Information Technology - Computer Programming - Source Code - Homebrew - Open Source - Software - Hardware - 8 bit - 16 bit - 32 bit - 64 bit - x86 - x64 - DOS - Windows - Linux - Arduino - Embedded - Development - Retro - Vintage - Math - Science - History - Hobby - Beginners - Professionals - Experiment - Research - Study - Fun - Games

VTech Precomputer 1000

NES/Famicom/Famiclone, Gameboy, TI 83/84, Atari VCS/8 bit, Commodore, Arduino, and other 8 bit systems discussion.
Post Reply
admin
Site Admin
Posts: 106
Joined: Wed Feb 22, 2023 6:51 am

VTech Precomputer 1000

Post by admin »

Vtech is known for educational computers. They teach children general studies including typing, math, history, science, etc.

The Precomputer 1000 was released in 1988 and was aimed for children 9 and up. It has a dot matrix 20x1 LCD screen and built in keyboard that feels nice and crappy at the same time like a normal 80s computer. Power is from either 6 C cell batteries or an Atari 2600/VCS power adapter.

What makes this educational computer different and interesting is that it has a BASIC interpreter and runs on a Z80 processor. The interpreter seems to be a ripoff of another. This makes it very powerful. It supports floating point arithmetic and string parsing. Unfortunately, the peek/poke functionality was removed. There is a cartridge port which would offer possibilities of expansion, but that's out of my scope.

The computer also has a calculator program that also supports floating point arithmetic and parentheses.

Unfortunately the interpreter doesn't seem to have a MOD operator and is possibly lacking others. This may have been to "save space." For calculating MOD, we may use d1-(d2*int(d1/d2)) with d1 as the divided and d2 as the divisor.

Variable names are limited to two characters.
20240110_131605.jpg
20240110_131605.jpg (2.04 MiB) Viewed 4199 times
Post Reply