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The Sorcerer was one of the early home computer systems, released by the videogame company, Exidy. It was comparatively advanced when released, given its competition of Commodore PET and TRS-80, but due to a number of problems including a lack of marketing, the machine remained relatively unknown. Exidy eventually pulled it from the market in 1980, and today they are a coveted collectors item. TRS-80 Color Computer II The home computer is a consumer-friendly word for the second generation of microcomputers (the technical term that was previously used), entering the market in 1977 and becoming common during the 1980s. ...
A computer game is a game composed of a computer-controlled virtual universe that players interact with in order to achieve a defined goal or set of goals. ...
Exidy was one of the largest creators of arcade video games during the early period of video games, from 1975-1983. ...
The PET (Personal Electronic Transactor) was a home-/personal computer produced by Commodore starting in the late 1970s. ...
TRS-80 Model I. TRS-80 was Tandy Corporations desktop microcomputer model line, and sold through Tandys RadioShack stores, in the late-1970s and 1980s. ...
1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday. ...
History
The Sorcerer was first launched in 1978 (although some sources claim 1977, which appears unlikely), at a price of $895 running at 2.106 MHz with 8 kilobytes of RAM. The expansion systems and drives were released at the same time. 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday. ...
For the album by Ash, see 1977 (album). ...
A kilobyte (derived from the SI prefix kilo-, meaning 1000) is a unit of information or computer storage equal to either 1024 or 1000 bytes. ...
Random access memory (usually known by its acronym, RAM) is a type of data store used in computers that allows the stored data to be accessed in any order — that is, at random, not just in sequence. ...
Sales in Europe were fairly strong, via their distributor, CompuData Systems. The machine had its biggest brush with success in 1979 when the Dutch broadcasting company, TELEAC, decided to emulate the BBC's success and introduce their own home computer. The Belgian company DAI was originally contracted to design their machines, but when they couldn't deliver, CompuData delivered several thousand Sorcerers instead. The British Broadcasting Corporation, invariably known as the BBC (and also informally known as the Beeb or Auntie) is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world, employing 26,000 staff in the UK alone and with a budget of £4 billion. ...
By 1980 Exidy had already decided to give up on the machine, but sales in Europe were strong enough that CompuData decided to license the design for local construction in the Netherlands. They built the machine for several years before developing their own 16-bit Intel 8088–based machine called the Tulip, which replaced the Sorcerer in 1983. World map showing Europe A satellite composite image of Europe Europe is one of the six inhabited continents of the Earth. ...
In computer science, 16-bit is an adjective used to describe integers that are at most two bytes wide, or to describe CPU architectures based on registers, address buses, or data buses of that size. ...
An Intel 8088 microprocessor The Intel 8088 is an Intel microprocessor based on the 8086, with 16-bit registers and an 8-bit external data bus. ...
Tulip Computers NV (Euronext: TULIP) is a Dutch computer manufacturer that manufactures PC clones. ...
1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
One of the largest groups in The Netherlands was the ESGG (Exidy Sorcerer Gebruikers Groep) which published a monthly newsletter in two editions, Dutch and English. They were the largest group for a while in the HCC (Hollandse Computer Club) federation. The Dutch company De Broeders Montfort was a major firmware manufacturerer.
The Sorcerer also had a strong following in Australia. This is most likely due to Dick Smith Electronics, being a leading electronics and hobbyist retailer at the time, pushing the Sorcerer quite heavily. The Sorcerer Computer Users group of Australia (or SCUA) actively supported the Sorcerer long after Exidy discontinued it, with RAM upgrades, speed boosts, the "80 column card", and even a replacement monitor program, SCUAMON. Dick Smith Electronics is an Australasian electronics retailer founded in 1968 by Dick Smith. ...
The history of the Sorcerer has interesting parallels with Exidy's competition's attempts to build a home computer, Bally's various attempts at making a "real" machine out of the Astrocade. It is particularly interesting that while the Astrocade (and Datamax UV-1) had limited text capabilities but excellent graphics, the Sorcerer instead had excellent text and only "usable" graphics. Bally Technologies logo Bally (with its distinctive Rolling Ball logo) Bally Technologies, Inc. ...
The Astrocade was an early video game console and simple computer system designed by a team at Midway Manufacturing, the videogame division of Bally. ...
The Datamax UV-1 was a pioneering computer designed by a group of computer graphics artists working at the University of Illinois, known as the Circle Graphics Habitat. ...
Description The Sorcerer was an interesting combination of parts from a standard S-100 bus machine, combined with their custom display circuitry. The machine included the Zilog Z80 and various bus features needed to run the CP/M operating system, but placed them inside a "closed" box with a built-in keyboard similar to machines like the Atari 8-bit family and Commodore 64. The rest of the S-100 expansion capabilities were instead to be provided in an external box. The S-100 bus, IEEE696-1983 (withdrawn), was an early computer bus designed in 1974 as a part of the Altair 8800, generally considered today to be the first personal computer. The S-100 bus was the first industry standard bus for the microcomputer industry, and S-100 computers, processor...
One of the first Z80 microprocessors manufactured; the date stamp says well before July 1976. ...
CP/M is an operating system originally created for Intel 8080/85 and Zilog Z80 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. ...
To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...
An Atari 800XL, one of the most popular machines in the series. ...
The Commodore 64 is the best selling single personal computer model of all time. ...
Even the basic machine was usable on its own, an advantage over other S-100 machines. It included a small ROM containing a simple monitor program which allowed the machine to be controlled at the machine language level, as well as load programs from cassette tape or cartridges. The cartridges, known as ROM PACs in Exidy-speak, were actually eight-track tape cases containing a circuit board and edge connector to interface with the Sorcerer. Read-only memory (ROM) is a class of storage media used in computers and other electronic devices. ...
A monitor program is a small computer program, typically in ROM, that is used to start up the machine and/or monitor its inputs. ...
A system of codes directly understandable by a computers CPU is termed this CPUs native or machine language. ...
For the meaning of cassette in genetics, see cassette (genetics). ...
With additional hardware plugged into the S-100 bus (actually a dual-50-pin connector on the back of the machine) the Sorcerer could directly support floppy disks, and boot from them into CP/M (without which the disks were not operable). Another expansion option was a large external cage which included a full set of S-100 slots, allowing the Sorcerer to be use like a "full" S-100 machine. Still another option combined the floppies, expansion chassis and a small monitor into a single large-ish box. A floppy disk is a data storage device that is composed of a disk of thin, flexible (floppy) magnetic storage medium encased in a square or rectangular plastic shell. ...
Graphics on the Sorcerer sound impressive, with a resolution of 512×240, when most machines of the era supported a maximum of 320×200. These lower resolutions were a side effect of the inability of the video hardware to read the screen data from RAM fast enough; given the slow speed of the machines they would end up spending all of their time driving the display. The key to building a usable system was to reduce the total amount of data, either by reducing the resolution, or by reducing the number of colors.
The Sorcerer instead chose another method entirely, which was not really to have graphics at all. There were 256 characters possible for each screen location. The lower half was fixed in ROM, and contained the usual ASCII character set. The upper half was defined in RAM. This area would be loaded with a default set of graphics at reset, but could be re-defined and used in lieu of pixel-addressable graphics. In fact the machine was actually drawing a 64×30 display (8×8 characters) which was well within the capabilities of the hardware. However this meant that all graphics had to lie within a checkerboard pattern on the screen, and the system was generally less flexible than machines with "real" graphics. In addition, the high resolution was well beyond the capability of the average color TV, a problem they solved by not supporting color. In this respect the Sorcerer was similar to the PET in that it had only "graphics characters" to draw with, but at least on the Sorcerer one could define one's own. This example shows an image with a portion greatly enlarged, in which the individual pixels are rendered as little squares and can easily be seen. ...
Given these limitations, the quality of the graphics on the Sorcerer was otherwise excellent. Clever use of several characters for each graphic allowed programmers to create smooth motion on the screen, regardless of the character-cell boundaries. A more surprising limitation, given the machine's genesis, is the lack of sound output. Enterprising developers then standardized on attaching a speaker to two pins of the parallel port, which users were expected to supply. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Parallel communications. ...
Another item of note on the machine was the excellent keyboard, which suggested it was more of an "upscale" machine competing in the S-100 world than the average home computer. It was well built with considerable "throw" to the keys, and also included a numeric keypad. The keyboard included a custom "Graphics" key, which allowed easy entry of the extended character set, without having to overload the Control key, the more common solution on other machines.
A Standard BASIC cartridge was included with the machine, this was essentially the common Microsoft BASIC already widely used in the CP/M world, but Exidy added a number of one-stroke commands that allowed you to type in common instructions, like PRINT with a single keystroke. The machine included sound in/out ports on the back that could be attached to a cassette tape recorder, so BASIC could load and save programs to tape without needing a disk drive. An Extended BASIC cartridge requiring 16 KB was also advertised, but it is unclear if this was actually available; Extended BASIC from Microsoft was available on cassette. Another popular cartridge was the Word Processor PAC which contained a version of the early word processor program Spellbinder. A constant ROM fault in the wordprocessor PAC was a printer status switch setting for the printer, but most people learned about it and turned it off early in their power-on. The Montfort Brothers made an Eprom PAC with a rechargeable battery inside and 16 KB RAM with an external write-protect switch. Thus bootable software could be uploaded to the pack and kept for a longer period. Microsoft BASIC is the foundation product of the Microsoft company. ...
For the meaning of cassette in genetics, see cassette (genetics). ...
Specifications - CPU: Zilog Z80, 2.106 MHz (later 4 MHz)
- RAM: 4 kB, expandable to 48 kB. larger sizes came standard in later runs
- ROM: 4 kB, cartridges could include 4 to 16 kB
- Video: 64×30 character display, monochrome
- Sound: none (external additions possible)
- Ports: composite video, Centronics parallel, RS-232, sound in/out for cassette use, 50 pin ribbon connector including the S-100 bus.
Composite video is the format of an analog television (picture only) signal before it is combined with a sound signal and modulated onto an RF carrier. ...
Categories: Stub | Computer buses | IEEE standards ...
RS-232 (also referred to as EIA RS-232C or V.24) is a standard for serial binary data interchange between a DTE (Data terminal equipment) and a DCE (Data communication equipment). ...
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