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The Tatung Einstein |
Tatung Einstein TC 01
Introduction
Released in 1984, the
Tatung
Einstein TC-01 was designed and manufactured in the UK for
the
Tatung Corporation of Taiwan.
The TC-01 was designed at Tatung's Technical Laboratory
in Bradford with production done at the Tatung factory in
Telford. The machine was mainly targeted at the business market
with an introductory price of £499 (excluding monitor), despite
its quality and professional feel, it failed to achieve
significant market share and was quickly discontinued.
The TC-01 has many features in common with the
Memotech MTX series, including
its CPU and Video processor, as well as having a version of Tony
Brewer's
Speculator
available.
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Specifications
- Tatung Einstein TC-01 |
| Processor |
Zilog
Z80A |
| Clock Speed |
4 MHz (CPU) / 10 MHZ (Video Display
Processor)
2MHz I/O |
| ROMs |
8 KBytes, with
expansion to up to 32k internally |
| RAM - fitted |
64 KBytes |
| RAM - maximum |
64 KBytes |
| Video RAM |
16 KBytes of
dedicated VRAM |
| Video Processor |
Texas
Instruments TMS 9929A (UK/PAL) or
TMS 9918 (US/NTSC) .
There is a
good summary of the VDP on the
Absolute
Astronomy website
here
There is lots of really good TMS 9918/9929 information
available at
spatula-city.org,
including lots of information from
Karl Guttag, one of the designers of the
TMS 9918.
The TI
VDP Programmer's Guide can be found on the Technical
Library pages |
| Video Output |
YUV or RGB (internally selected) |
| RF Modulator Output |
UK
UHF Channel 36 |
| Display |
256 x 192 pixel resolution
32 independently controlled user defined "sprites" Mode
0 (Text) : 24 lines of
40 characters (6 pixels/character) of text per line
Mode 1
(Graphics 1) : 24 lines of
32 characters of text with graphics per line
Mode 2 (Graphics 2) : 24 lines of
32 characters of text with graphics per line |
| Colours |
16 |
| Sound |
AY-3-8910 with internal speaker
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| I/O Capability |
Z80 Bus, RF Out (TV), 2 Joystick ports, Hi-Fi out, YUV
or RGB Video out, Centronics Parallel Port, Z80 "Tube"
Interface, 8 bit User I/O port, External Disk Drive
connector, RS-232 port, Z84C30 CTC, Z84C20 PIO, Intel
8251 SIO |
| I/O Options |
80 Column Card |
| ROM Expansions |
Up to 32k internally |
| RAM Expansions |
None |
| Data Storage |
1 or 2 built in 3"
floppy drives
3" Teac FD30A, Single sided, 40 track,
10 sectors/track, 512 bytes/sector
500k unformatted
capacity (250k/side), 400k formatted (200k/side)
Double density (MFM) recording
Double sided
"flip-over" cartridge |
| Built in languages |
None ! |
| The Einstein booted
to a simple machine code monitor called MOS (Machine
Operating System), the operating system and all other
software is loaded from disk. |
| Power Supply |
Mains powered |
| Construction |
Full travel QWERTY keyboard with 40
alphanumeric/graphics keys, 8 function keys and 11
control keys Dimensions: 435 x 515 x 115 mm
Weight: kg |
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