ScuzzBlog: Diaries April 2020
Entry 13th April 2020: Post 01: Tatung Einstein and Dr Logo.
Tatung Einstein and Dr Logo.
Following on from my LOGO blogs of last month I uncovered more
gems from Digital Research courtesy of the Tatung Einstein. I
have dabbled in LOGO on the Einstein and found it probably to
be the best of the machines I tried. Great fun.
Was that time of the month again when I check over the beast
and can report she was just fine. Never lets me down this girl.
A brute of a machine and I have two of the beasts. Both work and
the one still in its original, rather weathered, box. Tricky to
store I have to say. The one unit I have out all the time and do
use it quite frequently. Gets switched on once a day for a play
and to keep the 3" drives fluid. These are the only 3" drives in
the collection that I have not had to replace.
Big, did I say these are big. And I mean big. The plan area has
to be the biggest of any machine. Convenient if you want a desk
space size platform to place tons of stuff on. I have a SONY
Trinitron on mine and still have space for oodles of sturff.
I do like the Einstein. It runs CP/M off a 3" which feels like
home given my many years on the 9512 with Mallard. There is
something very reassuring about the steady click and odd vibrating
head of a 3" drive that you don't get with any other computer. I
know instinctively of the health of the drive and transfer of
data from the noises it makes. Kinda talks to you.... seriously.
Anyway here is the Tatung out of the box, and please don't ask
me to get the computer out again for a while. It's really heavy.
Tatung Einstein built in Telford Shropshire would you know. Whilst
the computer runs a thing called XTAL/DOS this is compatible with
CP/M. The computer is a programmers dream. It really is. This is
the easiest computer like ever to have serious play time with. And
the results are instant and appear with the text on screen. Makes
running and testing stuff so easy. Having the drive on tap also
makes the constant saving of files a dream. The computer can even
assemble Z80 it is that versatile.
The computer was used by many in the days to program other systems.
Tatung Einstein TC-01 made by Tatung in 1984
Has a full stroke QWERTY style keyboard with 51 keys and 8 function.
Uses a Zilog Z80 A running at 4 MHz
The RAM is 64 KB with 44KB free for the user. ROM is 8KB expanded 32KB.
Screen 256 x 192 dots and 16 colours.
Cost about £500 in the day making it a touch expensive.
Tatung Einstein and Dr Logo.
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