argentine Logo cartridge--yes, that one is Logo I. Here in this picture is a copy of the Spanish Logo II module (at about the center of the middle cartridge row).

T

It would probably be a good thing if we got all of the various Logo manuals scanned at some point, especially considering how HTF they are. Have you looked at the inside of the Mondadori or your Spanish Logo I cartridge to see if they are using real GROMs?

+Ksarul · March 21

2 hours ago, humeur said:

I've never seen or found a LOGO 1 in French, and the LOGO II in French was already very difficult to find. A company called RAC la règle a calcul had the rights and was reproducing this module when TI had stopped.

JL

I have never seen (or heard) of a copy of the French Logo I cartridge in the wild either, @humeur. I have a manual for it--but that is all I've ever seen or heard on the subject. There aren't even GRAM files floating around for it (unlike the German Logo II cartridge, where I had the GRAM files but not a real cartridge until I found this one).

J’espère, ce n’existe pas.

ti99iuc · March 21

7 hours ago, Ksarul said:

On the Argentine Logo cartridge--yes, that one is Logo I. Here in this picture is a copy of the Spanish Logo II module (at about the center of the middle cartridge row).

T

It would probably be a good thing if we got all of the various Logo manuals scanned at some point, especially considering how HTF they are. Have you looked at the inside of the Mondadori or your Spanish Logo I cartridge to see if they are using real GROMs?

For the spanish and the italian manuals

I Remember to have already done the scans in hires but still in work in progress for the editing.

I also scanned the PCB of the CART but now i don't Remember about groms. Will Need to search and check It.

From your picture Instead there Is a TI-Multi LOGO cart that Is interesting too. Or maybe It could be the LOGO 1 but different label 🤔

Edited March 21 by ti99iuc

+Ksarul · March 22

21 hours ago, ti99iuc said:

From your picture Instead there Is a TI-Multi LOGO cart that Is interesting too. Or maybe It could be the LOGO 1 but different label 🤔

That picture actually comes from a most useful TI website in Argentina. They also have a few books pictured on another page that I haven't obtained copies of yet.

ti99iuc · March 22

Yes i know the website Indeed.

The books in the photos are very nice and i missing Just the green on of them. But i also have some more that isn't in the pictures to be honest.

Of course my intention Will be to Scan them. At a certain point, when all the scans are finished i will have to sell most of my paper stuff at least. if you want and before to put the stuff on ebay i Will give you a voice @Ksarul

+Ksarul · March 22

6 hours ago, ti99iuc said:

Of course my intention Will be to Scan them. At a certain point, when all the scans are finished i will have to sell most of my paper stuff at least. if you want and before to put the stuff on ebay i Will give you a voice @Ksarul

That would be very nice, @ti99iuc. I would definitely be interested in any book I don't have a copy of yet.