The EACA EG2000 Colour Genie was a computer produced by

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

-based manufacturer

EACA EACA International Ltd was a Hong Kong manufacturer active from 1975 to 1983, producing Pong-style television video games, and later producing thousands of personal computers. The company's products included the Video Genies I, II and III (which ...

and introduced in Germany in August 1982. It followed their earlier

Video Genie Video Genie (or simply Genie) is a discontinued series of computers produced by Hong Kong-based manufacturer EACA during the early 1980s. Computers from the Video Genie line are mostly compatible with the Tandy TRS-80 Model I computers and c ...

I and II computers and was released around the same time as the business-oriented Video Genie. The BASIC was compatible with the Video Genie I and II and the TRS-80, except for graphic and sound commands; most of the routines for Video Genie I BASIC commands were left over in the Colour Genie's BASIC ROM. Programs were provided to load TRS-80 programs into the Colour Genie. Colour Genie disks could be read in a TRS-80 floppy disk drive and vice versa, editing the pdrive commands. The original Video Genies had been based upon (and broadly compatible with) the then-current

TRS-80 Model I The TRS-80 Micro Computer System (TRS-80, later renamed the Model I to distinguish it from successors) is a desktop microcomputer launched in 1977 and sold by Tandy Corporation through their Radio Shack stores. The name is an abbreviation of '' ...

. As the Colour Genie was descended from this architecture, it was incompatible with Tandy's newer

TRS-80 Color Computer The RadioShack TRS-80 Color Computer, later marketed as the Tandy Color Computer and sometimes nicknamed the CoCo, is a line of home computers developed and sold by Tandy Corporation. Despite sharing a name with the earlier TRS-80, the Color Co ...

which - despite its name - was an entirely new and unrelated design based on an entirely different CPU, and thus incompatible with the TRS-80 Model I and derivatives such as the Color Genie. A 80 column card was produced. The Colour Genie was sold by Schmittke Electronics in Aachen. C genie

Technical specifications

Central Processing Unit

Z80 The Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first working samples were ...

running at 2.2 MHz. Usually using the NEC D780 (and unlicenced Japanese clone) or the SGS Z80 (a European second source for Zilog).

Internal hardware

* Video Hardware **

Motorola 6845 The Motorola 6845, or MC6845, is a display controller that was widely used in 8-bit computers during the 1980s. Originally intended for designs based on the Motorola 6800 CPU and given a related part number, it was more widely used alongside v ...

CRTC ** 40×24 text (original ROMs) or 40×25 text (upgraded ROMs), 16 colours, 128 user defined characters ** 160×96 graphics (original ROMs) or 160×102 graphics (upgraded ROMs), 4 colours x up to 4 pages * Sound Hardware ** General Instruments AY-3-8910 ** 3 sound channels, ADSR programmable ** 1 noise channel ** 2 8-bit wide I/O ports

I/O ports and power supply

*I/O ports: **

Composite video Composite video is an analog video signal format that carries standard-definition video (typically at 525 lines or 625 lines) as a single channel. Video information is encoded on one channel, unlike the higher-quality S-Video (two channels) a ...

out and audio out ( cinch plugs) ** Integrated

RF modulator An RF modulator (or radio frequency modulator) is an electronic device whose input is a baseband signal which is used to modulate a radio frequency source. RF modulators are used to convert signals from devices such as media players, VCRs a ...

antenna output, which also carries sound, to TV **

Cartridge Cartridge may refer to: Objects * Cartridge (firearms), a type of modern ammunition * ROM cartridge, a removable component in an electronic device * Cartridge (respirator), a type of filter used in respirators Other uses * Cartridge (surname), a ...

expansion slot (slot for

edge connector An edge connector is the portion of a printed circuit board (PCB) consisting of traces leading to the edge of the board that are intended to plug into a matching socket. The edge connector is a money-saving device because it only requires a sing ...

with Z80 CPU address/data bus lines and control signals, as well as GND and voltage pins; used for ROM cartridges or the floppy disk controller ** 1200

baud In telecommunication and electronics, baud (; symbol: Bd) is a common unit of measurement of symbol rate, which is one of the components that determine the speed of communication over a data channel. It is the unit for symbol rate or modulatio ...

tape interface (5 pin DIN) **

RS-232 In telecommunications, RS-232 or Recommended Standard 232 is a standard originally introduced in 1960 for serial communication transmission of data. It formally defines signals connecting between a ''DTE'' (''data terminal equipment'') such a ...

port (5 pin DIN) ** Lightpen port (5 pin DIN) ** Parallel port for printer or joystick controller

External hardware options

* Floppy disk controller with

floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...

station. ** Supported up to 4 drives (5.25 inch). ** Support for 90 KB SS/SD up to 720 KB DS/DD drives. * Cassette recorder * EPROM cartridge of 12 KB * EG2013 Joystick Controller ** 2 Analogue joysticks with keypad

External links

Colour Genie Homepage
Colour Genie games at Everygamegoing
Complete list of German and English games for the Colour Genie

Colour Genie Homepage (English Version)

(English)
Colour Genie game and review database
(English/German) {{TRS-80 and Tandy computers Z80-based home computers Home computers