The TV-Computer (or TVC in short) is an 8-bit
home computer which was manufactured by the
Hungarian company
Videoton around 1986. The computer was based on the
Enterprise
Enterprise (or the archaic spelling Enterprize) may refer to:
Business and economics
Brands and enterprises
* Enterprise GP Holdings, an energy holding company
* Enterprise plc, a UK civil engineering and maintenance company
* Enterprise ...
and had a built-in
BASIC
BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...
interpreter. Programs could be loaded via tape
Videoton TV Computer Tape File Converter
Google code or floppy. It had a built-in joystick and a keyboard with Hungarian letters and nine function keys.
There are three different models of the TVC:
* 32k which has 32 Kb of RAM
* 64k which has 64 Kb of RAM
* 64k+ which has 64 Kb of RAM and a newer BASIC interpreter (v2.2) and more video RAM
Dual-ported video RAM, or VRAM, is a dual-ported variant of dynamic RAM (DRAM), which was once commonly used to store the framebuffer in graphics adapters. Note that most computers and game consoles do not use this form of memory, and dual-porte ...
(64 Kb instead of 16 Kb)
The TVC has three graphical modes: 128×240/16 colors, 256×240/4 colors, and 512×240/2 colors (black and white). There were no text (character display) mode only graphical. This made the computer a bit slow and smooth scrolling is pretty challenging (though there are examples for vertical and horizontal scrolling games nowadays).
Few programs existed for the computer. Many of these were written by dedicated amateurs and were distributed by mail.
It has two tape ports, 1 A/V, 1 RGB monitor, 1 RF connector, 1 centronics printer port, 1 side (for program-modules - game cartridges) and 4 upper (computer internals are almost exposed) expansion ports and 2 joystick ports (compatible with Atari style joys, but may have 2 buttons).
The 4 upper expansion ports made this computer very versatile. The official floppy solution was connected to one of these ports, the RS232 card also was plugged here. The class-room network card also used this port, the planned game card (with sprite capabilities) also would have used this port - unfortunately we just have some pictures about the proto module and some documents mention it. Even a SID card was created, using a SID chip to enhance the TVC sound capabilities.
Current enhancements using these ports are: SD card reader, sound card (with 3 different sound chips), game card (+2 joy ports +SN76489 sound chip + 4 built-in games), HDMI output with several FPGA cores (ofc including TVC), USB/PS2 mouse handling (and an unreleased gamecard with SID and sprite support) and many more.
References
{{reflist
Home computers
Science and technology in Hungary