VTech Laser 200

VTech Laser 200 & Laser 210

The VTech Laser 210, rebadged as a Dick Smith VZ200
Manufacturer	Video Technology
Type	Personal Computer
Release date	November 1983 (1983-11)[1]
Lifespan	1983-1985, 2 years
Introductory price	US$99 (equivalent to $310 in 2024)[2] £98 (equivalent to £420 in 2023)[3][Notes 1] A$200 (equivalent to $720 in 2022)[7]
Discontinued	1985 (1985)
Units sold	200,000 in Australia
Media	Cassette tape, Disk drive[8]
Operating system	BASIC V2.0
CPU	Zilog Z80A @ 3.58 MHz
Memory	2-22 kB RAM + 2 kB VRAM, 16 kB ROM
Display	32×16 (8 colors), 128×64 graphics (2 background, 3 foreground colors)
Graphics	Motorola 6847 video processor
Sound	push-pull piezo speaker
Input	45 key keyboard
Power	10 volt
Dimensions	29 × 17 × 4cm
Weight	800g
Predecessor	VTech Laser 110
Successor	VTech Laser 310

The VTech Laser 200 and 210 are 8-bit home computers from 1983. They were aimed at the entry-level market^[3] and first-time users.^[9]

The machine ran basic games on cassette such as Hoppy (a version of Frogger), Cosmic Rescue (Scramble), VZ Invaders (Space Invaders), Dawn Patrol (Chopper) and Moon Patrol.

The Laser 200 and 210 and variants were rebadged under numerous different names in various markets, where they met with varying degrees of success. These included the Salora Fellow (mainly in Fennoscandia, particularly Finland), the Seltron 200 in Hungary & Italy, the Smart-Alec Jr. by Dynasty Computer Corporation in Dallas, Texas for the USA, the Texet TX8000 (United Kingdom), the Dick Smith VZ 200 (in Australia & New Zealand), and the VTech VZ 200 (in the United States & Canada).

The Laser 200/210 and VZ200 were replaced in 1985 by an improved model known as the VTech Laser 310 or the Dick Smith VZ 300. This featured a full travel keyboard and 8K ROM software based Floppy Disk Controller, and was produced until 1989.^[10]

VTech also used the "Laser" brand on some otherwise unrelated computers.

Video Technology (VTech) manufactured calculators and LCD pad game toys (similar to Nintendo Game & Watch) at a multi-storey factory in Hong Kong. The Laser 100 and 110 were a development of an earlier monochrome TRS-80 copy, and further development resulted in the Laser 200 and 210 which were similar in terms of architecture to the EACA Colour Genie (itself a TRS-80 derivative) and in terms of specification and pricing to (e.g.) the Mattel Aquarius.^[11]

Released in 1983,^[12] the VZ200 gained some following in northern America and Europe.

The Laser 200 was distributed throughout these countries via the Dick Smith Electronics chain as the "Dick Smith VZ200" with 8 kB of RAM installed^[13] and launching at $200 (equivalent to $720 in 2022).^[7] Reviewing it in Australian Personal Computer, Tim Hartnell was highly positive and called it a "great little machine" he thought would "change the face of Australian computing" as well as noting that APC's editor himself had told him "I'm certainly going to buy one".^[7]

Due to their extensive advertising throughout Australia and New Zealand, the VZ200 gained large popularity there.^[14]

The "Dick Smith"-badged VZ200 was successful in Australia, where it proved popular as a first computer.^[15] By 1984, a Dick Smith Electronics catalogue announced that over 30,000 units had sold within the first 12 months. In Australia, it was bought mostly to learn programming; the only other widely available system in the same price bracket being the Commodore 64. The VZ200 version of BASIC had more features compared to the Commodore 64 BASIC.^[16]

Dick Smith went on to sell the improved Laser 310, rebadged in a similar style as the "Dick Smith VZ300".^[17]

The VZ200 was distributed throughout Canada by Rocelco Inc. 24 Viceroy Road, Unit 1, Concord, Ontario L4K 2L9. The company is still in existence at the same address and are now a wholesaler of office furniture.

The Laser 310, a later version, was a success throughout China. During the 1980's various primary schools throughout the country had the Laser 310 computer in their classrooms sitting alongside Apple IIe clone systems.

Sold as the Salora Fellow throughout Finland, Sweden & Scandinavia. These were rebadged Laser 200 computers with 2 kB of user RAM plus 2 kB of video RAM,^[18] (marketed as 4 kB).^[19] The Fellow did not prove to be very successful.^[18]

(Salora also sold another VTech computer- the Laser 2001- as the Salora Manager. However, this used the 6502 CPU^[20] and a completely different design, so was incompatible with the Z80-based Fellow/Laser 200.)

The VTech Laser 110, 200, 210^[9] and VTech Laser 310^[21] sold and distributed all throughout Germany by Sanyo. The Laser 110 and VZ200 models sold there both included 4K RAM, whereas the Laser 210 and 310 came with 8K.^[21]

In mid to late 1982, the Laser 200 hit the German market via Sanyo. It is only the German Laser 200 units that have its underneath base plates showing the year 1982. All other units outside of Germany show 1983.

"Sanyo Video" advertised both the Laser 110 and the Laser 210,^[22] along with peripherals and software that it noted was also suitable for use with the VZ200.^[9]

The VZ200 was sold in Germany as the "VTECH VZ200", the "more sophisticated Models" as "SANYO VIDEO/LASER XXX". This led to legal action because of the misleading use of the "SANYO" Brand Name ("SANYO VIDEO"). A friendly agreement was reached with "SANYO" at the time by Video Technology in Hong Kong. Packaging of German LASER 310's were labelled "SANYO VIDEO".

During the early years of the VZ200 and Laser 210 throughout Germany saw a large number of the computers being sold, and as such, many user groups formed. It was interesting to note that the Light Pen was sold in Germany in the early years, and as such, quite a number were privately imported into Australia by Gavin Williamson and Bob Kitch. The light pen was never sold in Australia. The floppy disk drive was marketed and sold throughout Germany during 1984,^[8] some time before they were even advertised in Australia (end of 1985). Once again, a number of drive units ended up in Australia long before Dick Smith got onboard.

Following a short-lived attempt to launch it in rebadged form as the "Texet TX8000",^[4] the Laser 200 was subsequently offered for sale under its original name in the UK.^[6] However, it had little success^[23] against more established competitors and a glut of similar low-end microcomputers.

Initially it had been agreed that UK-based distributor Texet would have exclusive rights there.^[4] Rebadged as the "Texet TX8000", they claimed that, at £98 (equivalent to £418 in 2023), it was the cheapest colour home microcomputer on the market.^[3].

Reviews under this name appeared in the computer press during March and April 1983, where it received a mixed response.^{[3][24][25][Notes 2]}

It is unclear how much RAM Texet had planned on including in the final retail version as the amount in the review samples varied between 4 kB (Your Computer's)^[3] and 8 kB (Which Micro's machine still wearing the 'Video Technology' badge^[24] and Personal Computer News's "pre-production sample").^[25]

However, following the demise of the original incarnation of Texet Ltd. (which whom the agreement had been made) and its reorganisation under new owners, the future of the TX8000 was "still to be decided".^[4] By August it was reported that the Texet-badged version had "disappeared almost as quickly as it arrived"^[5] and it is not clear whether it ever made it as far as a retail launch or whether any were actually sold under the "TX8000" name.

In June 1983, it was announced that the "Laser 200"-branded version with 4K RAM would be sold for £70 via "Computers for All"-affiliated independent retailers.^[6] However, while its price was now lower than the Texet-badged version, its largest rival, the 16K ZX Spectrum, had itself since fallen to £99.95. In re-reviewing the machine under its new name, Personal Computer News noted that expanding the 4K Laser to the same level would erode most of the remaining price difference.^{[5][Notes 3]}

In the UK, the Laser also competed against a wide array of other similarly-priced low-end or beginners' machines including the Tandy MC-10, Mattel Aquarius, VIC-20, TI-99/4A, Oric 1, ZX81 and Jupiter Ace.^[11]

In early 1984, Computers for All (by then, its sole UK distributor) ceased trading,^[23] casting doubts on the future of the Laser.^[26] It was noted that it had still not been adopted for sale by any of the major UK high street chains and that software remained in short supply.^[23]

In early 1983, Video Technology exhibited a VZ200-badged version of the machine at the Winter CES. Creative Computing gave it a positive reception, calling it "the sleeper hit of the show at just $99"^[2] and, in their full review a couple of months after, stated that "the VZ200 is a great value for the suggested price of under $100".^[27]

Later that year, it was reported that it was being renamed "Laser 200" for the US market.^[28]

In 1985, the first branch of Video Technology was opened in the United States at 390 Convention Way, Redwood City, California. This location served as the main office, mail order center, kit assembly area and retail store. Additional stores were opened in Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, California; Stevens Creek Boulevard, San Jose, California; and in Los Angeles. Within a few years the US operation was sold.

There has also been numerous reports over the years of owners having the NTSC model Laser 200, 210 and 310, as well as VTech VZ200's that has been reportedly having been sold and distributed throughout the US.

It has also been reported that an electronics magazine in that era also advertised a training course which gave away a VZ200 computer. This is in similar fashion to that of what happened within Australia during the mid 1980s.

The Laser 210 was also re-labelled as the Smart Alec Jr, and sold/distributed on a small scale throughout the USA by Dynasty Computer Corporation, a company that sold computers via independent door-to-door salespeople and in-home demonstrations.^[29]

At one point, the Smart Alec Jr and 16K expansion were given away free with the purchase of 25 pieces of software (for a typical average of $390).^[29]

It is unknown how many units were sold.

The VZ200 has three circuit boards, the video board and voltage regulator being separate to the main board.

Externally, the VZ200 resembles a cross between the VIC-20 and the ZX Spectrum. The VZ200 has the one touch command keys of the Spectrum, but unlike the Sinclair machines, their use was not mandatory.

Internally, the VZ200 is a workalike of the Tandy TRS-80 Model I, with Model II BASIC. The micro uses the same basic architecture, and TRS-80 Level I and II programs can be loaded straight from cassette tape with the VZLOADXX utility. The VZ/Laser computer has a different memory map to that of the TRS80, and some commands in BASIC have been hidden - possibly an attempt to avoid Microsoft licensing copyright infringement. These hidden commands can easily be re-enabled, however overall the Laser/VZ is not considered a true clone of the TRS80 I/II.

The connections consist of a port for an unregulated DC power supply (the voltage regulator is on the PCB), a stereophonic earphone jack for a cassette recorder, an RF modulated video output, an edge connector which is a printer and disk drive port, an edge connector that is a joystick port, and a composite monitor output (NTSC 60 Hz output in North America, PAL 50 Hz output in the British Commonwealth and continental Europe), and SCART in other parts of the world.

The VZ200 uses a copy of a Zilog Z80 processor (made under licence by NEC) running at 3.58 Mhz (3.54 MHz on VZ300) and was initially sold with either 4 kB RAM (Europe) or 6 kB RAM (in North America), which was increased to 8 kB RAM within weeks of its release. Throughout Australia and New Zealand, the VZ200 was initially released as an 8 kB unit. A 16 kB expansion unit was available, increasing RAM to 24 kB. The VZ300 was released with 18 kB of RAM including 2 of video RAM.

An 8 kB system consists of 6 kB of RAM, 2 kB of video RAM, and 16 kB of ROM. The memory could be expanded to 24 kB (22 kB memory plus 2 kB video memory). Like the TRS-80, both memory and I/O locations are mapped.

Extended RAM was available above top RAM using the remote offset addressing method available on the Z80 (also known as bank switching).

Banks of system memory can be reassigned using an offset above the top RAM. Those banks are then no longer available, so program algorithms cannot be used in extended memory (as the program would "disappear" when extended memory is accessed), so it can only be used for program data.

Video RAM can be increased to access the higher modes of the 6847 since there are video RAM chip select lines on the memory expansion. Remote offset addressing must be used because the video processor cannot address system or internal expansion RAM, externally connected RAM must be used.

The VZ200 uses the Motorola 6847 video processor (like the TRS-80 Color Computer), which has a resolution of 256×192 pixels. Video output can either be split into 8 × 8 pixel character blocks in a 32×24 block screen or used as a single monochrome bitmap.

As the VZ200 is limited to only 2 kB of video memory since only 4 kB of memory in total was initially available, the screen is limited to only 16 lines down, making the total number of pixels in text mode 256 × 128 pixels. The bitmapped mode is unavailable in these early models.

The VZ200 supports up to ten colours, an eight colour palette plus black and buff. The VZ200 has 256 predefined character blocks. Text is only available in upper case and the character blocks cannot be redefined. The screen can use green mode or black mode, the latter using inverse colours.

In mode 0, the background colour can be either dark green or orange. Dark green (COLOR,0) consists of ten individual unique colours in total, whilst with the orange background (COLOR,1) eleven colours in total are available.

Text uses a black foreground with either background colour. The first 128 character blocks are 64 alpha-numeric characters and their inverses. Text mode 0 is the only mode in which black is available.

The latter 128 character blocks consist of a 2×2 pixel block in each possible combination (8), in every of the 8 colour palette for foreground, together with either background colour chosen.

The 'hires' graphics mode has a resolution of 128×64 or 8192 addressable points. Memory addressing for video RAM starts at 0x7000 and ends at 0x77FF. For mode 1, two colour sets are used with each background colour:

SET 1 → background: light green - foreground: light green, yellow, blue or red.

SET 2 → background: buff [white] - foreground: buff, cyan, magenta or orange.

Only four colours from either colour set can be displayed no the screen at any one time. All 2 kB of video memory is used in Mode 1.

By using intricate video timing it is possible to split the display to show all eight colours on the screen at the same time, as shown in the VZ200 Five Finger Punch demo '2018AD' and Bushy555's demo '8 colours'.

An internal latch is used for cassette output, to drive the piezoelectric loudspeaker attached to the casing, and to control two signals for the 6847 video processor. The loudspeaker is driven using a push-pull method, alternating the outputs on bits 0 and 5 of the latch at $6800.

A 2.5 octave range is available in BASIC through the SOUND command.

A number of the ZX Spectrum 1-bit music players will also work directly on the VZ/Laser computer. 1-bit music is possible through the speaker, the cassette port, or through the parallel printer interface. Since the latch has two bits driving the internal piezo speaker and the cassette port, there is the ability of a software driven volume control - no volume, half-volume and full-volume. Full 8-bit wave and music files can be played through a DAC connected to the parallel printer interface, far exceeding the computer's original advertised 31 pitched notes in BASIC.

In 1984 disk drive units were released onto the German market^[8] and to the rest of the world in 1985. Two drive units could be connected to the computer at the same time through the drive controller. A plug-pack cartridge controller containing the DOS ROM was required to operate the drives. The DOS ROM and diskette drives were backwards compatible with the Laser 110, 210 and 310.^[8]

A number of other VTech designed plug-in peripherals were also available for both the Laser 200 and Laser 310 computers. Among them were joysticks, cassette drive, light pen, printer plotter, 75 baud modem, word processor cartridge, an 16kB and 64kB extended RAM cartridges. As numbers of users grew, so did the number of home-made kits which were on offer, which included a speech synthesizer, a Music Synthesiser that used the Texas Instruments SN76489AN chip, a real world relay interface, EEPROM programmer, data logger, 300 baud MODEM, full 101-key keyboard, 128 Kb sideways RAM extension and a RTTY Ham radio kit.

In 2020 Ben Grimmett from BennVenn Electronics designed and built 50 SD card readers for enthusiasts, which gives the computer a total of 128 Kb of banked RAM, and, depending on the SD memory card, a minimum of 2 gigabytes of storage space. A FAT32 DOS was also written for this project and is embedded in EEPROM. A second release was created in 2022 with another forty units being created with a few DOS updates for full file access. Full music and graphical videos can be directly played from the SD card.

This section covers models that are notably different to the standard Laser 200 and 210 beyond the simple name changes covered above.

The Laser 100 and 110 came out shortly before the Laser 200 and Laser 210 / VZ200 and were an earlier version of the same basic design. From the point of view of the BASIC ROM, these machines were very similar to the original TRS-80 Model I.

As with the Laser 200/210 and later models, the Laser 100/110 uses a MC6847 video chip, which was used in numerous other computers during the late 1970s and early 1980s including the TRS-80 Color Computer.^{[Notes 4]}

However, unlike their successors, the Laser 100/110 supported black and white graphics only.^[21] While the 6847 chip itself was capable of colour, and both the 100 and 110 supported colour within the internal language interpreters (BASIC, assembler), the output video from the NTSC and PAL circuitry was monochrome.

Both computers were released with the same orange coloured keyboard 'chicklet' style keyboard on a black background, and had the same BASIC in ROM, of which there are at least three known versions: 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2.

The Laser 100 was released with 2kB RAM + 2kB Video RAM, whilst the Laser 110 was released with 4kB RAM + 2kB Video RAM.

The Laser 100 and 110 computers were never released as a re-badged 'VZ 100'.

The Laser 305 is an extremely rare computer produced by Video Technology. Essentially it is the Laser 310 motherboard placed inside the Laser 200 keyboard,^[30] of which, anyone with these two computers could perform themselves. However, the original release and the reasoning behind VTech releasing this particular configuration, unfortunately, has been lost to history. As of July 2021 there are only two known Laser 305s in existence.

The Laser 310 was released in 1985 throughout parts of Europe as well as for Mainland China. It was named and sold as the "Dick Smith" VZ 300 throughout Australia and New Zealand.^[17] Also based on a Zilog Z80A CPU with a slightly updated 16kB ROM version, it was driven by a television colour burst (3.54 MHz) crystal. It came with 16kB of RAM for programming, along with the same 2kB of video RAM as the Laser 200.

The VZ300 had a small number of physical upgrades, but is completely compatible with the VZ200. There were three models of keyboard released for the VZ300:

1. Brown keys with no under-key labels. (1985)
2. Brown keys with under-key labels. (1986)
3. Light-grey/cream coloured keys, with under-key labels. (1987)

Externally, the rubber keys were replaced with hard plastic capped keys and the case was made with a less brittle type of plastic.

Video Technology used higher capacity memory ICs for the VZ300, having 18 kB of memory (16 kB CPU RAM + 2 kB video RAM). The system RAM capacity was increased to 16 kB, which together with 16 kB of expansion RAM, making a total of 34 kB RAM for the system.

The VZ200 16 kB RAM expansion could be used, but because of the way the chip select pins were arranged, only 8 kB would actually be available. ETI magazine in Australia published an electronic circuit which would enable VZ300 owners to use all 16 kB of the VZ200 expansion.

There is at least one VZ300 known to exist with 66kB of memory (64kB RAM + 2kB Video) on the motherboard, built by Video Technology. This unit uses 8x HM4864P-2 8kB static RAM chips instead of the usual 8x 2kB memory chips.

Known examples of the "Seltron 200 Color Computer"-badged variant are unique in terms of their motherboard design, which features a layout and configuration quite different to those used for other models in the family.

Named after the supermarket retail chain 'Scale ELEKTRON' imported units into Austria and was sold throughout the countries of Austria, Hungary and Italy.

In 1989, when unsold examples were still on the Hungarian market, the magazine Mikrovilág speculatively estimated that around 80 units had been imported into Austria circa 1984-85.^[31] It noted that the Seltron 200 had been unsuccessful there and, even with the lack of cheap computers at that time, it had been unpopular even among uninformed buyers^[31] due to incompatibility and lack of support.

The Seltron's motherboard contained the same custom VZ300/Laser 310 single packaged GA003 and GA004 chipsets (which replaced discrete VZ200/Laser 200-210 components), though the design eliminated the need for the GA008 (clock register and DRAM controller) that is used in the 16 Kb VZ300/Laser 310. Some speculate that it was Video Technology's attempt at cost reducing the manufacturing process. It was released with the usual 2 Kb of video RAM, along with 2 Kb of user RAM (same as the Laser 200), however the motherboard allowed for further expansion of another 2 KB or 4 Kb of RAM. By adding an additional 2x 2 KB user RAM it would bring the Seltron up to the same spec as an "8K" VZ200/Laser 210. The Seltron also had the standard 16kB ROM and the motherboard allowed for the option of either a single 16 kB ROM package or 2x 8 kB ROM chip packages.

As of 2022 there are around 10 Seltron 200 computers known to be existing, mostly throughout in Hungary.

The 'Laser' name was also used on several other computers sold by VTech that were incompatible with or completely unrelated to the Laser 100-310 family.

The Laser 500 and Laser 750 computers were released later, based on Z80 processor technology (MSX clones), having a 32kB ROM (including BASIC version 3.0) with 64kB of RAM. The Laser 500 and Laser 750 are not backwards-compatible with the Laser 100 to 310 family.

The Laser 128 was an Apple II clone released in 1986.

The Laser 2001 was a computer based on the "CreatiVision" console design, which was based around a 6502 CPU and thus completely incompatible with the Z80-based Laser 100 to 310.

With both of their releases in Germany, England, USA, Italy, Australia, New Zealand and a few other countries, commercially based software titles grew and were distributed throughout various outlets in their home countries. Store fronts throughout Australia and New Zealand sold many titles, including educational and graphical games, finance programs and various software utility tools, most of which have been found and transferred for the use in the various emulators. Unfortunately, there are a number of known software packages that have simply been lost through the passage of time.

Dick Smith Electronics ran a program buying software from local programmers and selling them through their stores for $12 a cassette. Most VZ200 programs were written in Australia, it is the equivalent of the Sinclair ZX-81 in Australia (which was never really available because of production problems in the UK), a system which many early programmers learnt on. The lack of foreign competition tended to encourage local programmers, programmers having little success competing with foreign programs on the most popular system, the Commodore 64.

The VZ includes a built-in BASIC interpreter in ROM, which is used not just for programming, but for accessing the OS, recording programs, and all other operations on the computer.

The VZ200 uses a version of Microsoft BASIC II, similar but not identical to Level II BASIC on the TRS-80, including useful commands like SET, PRINT@ and IF-THEN-ELSE. Firmware machine code routines are available using the RSX command. The firmware contains a large number of useful routines provided by Zilog, via NEC.

Some TRS-80 BASIC commands, such as RANDOMIZE, ON and the DEF commands (only subroutines can be used for formulae), are not available, so only simple TRS-80 programs can be entered without alteration. A number of Extended Basics were written that "unhid" approximately 25 of these hidden BASIC commands that were partially disabled from factory by Video Technology.

The BASIC can use integers, decimals and floating point numbers. Double precision numbers are not available, but can be used by storing the different power position numbers in a string and concatenating the strings.

A number of emulators for various platforms have since been written for these models of computers:

• MAME/MESS VZ/Laser emulation by Juergen Buchmueller and Dirk Best.
• JEMU (for Java) by Richard Wilson.
• JVZ200 (for Windows) by James Tamer.
• VZEM (Windows and DOS versions) by Guy Thomason.
• Pocket VZ (for the Pocket PC) by Guy Thomason.
• Android VZ (for the Android OS) by Guy Thomason.
• WinVZ300 / DSEVZ200 / Emulator 2001 by Gavin Turner.
• VZ SoundPaint (Java) by Jürgen Reuter.
• VZ200 Remake java emu by C Wahlmann.
• Windows Laser 310 Emu by ZZemu.
• FPGA VZ emulator by ZZEMU.
• VZ Emulator by Paul Anderson.
• VZ-Next (ESP32/Windows/Linux/Raspi) by Paul Robson.
• MiSTer FPGA core by Alan Hanson
• JSMESS by Jason Scott
• Browser-based laser310-emu by Antonino Porcino.
• VTech CreatiVision core for MiSTer FPGA by Jamie Blanks

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dick Smith VZ 200.

• Blue Bilby - website featuring new games, interviews, tutorials and applications.
• VZEM by Intertek – The official homepage of the VZEM emulator
• JEMU – Java based VZ200 & VZ300 Emulator
• A contemporary review – from Your Computer, April 1983
• The VZ200 – Tutorials and Programming
• A VZ200 Wiki – Information
• Clockmeisters VZ/Laser310 page
• Bushy's Absolute everything VZ page.
• Steve's VZ page.
• CreatiVEmu CreatiVision emulation central

Software

• Intertek's software download page
• Bushy's VZ software download page.