Thanks for the great video Adrian. Glad the package came all the way over there in good condition. A little bit disappointed that you did not try the dry fish :) Keep up the good work!
Hiya from the cold north also. Actually, Finland does go up north all the way to Norway's north (We share the border up there). Lapland is the area with reindeer and Santaland, Northern lights and skiing. But as Finland also extends down south so much the temperatures can vary, like 20 degrees Celsius. I started computing with C64 in the 80s, and now it's back in fashion. You may know that Linus Torvalds is a Finn who got Linux started at his Vic-20 machine. And that our pride, Nokia, is still at it, making modern TVs and retro-style phones.
Nokia (a conglomerate of Salora, Luxor, Finlux, SEL under Nokia ownership) hasn't made TV's since the late 1990's.... Its successors, first Semitech and later Finlux under Otrum ownership also stopped trading years ago so I'm very curious now who rented the Nokia name to put on their TV sets. For telephones, I'll count HMD as maunfactured by Nokia even if it is done under license - but at least designed by the same people.
@@mjouwbuis Good point. Did some research, maybe helpful. True, Nokia only retains nowadays its software, networks and licensing rights. And it has licensed out not only its mobile phones but now also its once favorite TV market. This to an Austrian company, StreamView. They then subcontract their manufacturing to Skyworth India, a part of the Chinese electronics giant Skyworth.
@@rockapartie Another famous Finnish quirky, intellectual individual, like our Jim Jarmusch. We have a lot of those. I used to watch old flicks at our National Archive of Films, and often Mr Kaurismäki was there, too. He and his brother, Mika, used to own the Corona bar near there. His choice of films were French New Wave ones and Chaplin's. Maybe that tells something about him. His movies are rather hard watching to non-Finns (although also very humanistic) as their view of Finland and Helsinki is very stylized and nostalgic for an imaginary past. There's plenty of humour and inside jokes, though.
That Dragon power brick was made by the Norwegian company Mascot, and was supplied with early Dragons in Norway, before the original brick from Dragon Data was certified for use in Norway.
Adrian, if you want to ‘see’ more of Norway, I highly recommend the RailCowGirl channel. She was a driver on the state railroad system and made many tapes showing the scenery along her routes (she now runs freight trains along the same routes) and always has at least one tape running as a livestream.
12:45 I can't speak about Norway, but at least in Spain any machine with an RF output would have the switch labelled as "CH 3-CH 4" (although I don't know if that's correct, I only know that selecting CH3 matched perfectly with the broadcasting frequency of the then most important broadcasting station while I never really found what channel the CH4 option output to).
i just watched a couple of your vids from 2015ish and i can now see the influence of big clive. i mean this as a high compliment, since i am in music and one of the highest praises in music is to tell someone that you can hear how they are influenced by someone and be basically correct.
Been subscribed to Arctic Retro for about three months or so. Tommy seems such a lovely guy, and I enjoy his videos. Thanks for mentioning his second channel. I had missed that, so I'll give it a look!
Adrian I know you like your blown caps 😆 so I thought you should see the latest video this week from the slo mo guys on UA-cam showing caps blowing at ridiculous high fps when overloading
I'm in the UK and found a boxed Laser 200 on eBay. Mine's PAL but I don't remember it over here. I think it sold in quite small numbers in Europe. I love it though. The industrial design is so... cute. It's so underpowered that it makes me laugh and smile every time I plug it in. It's so useless and I love it so much.
You'd be surprised at how hard Aussie enthusiasts pushed their VZs back in the day. Many electronics enthusiasts used them to control their projects, kinda like a proto-Arduino with a built in keyboard.
@@OzRetrocomp That's awesome. It must have helped that you had enough users to be able to get together and share ideas & tricks back then. I don't think that was the case in Europe, so most people just never heard of it.
I have a couple of Laser 200s, specifically a Laser 200, and its Australia/NZ variant, the Dick Smith VZ200. The VZ200 came with a 16K RAM pack as deep as the computer. Ridiculously large compared to, say, a ZX81 16k RAM pack.
Arctic Retro is a great Channel ! Tommy is a legend. Been following for a while now. His Christmas advent calendar if you haven't watched it is worth checking out.
Been a subscriber of Tommy's for quite a while now. I think I may have found him through one of your older videos (perhaps an SepTandy or two ago). He's always so positive in his presentation and demeanor.
They didn't actually 'clone' the Tandy to make the Dragon. Motorola published a reference design to get people to adopt their chips and both companies heavily based their designs off that - hence the similarity. As far as the keyboard goes, I wouldn't be surprised that both used an off-the-shelf keyboard to avoid construction costs?
I worked for the UK Post Office when I was a student. One package was stinking when it arrived, someone had sent burgers from Canada, they'd been several weeks in then post!
Hi Adrian. The jumper on the analog board shunts a dropper resistor. For 110-120 VAC (U.S.), the jumper remains in-place, since the power supply is designed to work at this voltage. For 220-240 VAC (U.K, most of Europe, Australia), the jumper is removed, which puts the dropping resistor in series so it’ll work, instead of releasing the magic smoke. It says right there on the board to set “W12” accordingly. If it used a “linear” power supply (big power Xfmr, bridge rectifier, filter caps, and 78xx-series linear voltage regulator ICs), then the transformer primary would either: 1) have two 120 volt windings, in which case, the jumper(s) would either wire them in parallel (110-120 VAC input), or in series for 220-240 VAC input, or: 2) have multiple taps, and the jumper would select the correct tap. HTH. 🙂
The first thing that popped into my head when hearing the words 'dunder salt', was that this must be some kind of liquorice or salmiak candy, and it looks like I was right. I looked it up and 'dunder' is Swedish for 'thunder', implying an explosive flavour. If you look at the ingredients you see that one of them is 'ammoniumchloride', in other words: salmiak. Salmiak flavoured candy is very popular in Nordic countries, as well as in countries such as the Netherlands and Belgium. I think for most people it is an acquired taste, but one that people in these countries are usually exposed to when they're kids. Personally, I find them delicious ;-).
The Laser 200 / DSE VZ200, and subsequent VZ300 were the machines a lot of us cut our programming skills on back in the 80's when we were growing up. Those chicklet keyboards were horrible (VZ300 was nicer 'real' keyboard) but those speed keys helped a lot when writing BASIC code. Definitely were cheap, sold for $99 AUD at the time, very much a bargain.
The Dragon 32 was my first computer. Looking forward to your review! Most CoCo machine code games ran fine but BASIC used a different encoding. I had a cart to decode CoCo BASIC.
I'm from Norway and I don't like fish, so there is at least one of us Love your work on your channel, it's very nice to see old tech get a new lease of life I actually have a VTech Laser 200 in a drawer at my dad's house. The keyboard was horrible to type on, and even though it predates me getting a C64 I consider the C64 as my first propper computer as it was at that time, I was old enough get propper use of and it was easier to get accessories for.
Freia Milk Chocolate is the best. Rules over all those other chocolates in the world 😉 Glad someone sent it, had been thinking about mailing it myself 😜
I don't know why but I'm most excited to see you fix that Laser 200...just love cheap 80's computers. Neat to see what manufactures tried to get away with in calling them computers.
The Laser machine, IIRC has 2k RAM and is essentially a TRS80 (Z80) with added colour circuitry. It came out around 1983-4. I think a version of it (from Dick Smith, an Aussie equivalent of Radio Shack) was fairly successful. In the UK a calculator supplier called Texet tried to market this, but brought it to market a little late and tried to price it just under the cost of a 16k Spectrum. Yeah right like that was going to work... in the end they got rid of them in a fire sale for £19.99 and still struggled to sell them! It's one of my regrets that I didn't take them up on their offer as it looks interesting and would probably be worth a little bit now 😂
The Dick Smith version of the VZ200 was very successful on account of it being the same price as the ZX81 in 1983 ($199), but it had 8K RAM and colour. Replaced by the VZ300 in 1985 which had 16K RAM (I think) and a more orthodox keyboard. IIRC it was sold by Dick Smith until about 1990.
@@OzRetrocomp Makes you wonder why Texet didn't just ship their stock off to old Tricky Dick when they realised they had a container-load of the things really! From what I've seen if them they look like a competent enough cheapo computer.
@@jasejj they were good for what they were and they were cheap enough to appeal to electronics hobbyists to use in all sorts of projects. A lot of these are documented in Australian electronics magazines such as Electronics Australia. Most of the '80s issues of EA are on the Internet Archive.
I’ll be watching for the Laser 200 video, I used to have a CoCo 1 and 3 back in the 80s. The Laser is very similar to the Dick Smith VZ200 and the later VZ300 in Australia. Our modulator channels were usually 0 (46.25mhz) and 1 (55.25mhz). Sometimes 1 and 2 (64.25mhz) were used. You could tune in an Australian Ch 1 modulator on a US TV using channel 2 or 3 but you won’t get sound as NTSC sound is 4.5mhz, while Australian sound is 5.5mhz. European PAL sound may be 5.5, 6.0 or 6.5 mhz. The Motorola 6847 VDG doesn’t produce a display on all frames. It’s not interlaced so only every other frame carries an image. We often wished the Coco had a parallel printer port, as serial printers were hard to find and serial was not always an option.
The Laser 200 was marketed in Australia by a company called Dick Smiths under the name Dick Smith VZ 200. This was my very first computer. It had (I think) a 16k memory expansion that plugged in on the back right hand side that was about the size of a TV remote control. I never used the commands above the keyboard, I always typed everything in by hand. I remember trying to convert BASIC software from other computers because there didnt seem to be easily found basic programs for the VZ200. Well easily for me (a 16-17 year old kid back in the late '80's). They also brought out a slightly better revision that was called the VZ 300, as far as I know it just had a better keyboard and 16 k more ram in it.
Laser is from Hong Kong company Vtech, it's target is US market at that time (around 1980), my neighbor also bought one, I'm about 10 years old and always want to run some games from it.
That 220V Analog board (International version) is the only version that I know of that can be easily altered to match input mains voltage , there is a link wire that determines input voltage.
As a Norwegian I approve of this 😂👌🏻 We should export it more I guess. I have a friend in Scotland who managed to pick some up in the airport he worked at in Scotland.
I had the pleasure of living in Norway for a few years beautiful country but never made it up to the far north (just to Trondheim). Kjell is approximately pronounced like "Shell" and the O with the slash through it is pronounced like the "oo" in book. I love Artic Retro as well....especially the north-Norway accent.
Very cool video and love the recommendation of a retro channel I had not discovered yet! Tommy seems great and I will definitely start consuming his videos :)
Thanks for the video! That output on the Vtech Laser 200 looks exactly the same as the output on my CoCo 2. I’m going to keep an eye for the upcomping troubleshooting video.
Vetch Lazer 200 was m'y first computer ever in thé early '80s. An incredibely slow ans underpowered machine even for the period. But so many memories of that thing trying tonrun programs and overheatingnand smelling hot plastic.. 🥰
Reminds me a bit of the Socrates and its horribly slow serial framebuffer graphics system. The way it was designed it wasn't even possible to fill all of the display memory at once; everything had to be drawn in in a serial fashion, one colour at a time. It was possible, though, to use block transfer- something similar to a blitter- to produce simple animation.
@@douro20 i wrote my comment before watching the video. It is way worse than I thought inside. I was aroudn 10 yo when my parents offered me that thing, never dared to open it. What a pile of junk ! Definitively terribly slow ans barely able of anything in my memories.
Yes, this machine uses a '6847 for the VDG. There's no TI chip involved though. The 6847 is NTSC only and that's where that little add on PCB comes in. It takes the colour difference signals from the 6847 and produces PAL colour. From memory there is also some logic on the PCB to gate the 3.58MHz clock to the 6847 and insert additional lines to pad the video out to course PAL timing. The shimmy in the picture is the result of the two crystals used, one for the PAL clock and one for the 6847 dot/cpu clock beating and drifting with respect to each other. The Laser 310 (AKA VZ300 in Australia) solves this by using a 17.73MHz master and dividing that by 4 and 5 for the PAL clock and system clock respectively. It's not harmonically perfect so there is still a standing interference pattern but since it is stationary it is much more appealing to the eye. A side effect of this is that the Z80 is clocked slightly slower in the '310 compared to the '200.
As someone who grew-up in the 80's in the UK, I have to say I never knew anyone who had a Dragon. Yes to the C64, VIC-20, Spectrum, ZX-81, Acorn Electron, BBC B, Amstrad CPC and Atari. One even had an Aquarius, but no Dragon.
That Laser computer on the outside looks pretty neat, but the inside, blimey, they tried to out-cheap Sinclair there, that's pretty "rustic" looking there... :S
12:48 not really, channel 3 & 4 are part of the VHF range used in PAL countries like Europe and South America (2 thru 13); the problem arises on variations of the PAL norm, since there are B N M and colors would be diffeerent between them.SECAM norm was used only in France afaik
That Laser 200 is also known as a Dick Smith VZ200 in Australia 👍 I think they were originally AUD$399 new. Damn the inside design is really really NASTY !
I'm pretty sure there were PAL Dragon 32's sold in the US as well. That's because after Dragon Computers folded, the unsold stock ended up in the hands of US seller od vintage computers and parts, and they were still selling them off after 2010. (I'm pretty sure they ran out of new old stock some years ago.)
Adrien if you want it, I have a step-up transformer that came with a Chinese co2 laser to go from our standard 110v to 220v up to 1000va that I have no use for (I ran 220 directly to the laser, so this will go unused). It has a multi-plug capable output that should work just fine with that Dragon's power supply, along with power plugs from many other countries as well. Again, I have no use for it now, and would be happy to send it along if you've a use for it.
Nice stuff, the Vtech is the most interesting to me, as here in Finland was computer called Salora Fellow, which was based on the Vtech Laser 200. I didn't have it, but I had, and still have, it's "big brother", a Salora Manager computer, my first computer, which is based on Vtech Laser 2001 :)
Adrian, The Tandy Color Computer 1 and Dragon32 were both based on the Motorola reference design. So really they didn't clone the CoCo. As far as the video chip. Yes that is a Motorola 6847 VDG. The CoCo 2 was a cost reduced system. Tandy was all about making the system as cheap as possible. Later the Dragon 64 and US version Tano Dragon they added a MOS 6551 UART to the design. The 6809 CPU was a very nice CPU. There is a common CPU upgrade to replace the 6809 with a HD63C09. Well in the case of the these systems it is a M68B09E being replaced with a HD63C09E. :)
Im sure it was the angle of the camera but at the beginning of the video I was wincing as Adrian waved his hand around the exposed box cutter blade. I was glad we didnt see an Adrians Digital Emergency.
If you want to directly translate "Sortland" to something it would mean "Black country", as "Sort" is norwegian for Black. So, should suit you well to visit that place ;)
The Laser was my first computer. It is kind of a TRS80 model 1 clone, but with colors. It came with only 2K of RAM and it was impossible for me to find upgrades like RAM expansion, joysticks etc. here in Germany, although the computer itself was sold by the biggest mail order company of the time. I sold it and bought a ZX Spectrum 48K instead. Last year I managed to find another Laser 200 with all the hardware goodies and a lot of software, It is kind of fun now. The problem of your Laser could be RAM. Or it could be the custom chip (similar to ULA on ZX or gate array on Amstrad), but that chip is unobtainium.
IIRC Laser used the term 'gate array' to describe the VZ's custom chip. TBH I'm surprised that the VZ gate array hasn't been reverse engineered yet (AFAIK). Give it time and someone out there will probably make one at some point.
Actually, the Dragon 32 was based on the Coco 1 not the Coco 2. It was basically a budget Coco 1 clone. While initially somewhat successful as a budget computer when released in 1982, due to the aging (by early 80’s standards) Coco 1 architecture it was based on, it was already getting long in the tooth by the time it was released and likely sold largely on price rather then features. The original Dragon 32 suffered from severely limited color support (compared with other 1982 microcomputers on the market), among other limitations that were seen as acceptable when the Coco 1 came out in 1980 but no longer so just a few years later in rapidly developing microcomputer market of the early 80’s. There was also a Dragon 64 version was released somewhat late that include a RS-232 port and more RAM but otherwise was still CoCo 1 based. There was plans to release a Dragon 200 that would bring the machine up to speed with other offerings of the era but Dragon went into bankruptcy before it could be released, Another European company bought their assets from bankruptcy and did release the Dragon 200 in limited markets in mainland Europe but they two went bankrupt shortly after too. The original Dragon 32 2 was reviewed by computer mags of the era as being a good value for the money feature-wise but otherwise unremarkable. It was sold in the U.S. by a separate company that bought the rights to sell it over here from Dragon computer. When Dragon went bankrupt, the leftover Dragon 32’s/64’s being sold in the U.S. got sold to a U.S, company that was still selling new old stock of the company up to maybe sometime in the early 2010’s I believe when they finally exhausted their stock of old Dragon 32’s/64’s to sell. Interesting footnote in Briths microcomputer history but if you have ever used a CoCo 1 then you largely have seen the Dragon 32 since it was like 98% comparable with it. Now Dragon did release some games and other software for their machine that might was sort of interesting but not really that much more special vs CoCo 1 software we saw over hear largely due to the very limited specs of the Dragon 32.
Dunder Salt tastes like salty poison. The ingredients in this unforgettable candy: sugar, glucose syrup, licorice, ammonium chloride, color E153. I had no idea they sell this in Sweden to. I will try that for sure.
The tørrfisk from Norway is exactly the same as what we call cuttlefish in Hawaii. Also a snack here and very popular if you're usually a youth and not affected by fish or salt.
Noel's Retro Lab showed a spectra video computer. It was held together with glue. It makes this laser 200 look like a well made machine in comparison. If I recall it's basically an MSX before or right when MSX became a thing. But yeah that computer had 100x the glue this one has. Not only the keyboard was soldered in place (plus glue), but the internal power supply had a ribbon cable soldered in place with a lot of glue.
The Vtech Laser 200 is based on the Tandy TRS-80 Model 1 hardware-wise but is not compatible with TRS-80 software due to a different memory map and it’s on-board basic missing some BASIC commands found on the TRS-80. Some very basic TRS-80 BASIC program will still run so long as they don’t use the missing BASIOC commands. tt’s known as a workalike of the Tandy TRS-80 Model I rather then a true clone or TRS-80 capable computer. It was also sold rebadged under a variety of other names by other companies in Europe and North American including as the Salora Fellow (Finland and nearby), the Seltron 200 (Hungary/Italy), the Smart-Alec Jr. (USA), the Texet TX8000A (UK), and the Dick Smith VZ 200 (Australia/New Zealand) and the VTech VZ 200 (US/Canada). It saw some success as very budget machine in some countries, with Australia being a particularly success market for it for a time. Even through it sold for under $100 in the UK at the time (the cheapest color computer on the market at the timed) , it was largely a failure in the UK vs the ZX-Spectrum. It was mainly bought to learn programming on the cheap supposedly much like the under £100/$100 Sinclair ZX-81 (UK)/Timex-Sinclair 1000 (US) was.
I thought I didn’t like Salmon for 15 or so years, because the first piece was not fresh at a restaurant. It was super fishy. Now I love it after trying it again.
The MC10 was essentially a low cost CoCo - it had a 6803 processor, not a Z-80. It's probably closer to the Mattel Aquarius. However, it's DEFINITELY the graphics chip - M6847 (used in the CoCo 1&2 - and as such the MC10, the Dragon 32/64, Acorn Atom, and a few others). It was an 8K system - 6K of regular RAM and 2K video RAM. It was described a similar to a TRS-80 Model I, but was largely incompatible. It had 16K of ROM with the OS and MS Level II BASIC. VTech oddly disabled some BASIC commands. Most of this info is derived from Wiki here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VTech_Laser_200. It's an interesting read.
13:46 - The Dragon isn't a clone of the CoCo, and it isn't an exact CoCo copy either. There are enough differences in odd ways that make it distinct, and all those are things not specified in Motorola's original reference design that both machines are based on. Rather, both are based on the "Green Thumb" AgVision Videotex machine, which was the basis for Motorola's reference design. And yes, that includes the keyboard layout.
IIRC the Green Thumb was a joint project between Radio Shack and Motorola, which is probably where a lot of the talk about the CoCo and Dragon 32 being based off a Motorola reference design comes from.
The internal PSU board of the Dragon can be replaced by a Meanwell switch-mode psu. The Dragon 32 has +5, +12 and -5v, while the Dragon 64 has +5, +12 and -12v because it has a serial port that the 32 lacks. The model you'd need for your Dragon is the Meanwell RT-50A. You'll have to build a composite video cable that plugs on to the main board, as the PSU board also does the video modulation and has the DIN5 monitor connection (Composite video plus audio). I did modify my Dragon 64 and I'm supper happy with it! Please feel free to reach me if you need some help or info.
@@OzRetrocomp I did it myself and it's working quite well, but I'll check these channels in case there's something I'd need to know in order to not get the Dragon blown up :D Thanks!
i'm half norwegian and half swedish and i don't like fish either. i remember my grandma making that lutefisk, she loved it but it turned me and my parents stomachs! LOL
Being from MN, I'm familiar with Norwegian uhh... starvation food. Every country has it's horrible, inedible food that they've developed a taste for over the centuries, since up until a about 100 years ago, it was eat the starvation food every winter, or die. So Norway has Lutefisk, a tasteless slimy fish preserved in lye, and whatever that snack food is, and Iceland has that rotten shark meat, Hakarl, that's normally poisonous unless you let it rot for months.
Danes just love Norway. But all of scandinavia is really beautifull. We have so much great nature. It is a bit like all of canadian climate, cramped into one smaller place and water all over and around.
![Adrian's Digital Basement ][](http://yt3.ggpht.com/ytc/AIdro_k7CrQRe71qN6c0Ua7A1P_I8KkxjqLa70u0zYeCvdvnKw=s48-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj)
![АЛАУДИНОВ у Скабеевой: эти их ВСУ нас НЕ ДОГОНЯТ 😁 [Пародия]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/an0anqU4WGQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Thanks for the great video Adrian. Glad the package came all the way over there in good condition. A little bit disappointed that you did not try the dry fish :) Keep up the good work!
Fun to see a package from you Tommy. I've been thinking of sending melkesjokolade as well 😃
I do love it when there is a cross-over to other YT channels I watch and follow. Tommy and Kjell's video's are great.
Such a great community around retro computing channels 👌🏻
Hiya from the cold north also. Actually, Finland does go up north all the way to Norway's north (We share the border up there). Lapland is the area with reindeer and Santaland, Northern lights and skiing. But as Finland also extends down south so much the temperatures can vary, like 20 degrees Celsius. I started computing with C64 in the 80s, and now it's back in fashion. You may know that Linus Torvalds is a Finn who got Linux started at his Vic-20 machine. And that our pride, Nokia, is still at it, making modern TVs and retro-style phones.
Nokia (a conglomerate of Salora, Luxor, Finlux, SEL under Nokia ownership) hasn't made TV's since the late 1990's.... Its successors, first Semitech and later Finlux under Otrum ownership also stopped trading years ago so I'm very curious now who rented the Nokia name to put on their TV sets. For telephones, I'll count HMD as maunfactured by Nokia even if it is done under license - but at least designed by the same people.
@@mjouwbuis Good point. Did some research, maybe helpful. True, Nokia only retains nowadays its software, networks and licensing rights. And it has licensed out not only its mobile phones but now also its once favorite TV market. This to an Austrian company, StreamView. They then subcontract their manufacturing to Skyworth India, a part of the Chinese electronics giant Skyworth.
@@rockapartie Another famous Finnish quirky, intellectual individual, like our Jim Jarmusch. We have a lot of those. I used to watch old flicks at our National Archive of Films, and often Mr Kaurismäki was there, too. He and his brother, Mika, used to own the Corona bar near there. His choice of films were French New Wave ones and Chaplin's. Maybe that tells something about him. His movies are rather hard watching to non-Finns (although also very humanistic) as their view of Finland and Helsinki is very stylized and nostalgic for an imaginary past. There's plenty of humour and inside jokes, though.
That Dragon power brick was made by the Norwegian company Mascot, and was supplied with early Dragons in Norway, before the original brick from Dragon Data was certified for use in Norway.
Interesting fact 👍🏻
"melkesjokolade" sounds more or less like "melk-uh shock-o-lad-uh". Norwegian is mostly pretty easy to pronounce.
and, of course, the pronunciation gives you a pretty good hint as to what it means!
Close enough ;)
Awesome! Cool (literally) to see a package from Tommy / Arctic Retro. I am a fellow norwegian and I love both your channels.
Hahaha….Long time no sea 🤣
That’s so funny 😁
Adrian, if you want to ‘see’ more of Norway, I highly recommend the RailCowGirl channel. She was a driver on the state railroad system and made many tapes showing the scenery along her routes (she now runs freight trains along the same routes) and always has at least one tape running as a livestream.
Det høres interessant ut, takk for tips!
I'm looking forward to seeing the dragon repair. The laser looks great! Great mail haul!
12:45 I can't speak about Norway, but at least in Spain any machine with an RF output would have the switch labelled as "CH 3-CH 4" (although I don't know if that's correct, I only know that selecting CH3 matched perfectly with the broadcasting frequency of the then most important broadcasting station while I never really found what channel the CH4 option output to).
In the UK we had "CH 3-CH 4" too, only 3 worked IIRC
i just watched a couple of your vids from 2015ish and i can now see the influence of big clive. i mean this as a high compliment, since i am in music and one of the highest praises in music is to tell someone that you can hear how they are influenced by someone and be basically correct.
Been subscribed to Arctic Retro for about three months or so. Tommy seems such a lovely guy, and I enjoy his videos. Thanks for mentioning his second channel. I had missed that, so I'll give it a look!
Bodø looks amazing. I live down in the south west. It's beautiful here as well, but up north looks like something else.
Adrian I know you like your blown caps 😆 so I thought you should see the latest video this week from the slo mo guys on UA-cam showing caps blowing at ridiculous high fps when overloading
Blowing up Capacitors at 187,000 fps
ua-cam.com/video/6WUxgmMDts4/v-deo.html
I'm in the UK and found a boxed Laser 200 on eBay. Mine's PAL but I don't remember it over here. I think it sold in quite small numbers in Europe. I love it though. The industrial design is so... cute. It's so underpowered that it makes me laugh and smile every time I plug it in. It's so useless and I love it so much.
You'd be surprised at how hard Aussie enthusiasts pushed their VZs back in the day. Many electronics enthusiasts used them to control their projects, kinda like a proto-Arduino with a built in keyboard.
@@OzRetrocomp That's awesome. It must have helped that you had enough users to be able to get together and share ideas & tricks back then. I don't think that was the case in Europe, so most people just never heard of it.
I have a couple of Laser 200s, specifically a Laser 200, and its Australia/NZ variant, the Dick Smith VZ200. The VZ200 came with a 16K RAM pack as deep as the computer. Ridiculously large compared to, say, a ZX81 16k RAM pack.
Arctic Retro! That's how I found him too!
Really cool channel!
Arctic Retro is a great Channel ! Tommy is a legend. Been following for a while now. His Christmas advent calendar if you haven't watched it is worth checking out.
I agree, great channel and great "adventskalender" :)
Been a subscriber of Tommy's for quite a while now. I think I may have found him through one of your older videos (perhaps an SepTandy or two ago). He's always so positive in his presentation and demeanor.
They didn't actually 'clone' the Tandy to make the Dragon. Motorola published a reference design to get people to adopt their chips and both companies heavily based their designs off that - hence the similarity. As far as the keyboard goes, I wouldn't be surprised that both used an off-the-shelf keyboard to avoid construction costs?
10:16 Yay! Rifa, quality capacitors from Norway’s neighbor, Sweden. They tend to blow up though 😂
After 40 year.
I worked for the UK Post Office when I was a student. One package was stinking when it arrived, someone had sent burgers from Canada, they'd been several weeks in then post!
Hi Adrian. The jumper on the analog board shunts a dropper resistor. For 110-120 VAC (U.S.), the jumper remains in-place, since the power supply is designed to work at this voltage. For 220-240 VAC (U.K, most of Europe, Australia), the jumper is removed, which puts the dropping resistor in series so it’ll work, instead of releasing the magic smoke. It says right there on the board to set “W12” accordingly. If it used a “linear” power supply (big power Xfmr, bridge rectifier, filter caps, and 78xx-series linear voltage regulator ICs), then the transformer primary would either:
1) have two 120 volt windings, in which case, the jumper(s) would either wire them in parallel (110-120 VAC input), or in series for 220-240 VAC input, or:
2) have multiple taps, and the jumper would select the correct tap.
HTH. 🙂
The first thing that popped into my head when hearing the words 'dunder salt', was that this must be some kind of liquorice or salmiak candy, and it looks like I was right. I looked it up and 'dunder' is Swedish for 'thunder', implying an explosive flavour. If you look at the ingredients you see that one of them is 'ammoniumchloride', in other words: salmiak.
Salmiak flavoured candy is very popular in Nordic countries, as well as in countries such as the Netherlands and Belgium. I think for most people it is an acquired taste, but one that people in these countries are usually exposed to when they're kids. Personally, I find them delicious ;-).
The Laser 200 / DSE VZ200, and subsequent VZ300 were the machines a lot of us cut our programming skills on back in the 80's when we were growing up. Those chicklet keyboards were horrible (VZ300 was nicer 'real' keyboard) but those speed keys helped a lot when writing BASIC code. Definitely were cheap, sold for $99 AUD at the time, very much a bargain.
The Dragon 32 was my first computer. Looking forward to your review!
Most CoCo machine code games ran fine but BASIC used a different encoding. I had a cart to decode CoCo BASIC.
The Dragon 32 was my first computer too.
I'm from Norway and I don't like fish, so there is at least one of us
Love your work on your channel, it's very nice to see old tech get a new lease of life
I actually have a VTech Laser 200 in a drawer at my dad's house. The keyboard was horrible to type on, and even though it predates me getting a C64 I consider the C64 as my first propper computer as it was at that time, I was old enough get propper use of and it was easier to get accessories for.
If i am not mistaken, melkesjokolade is pronounced basically as "milk chocolate." Melke Sjokolade.
Freia Milk Chocolate is the best.
Rules over all those other chocolates in the world 😉
Glad someone sent it, had been thinking about mailing it myself 😜
Me too 😂
Both the Tandy CoCo and the Dragon 32 use the example circuit from the motorola datasheet with very little modification so nothing sketchy.
At about 2:00 you say “… north of the arctic circle, how cool!!!” …. Yes! Very!
Haha
Ah yes, fellow Norwegians. I've seen some of their videos. Nice of them to send this to you.
Lots of Norwegians around here it seems 😃
I don't know why but I'm most excited to see you fix that Laser 200...just love cheap 80's computers. Neat to see what manufactures tried to get away with in calling them computers.
The Laser machine, IIRC has 2k RAM and is essentially a TRS80 (Z80) with added colour circuitry. It came out around 1983-4. I think a version of it (from Dick Smith, an Aussie equivalent of Radio Shack) was fairly successful.
In the UK a calculator supplier called Texet tried to market this, but brought it to market a little late and tried to price it just under the cost of a 16k Spectrum. Yeah right like that was going to work... in the end they got rid of them in a fire sale for £19.99 and still struggled to sell them! It's one of my regrets that I didn't take them up on their offer as it looks interesting and would probably be worth a little bit now 😂
The Dick Smith version of the VZ200 was very successful on account of it being the same price as the ZX81 in 1983 ($199), but it had 8K RAM and colour. Replaced by the VZ300 in 1985 which had 16K RAM (I think) and a more orthodox keyboard. IIRC it was sold by Dick Smith until about 1990.
@@OzRetrocomp Makes you wonder why Texet didn't just ship their stock off to old Tricky Dick when they realised they had a container-load of the things really!
From what I've seen if them they look like a competent enough cheapo computer.
@@jasejj they were good for what they were and they were cheap enough to appeal to electronics hobbyists to use in all sorts of projects. A lot of these are documented in Australian electronics magazines such as Electronics Australia. Most of the '80s issues of EA are on the Internet Archive.
Can't wait for the Laser and Dragon videos to come...
I’ll be watching for the Laser 200 video, I used to have a CoCo 1 and 3 back in the 80s. The Laser is very similar to the Dick Smith VZ200 and the later VZ300 in Australia. Our modulator channels were usually 0 (46.25mhz) and 1 (55.25mhz). Sometimes 1 and 2 (64.25mhz) were used. You could tune in an Australian Ch 1 modulator on a US TV using channel 2 or 3 but you won’t get sound as NTSC sound is 4.5mhz, while Australian sound is 5.5mhz. European PAL sound may be 5.5, 6.0 or 6.5 mhz. The Motorola 6847 VDG doesn’t produce a display on all frames. It’s not interlaced so only every other frame carries an image. We often wished the Coco had a parallel printer port, as serial printers were hard to find and serial was not always an option.
Lofoten - lovely place!
Dunder... aa-aa aa-aa a-aha ah....You've been.....DUNDERSALT!
The Laser 200 was marketed in Australia by a company called Dick Smiths under the name Dick Smith VZ 200. This was my very first computer. It had (I think) a 16k memory expansion that plugged in on the back right hand side that was about the size of a TV remote control. I never used the commands above the keyboard, I always typed everything in by hand. I remember trying to convert BASIC software from other computers because there didnt seem to be easily found basic programs for the VZ200. Well easily for me (a 16-17 year old kid back in the late '80's). They also brought out a slightly better revision that was called the VZ 300, as far as I know it just had a better keyboard and 16 k more ram in it.
Laser is from Hong Kong company Vtech, it's target is US market at that time (around 1980), my neighbor also bought one, I'm about 10 years old and always want to run some games from it.
The hyperdrive motivator on the MacIntosh is broken. "They told me they fixed it!"
That 220V Analog board (International version) is the only version that I know of that can be easily altered to match input mains voltage , there is a link wire that determines input voltage.
I actually like that Norwegian chocolate and I live in the UK so I import it from eBay!
As a Norwegian I approve of this 😂👌🏻 We should export it more I guess. I have a friend in Scotland who managed to pick some up in the airport he worked at in Scotland.
I had the pleasure of living in Norway for a few years beautiful country but never made it up to the far north (just to Trondheim). Kjell is approximately pronounced like "Shell" and the O with the slash through it is pronounced like the "oo" in book. I love Artic Retro as well....especially the north-Norway accent.
I always thought Kjell was pronounced more like "tshell".
No. Ø is pronounced like the u in "burn" or "turn".
Very cool video and love the recommendation of a retro channel I had not discovered yet! Tommy seems great and I will definitely start consuming his videos :)
I can definitely recommend Arctic Retro if you like Adrians Digital Basement!
Thanks for the video! That output on the Vtech Laser 200 looks exactly the same as the output on my CoCo 2. I’m going to keep an eye for the upcomping troubleshooting video.
As for Ch3/Ch4, it was the same on PAL machines. My PAL SNES and ATARI also have/had this switch to switch between channels.
Vetch Lazer 200 was m'y first computer ever in thé early '80s. An incredibely slow ans underpowered machine even for the period. But so many memories of that thing trying tonrun programs and overheatingnand smelling hot plastic.. 🥰
Reminds me a bit of the Socrates and its horribly slow serial framebuffer graphics system. The way it was designed it wasn't even possible to fill all of the display memory at once; everything had to be drawn in in a serial fashion, one colour at a time. It was possible, though, to use block transfer- something similar to a blitter- to produce simple animation.
@@douro20 i wrote my comment before watching the video. It is way worse than I thought inside. I was aroudn 10 yo when my parents offered me that thing, never dared to open it. What a pile of junk !
Definitively terribly slow ans barely able of anything in my memories.
Yes, this machine uses a '6847 for the VDG. There's no TI chip involved though. The 6847 is NTSC only and that's where that little add on PCB comes in. It takes the colour difference signals from the 6847 and produces PAL colour. From memory there is also some logic on the PCB to gate the 3.58MHz clock to the 6847 and insert additional lines to pad the video out to course PAL timing. The shimmy in the picture is the result of the two crystals used, one for the PAL clock and one for the 6847 dot/cpu clock beating and drifting with respect to each other. The Laser 310 (AKA VZ300 in Australia) solves this by using a 17.73MHz master and dividing that by 4 and 5 for the PAL clock and system clock respectively. It's not harmonically perfect so there is still a standing interference pattern but since it is stationary it is much more appealing to the eye. A side effect of this is that the Z80 is clocked slightly slower in the '310 compared to the '200.
Some candy sure have aquired taste 😁 - I wonder sometimes if locals only keep those around to have fun with tourists? 😜
yes we keep them to have fune with tourists:P i live in norway and i think they are realy good:P
I've got one of those MC-10 computers. Upgraded from 4K to 20K baby!
Check in with Noel Lliopis at Noel's Retro Lab - he has substantial experience with the Dragons. That Laser 200 looks cute and very interesting.
I just placed an order from ebay to get this fabulous "Dunder Salt" from Norway here to UK. I do like salty liqurice!
3:44 I think that means 'milk chocolate'
As someone who grew-up in the 80's in the UK, I have to say I never knew anyone who had a Dragon. Yes to the C64, VIC-20, Spectrum, ZX-81, Acorn Electron, BBC B, Amstrad CPC and Atari. One even had an Aquarius, but no Dragon.
That Laser computer on the outside looks pretty neat, but the inside, blimey, they tried to out-cheap Sinclair there, that's pretty "rustic" looking there... :S
12:48 not really, channel 3 & 4 are part of the VHF range used in PAL countries like Europe and South America (2 thru 13); the problem arises on variations of the PAL norm, since there are B N M and colors would be diffeerent between them.SECAM norm was used only in France afaik
That Laser 200 is also known as a Dick Smith VZ200 in Australia 👍
I think they were originally AUD$399 new.
Damn the inside design is really really NASTY !
I'm pretty sure there were PAL Dragon 32's sold in the US as well. That's because after Dragon Computers folded, the unsold stock ended up in the hands of US seller od vintage computers and parts, and they were still selling them off after 2010. (I'm pretty sure they ran out of new old stock some years ago.)
Adrien if you want it, I have a step-up transformer that came with a Chinese co2 laser to go from our standard 110v to 220v up to 1000va that I have no use for (I ran 220 directly to the laser, so this will go unused). It has a multi-plug capable output that should work just fine with that Dragon's power supply, along with power plugs from many other countries as well. Again, I have no use for it now, and would be happy to send it along if you've a use for it.
Nice stuff, the Vtech is the most interesting to me, as here in Finland was computer called Salora Fellow, which was based on the Vtech Laser 200. I didn't have it, but I had, and still have, it's "big brother", a Salora Manager computer, my first computer, which is based on Vtech Laser 2001 :)
Old CoCo user here: that's a lot like the old Tandy MC-10. [AND...you just said it. :D]
Arctic Retro yeah!
Adrian,
The Tandy Color Computer 1 and Dragon32 were both based on the Motorola reference design. So really they didn't clone the CoCo.
As far as the video chip. Yes that is a Motorola 6847 VDG.
The CoCo 2 was a cost reduced system. Tandy was all about making the system as cheap as possible.
Later the Dragon 64 and US version Tano Dragon they added a MOS 6551 UART to the design.
The 6809 CPU was a very nice CPU. There is a common CPU upgrade to replace the 6809 with a HD63C09. Well in the case of the these systems it is a M68B09E being replaced with a HD63C09E. :)
Im sure it was the angle of the camera but at the beginning of the video I was wincing as Adrian waved his hand around the exposed box cutter blade. I was glad we didnt see an Adrians Digital Emergency.
damn i need some salty liqorice
i love you way you do thing trouble shouting and learned a lot just at to say thank you keep it up do more
If you want to directly translate "Sortland" to something it would mean "Black country", as "Sort" is norwegian for Black. So, should suit you well to visit that place ;)
The Laser was my first computer. It is kind of a TRS80 model 1 clone, but with colors. It came with only 2K of RAM and it was impossible for me to find upgrades like RAM expansion, joysticks etc. here in Germany, although the computer itself was sold by the biggest mail order company of the time. I sold it and bought a ZX Spectrum 48K instead. Last year I managed to find another Laser 200 with all the hardware goodies and a lot of software, It is kind of fun now. The problem of your Laser could be RAM. Or it could be the custom chip (similar to ULA on ZX or gate array on Amstrad), but that chip is unobtainium.
IIRC Laser used the term 'gate array' to describe the VZ's custom chip. TBH I'm surprised that the VZ gate array hasn't been reverse engineered yet (AFAIK). Give it time and someone out there will probably make one at some point.
+1 for owning a Dragon32. Funny little Welsh company they were. It was quickly sold and replaced with a BBC B.
DRagon was made later in Spain because one local company buys the brand. They did a dragon 200 with minor changes and even an msx prototype.
Congratulations
Actually, the Dragon 32 was based on the Coco 1 not the Coco 2. It was basically a budget Coco 1 clone. While initially somewhat successful as a budget computer when released in 1982, due to the aging (by early 80’s standards) Coco 1 architecture it was based on, it was already getting long in the tooth by the time it was released and likely sold largely on price rather then features. The original Dragon 32 suffered from severely limited color support (compared with other 1982 microcomputers on the market), among other limitations that were seen as acceptable when the Coco 1 came out in 1980 but no longer so just a few years later in rapidly developing microcomputer market of the early 80’s. There was also a Dragon 64 version was released somewhat late that include a RS-232 port and more RAM but otherwise was still CoCo 1 based. There was plans to release a Dragon 200 that would bring the machine up to speed with other offerings of the era but Dragon went into bankruptcy before it could be released, Another European company bought their assets from bankruptcy and did release the Dragon 200 in limited markets in mainland Europe but they two went bankrupt shortly after too. The original Dragon 32 2 was reviewed by computer mags of the era as being a good value for the money feature-wise but otherwise unremarkable. It was sold in the U.S. by a separate company that bought the rights to sell it over here from Dragon computer. When Dragon went bankrupt, the leftover Dragon 32’s/64’s being sold in the U.S. got sold to a U.S, company that was still selling new old stock of the company up to maybe sometime in the early 2010’s I believe when they finally exhausted their stock of old Dragon 32’s/64’s to sell. Interesting footnote in Briths microcomputer history but if you have ever used a CoCo 1 then you largely have seen the Dragon 32 since it was like 98% comparable with it. Now Dragon did release some games and other software for their machine that might was sort of interesting but not really that much more special vs CoCo 1 software we saw over hear largely due to the very limited specs of the Dragon 32.
the video chip is a Motorola 6847 just like that in the Coco and Dragon computers.
Dunder Salt tastes like salty poison. The ingredients in this unforgettable candy: sugar, glucose syrup, licorice, ammonium chloride, color E153. I had no idea they sell this in Sweden to. I will try that for sure.
The tørrfisk from Norway is exactly the same as what we call cuttlefish in Hawaii. Also a snack here and very popular if you're usually a youth and not affected by fish or salt.
Noel's Retro Lab showed a spectra video computer. It was held together with glue. It makes this laser 200 look like a well made machine in comparison. If I recall it's basically an MSX before or right when MSX became a thing. But yeah that computer had 100x the glue this one has. Not only the keyboard was soldered in place (plus glue), but the internal power supply had a ribbon cable soldered in place with a lot of glue.
I worked in a shop that sold the Spectravideo SV318 back in the day 👍 They were NOT popular !
The Vtech Laser 200 is based on the Tandy TRS-80 Model 1 hardware-wise but is not compatible with TRS-80 software due to a different memory map and it’s on-board basic missing some BASIC commands found on the TRS-80. Some very basic TRS-80 BASIC program will still run so long as they don’t use the missing BASIOC commands. tt’s known as a workalike of the Tandy TRS-80 Model I rather then a true clone or TRS-80 capable computer. It was also sold rebadged under a variety of other names by other companies in Europe and North American including as the Salora Fellow (Finland and nearby), the Seltron 200 (Hungary/Italy), the Smart-Alec Jr. (USA), the Texet TX8000A (UK), and the Dick Smith VZ 200 (Australia/New Zealand) and the VTech VZ 200 (US/Canada). It saw some success as very budget machine in some countries, with Australia being a particularly success market for it for a time. Even through it sold for under $100 in the UK at the time (the cheapest color computer on the market at the timed) , it was largely a failure in the UK vs the ZX-Spectrum. It was mainly bought to learn programming on the cheap supposedly much like the under £100/$100 Sinclair ZX-81 (UK)/Timex-Sinclair 1000 (US) was.
Love it!
I thought I didn’t like Salmon for 15 or so years, because the first piece was not fresh at a restaurant. It was super fishy. Now I love it after trying it again.
The MC10 was essentially a low cost CoCo - it had a 6803 processor, not a Z-80. It's probably closer to the Mattel Aquarius. However, it's DEFINITELY the graphics chip - M6847 (used in the CoCo 1&2 - and as such the MC10, the Dragon 32/64, Acorn Atom, and a few others). It was an 8K system - 6K of regular RAM and 2K video RAM. It was described a similar to a TRS-80 Model I, but was largely incompatible. It had 16K of ROM with the OS and MS Level II BASIC. VTech oddly disabled some BASIC commands. Most of this info is derived from Wiki here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VTech_Laser_200. It's an interesting read.
13:46 - The Dragon isn't a clone of the CoCo, and it isn't an exact CoCo copy either. There are enough differences in odd ways that make it distinct, and all those are things not specified in Motorola's original reference design that both machines are based on. Rather, both are based on the "Green Thumb" AgVision Videotex machine, which was the basis for Motorola's reference design. And yes, that includes the keyboard layout.
IIRC the Green Thumb was a joint project between Radio Shack and Motorola, which is probably where a lot of the talk about the CoCo and Dragon 32 being based off a Motorola reference design comes from.
Fish tastes real... Fishy to me as well.
The internal PSU board of the Dragon can be replaced by a Meanwell switch-mode psu. The Dragon 32 has +5, +12 and -5v, while the Dragon 64 has +5, +12 and -12v because it has a serial port that the 32 lacks. The model you'd need for your Dragon is the Meanwell RT-50A. You'll have to build a composite video cable that plugs on to the main board, as the PSU board also does the video modulation and has the DIN5 monitor connection (Composite video plus audio). I did modify my Dragon 64 and I'm supper happy with it! Please feel free to reach me if you need some help or info.
I may be misremembering, but either Mr. Lurch or TheRetroChannel did this mod to a Dragon 32 (which I believe is Mr. Lurch's).
@@OzRetrocomp I did it myself and it's working quite well, but I'll check these channels in case there's something I'd need to know in order to not get the Dragon blown up :D Thanks!
i'm half norwegian and half swedish and i don't like fish either. i remember my grandma making that lutefisk, she loved it but it turned me and my parents stomachs! LOL
Oh don't worry, they knew there weren't any bananas inside because they didn't set off any radiation detectors 🤣
I've never seen a red MacPlus battery holder in the UK.
I`ve seen the northern lights here in New Hampshire.
im addicted to salt, so now i have something to try
Being from MN, I'm familiar with Norwegian uhh... starvation food. Every country has it's horrible, inedible food that they've developed a taste for over the centuries, since up until a about 100 years ago, it was eat the starvation food every winter, or die.
So Norway has Lutefisk, a tasteless slimy fish preserved in lye, and whatever that snack food is, and Iceland has that rotten shark meat, Hakarl, that's normally poisonous unless you let it rot for months.
There are reasonably priced and good 110 to 220 transformers with combo outlets.
omg i had a laser 200 when i was a kid. i think it had 4k of ram. i had a 16k ram expansion cartridge for it too with the same branding.
Dunder salt....
I just looked on eBay for some, and the first line in the description reads.."Dunder Salt tastes like salty poison," lol.
Didn't Mr. Lurch have one of those Lasers on his channel recently?
Mr Lurch had a VZ310, which superseded the VZ200.
Sortland would be more like Blackland, which is appropriate :)
With a box that big you could have a banana every morning.
I thought the Dragon was an implementation of a Motorola reference design.
i'm not a Norwegian speaker, but it looks like that word might be pronounced something like "Milks-Chocolade".
Danes just love Norway. But all of scandinavia is really beautifull. We have so much great nature. It is a bit like all of canadian climate, cramped into one smaller place and water all over and around.
VTECH Laser 200, my first computer ! Motorola 6847 graphics chip inside indeed ;-)
that lazer 200 is basically a speccy
Not quite... it's more like a ZX81 with Dragon 32/CoCo graphics. It definitely cut Sinclair's lunch down under though...