I just bought one of these off eBay this week. I bought my original one on my eighth birthday, the day after Christmas 1985 at Zayres in Londonderry, New Hampshire. They were clearancing out all the old 16 K machines, and we picked this one out because it says no adult supervision required. I never had a cassette deck for it so I would write programs, enjoy them for a while, and then lose them forever when it was switched off had till about 1998 when it was lost in the move.
the Tutor used the TMS9995 CPU which was slated for the TI99-8 and TI99-2 (both prototyped but never released). The chip was actually superior to the TMS9900 that came in the TI99/4 line. Another difference was the Tutor didn't have TI's lower level GROM language (think very primitive Java). otherwise it was the same.
Scramble looks like fun! Cave Crawlers is interesting, a pseudo 3D game on such an early system isn't something you see often. Having not heard of the system before and its cheap appearance, I am pleasantly surprised by the graphics and quality of the games.
How is it possible that a guy claiming to be a "vintage gamer" is not familiar with Scramble? This was one of those games that was EVERYWHERE back in the day. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with vintage arcade games knows what scramble is.
Great point! I think that may have been slightly before my time and sadly the town I grew up in didn’t even have an arcade. It’s fun to learn about hugely popular titles that I never had the chance to encounter…if you have others that are ‘must plays’ please let me know so I can check them out! Thanks for your feedback
The arcade version of Scramble was released in 81'. It would have been familiar to gamers born in the 60s and 70s, but it wasn't nearly as famous as space invaders or pacman so a lot of 80s kids would have missed it. I only know of it because of Penetrator, which was a scrambler clone that eneded up on various Z-80 based microcomputers.
@@dgmt1 How many retrogamers don't know Scramble? Kids who were born in the 80s or afterwards, sure, they don't know what it is just from life. But if you are a person who likes, plays and makes youtube videos about vintage gaming, I would think you would know such a common and widespread game. But OTOH, now he knows.
Such a great video! Very enjoyable. I used to think it was Tommy Tudor. It's like way back then I would read computer magazines and not hear about it. So I made it tommy. But, instead, it's pronounced "toe-me". Better learned now then never I guess! (BTW, another word that made it to my brain incorrectly is "niche"...)
8 months late with this comment but FYI the pronunciation of the computers name is "pyu-ta" (as in Com-pu-ter) rather than Pi-yu-to. The spelling has a double meaning in that it's a shortened version of the Japanese pronunciation of "computer" combined with a character that can mean great or magnificant.
yeah my mind immediately went to assuming a kids edutainment system but that doesn't seem to be the case after all. or was that maybe what it was early on and then they just went with these kind of games afterwards?
This is not a "powerful" computer. The Mattel Intellivision had a 16 bit processor and some 16bit RAM too. It's roughly on par with an MSX or Colecovision which use the same or variants of the graphics and sound chips.
I just bought one of these off eBay this week. I bought my original one on my eighth birthday, the day after Christmas 1985 at Zayres in Londonderry, New Hampshire. They were clearancing out all the old 16 K machines, and we picked this one out because it says no adult supervision required. I never had a cassette deck for it so I would write programs, enjoy them for a while, and then lose them forever when it was switched off had till about 1998 when it was lost in the move.
I had one of those! Fun games. It’s probably still laying around somewhere in my ex’s attic.
Your channel is highly underrated
Terrific video! Not too much information about this system available.
Very interesting show today !!! Interesting how games are linked internationally....great job, guys !
I love vintage computers. I’m very glad I found your channel! Content is great and your friendly and relaxing style is excellent!
We had one of these! Wish I could play with it now
A lot better than the "kids computers" from the 90s.
Love your videos from down under ❤ god bless
the Tutor used the TMS9995 CPU which was slated for the TI99-8 and TI99-2 (both prototyped but never released). The chip was actually superior to the TMS9900 that came in the TI99/4 line. Another difference was the Tutor didn't have TI's lower level GROM language (think very primitive Java). otherwise it was the same.
The TMS9995 also had some use in avionics, particularly by Litton in their digital radar processors.
Tron seems to be a very simple version of Tempest.
Great video thanks! Ive never seen this machine before.
japan hardware is my favorite!!! the tomy puh-tah has some very good arcade games on it...scramble is a classic !
I hate the cursor keys, but thats really cool
Scramble looks like fun! Cave Crawlers is interesting, a pseudo 3D game on such an early system isn't something you see often. Having not heard of the system before and its cheap appearance, I am pleasantly surprised by the graphics and quality of the games.
How is it possible that a guy claiming to be a "vintage gamer" is not familiar with Scramble? This was one of those games that was EVERYWHERE back in the day. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with vintage arcade games knows what scramble is.
Great point! I think that may have been slightly before my time and sadly the town I grew up in didn’t even have an arcade. It’s fun to learn about hugely popular titles that I never had the chance to encounter…if you have others that are ‘must plays’ please let me know so I can check them out! Thanks for your feedback
The arcade version of Scramble was released in 81'. It would have been familiar to gamers born in the 60s and 70s, but it wasn't nearly as famous as space invaders or pacman so a lot of 80s kids would have missed it. I only know of it because of Penetrator, which was a scrambler clone that eneded up on various Z-80 based microcomputers.
@@dgmt1 How many retrogamers don't know Scramble? Kids who were born in the 80s or afterwards, sure, they don't know what it is just from life. But if you are a person who likes, plays and makes youtube videos about vintage gaming, I would think you would know such a common and widespread game. But OTOH, now he knows.
Such a great video! Very enjoyable. I used to think it was Tommy Tudor. It's like way back then I would read computer magazines and not hear about it. So I made it tommy. But, instead, it's pronounced "toe-me". Better learned now then never I guess! (BTW, another word that made it to my brain incorrectly is "niche"...)
8 months late with this comment but FYI the pronunciation of the computers name is "pyu-ta" (as in Com-pu-ter) rather than Pi-yu-to. The spelling has a double meaning in that it's a shortened version of the Japanese pronunciation of "computer" combined with a character that can mean great or magnificant.
typing, correctly performed, hurts
yeah my mind immediately went to assuming a kids edutainment system but that doesn't seem to be the case after all.
or was that maybe what it was early on and then they just went with these kind of games afterwards?
This is not a "powerful" computer. The Mattel Intellivision had a 16 bit processor and some 16bit RAM too. It's roughly on par with an MSX or Colecovision which use the same or variants of the graphics and sound chips.
Kinda looks and sounds like a colecovision