The VG5000μ is a computer created by Philips in 1984. It was manufactured in Le Mans by

Radiotechnique Radiotechnique (RT) was a French electronics company that made radio transmitting and receiving vacuum tubes, and later more advanced components such as integrated circuits and solar panels. At first it was a subsidiary of the French Compagnie gén ...

(RTS) and marketed under the Philips, Radiola and

Schneider Schneider may refer to: Hospital * Schneider Children's Medical Center of Israel People * Schneider (surname) Companies and organizations * G. Schneider & Sohn, a Bavarian brewery company * Schneider Rundfunkwerke AG, the former owner of th ...

brands. Not compatible with any other machines, it offered VG5000 BASIC (derived from Microsoft BASIC-80) as the operating system upon boot. Graphic ability was limited to a semigraphic symbol display, with the equivalent resolution of 320 x 250 in 8 colors. There are about forty games available for the system. 300 000 units were sold in 1984, according to an internal Philips report, with 500 000 predicted for 1985. Aimed at schools, it was unsuccessful and production ended in 1986. As of 2022, enthusiasts remain active in developing new

homebrew Homebrewing mainly refers to small-scale, non-commercial manufacture of a drink, typically beer. Homebrew or home brew may also refer to: Computing * Homebrew Computer Club * Homebrew (package manager), for macOS and Linux * Homebrew (video game ...

software and emulators for the system.

Specifications

Zilog Z80A The Z80 is an 8-bit computing, 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 wor ...

processor running at 4 MHz * RAM: 24KB, including 16KB of system memory (expandable to 48KB) and 8KB of dedicated memory for the video processor * ROM: 18KB, including 16KB containing the VG5000 BASIC (derived from Microsoft BASIC-80) and 2KB of character bitmaps built into the video processor * Video processor: SGS

Thomson EF9345 The EF9345 from SGS-Thomson Microelectronics, Inc., was a semigraphic microprocessor for video image control, encapsulated in a 40-pin DIP and used primarily in the Matra Alice 32, Matra Alice 90 and Philips VG5000 microcomputers. The EF9345 was ...

P * Graphics: 320 × 250 in 8 colors (8 × 10 pixel characters) * 1 voice, 5 octave range * Built-in keyboard 63 keys AZERTY with keyboard shortcut to BASIC instructions * DIN5 cassette player connector (1200/2400

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 ...

) * DIN8 SCART connector * Bus connector 2×25 pins

References

External links

Old Computers:

French VG5000µ fan site

Logiciels et développement 2017 ( VG5000µ)
vignette
My VG5000 - site dedicated to the VG5000 micro

Emulation of VG5000

The VG5000 shop

pages dedicated to programming the VG5000
{{Philips Philips products Z80-based home computers