The Sord M5 is a home computer launched by

Sord Computer Corporation } Sord Computer Corporation is a Japanese electronics company, founded in 1970 by the entrepreneur Takayoshi Shiina. From 1985 until 2018, it was a subsidiary of Toshiba and became known variously as Toshiba Personal Computer System Corporation an ...

in 1982. Primarily the Sord M5 competed in the Japanese home computer market. It was also sold as the CGL M5 in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

by Computer Games Limited and was reasonably popular in

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

, where the M5 stood as one of the first affordable computers available to the general public.

Takara Takara Co., Ltd. (株式会社タカラ) was a Japanese toy company founded in 1955. In March 2006, the company merged with Tomy Co., Ltd. to form Takara Tomy. The Takara motto was 遊びは文化」("playing is culture"). Products Toys In 1 ...

also sold models in Japan as the Game M5, and models were also exported to

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...

. Original models of the Sord M5 are relatively small by home computing standards, with a built-in

keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

with rubber keys, similar to the

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as the ''ZX81 Colou ...

, which is also sold in many countries such as the

itself,

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

the Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

, Sweden,

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Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...

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, Australia,

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Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

and

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 Delta i ...

as the Sord M5 Creative Computer, which included a carrying case for the computer. The specifications of the computer are very similar to the MSX, a computer that likely forced the Sord M5 (along with many similar Japanese computers) out of the market by the mid-1980s. The CGL M5 was released in the UK with an introductory price of £195, higher than many of the system's competitors including the ZX Spectrum, and

VIC-20 The VIC-20 (known as the VC-20 in Germany and the VIC-1001 in Japan) is an 8-bit home computer that was sold by Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commodore's first personal computer, the ...

. Whereas the M5 contained a

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 ...

slot in an age where most computers were using compact cassettes or floppy disks, the small amount of built-in RAM led to few games being produced for the system. In South Korea, three electronics companies released different personal computers based on Sord M5. The FC-150 was produced and released by LG,

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

released the SPC-500, and the TommyCom was manufactured and launched by Koryo Systems. These computers supported the Korean alphabet,

Hangul The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The le ...

. The system specifications of these computers were identical to the original M5, but they had differently shaped cartridge slots. Cartridges from the Sord M5 or other manufacturers could not be used for these computers directly. LG released some original software including several educational programs and games. Despite its short production run, the M5 was supported by various big Japanese game developers such as

Namco was a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company, headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo. It held several international branches, including Namco America in Santa Clara, California, Namco Europe in London, Namco Taiwan in Kaohsiung, ...

and

Konami , is a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, it also produces and distributes trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, pachinko machines, slot machines, and arcade cabinets. Konami has casino ...

. Other models include the M5 Pro and M5 Jr.

Technical specifications

Internal hardware

* CPU:

Zilog 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 ...

, 3.58 MHz * Video Hardware:

TMS9918 VDP TMS9918A VDP TMS9918A VDP TMS9928A The TMS9918 is a video display controller (VDC) manufactured by Texas Instruments, in manuals referenced as 'Video Display Processor' (VDP) and introduced in 1979. The TMS9918 and its variants were used ...

** 40×24 text (6×8 characters), 224 user defined characters ** 256×192 graphics, 16 colours ** 32 hardware sprites (up to 16×16 pixels) * Sound Hardware: SN76489 ** 3 sound channels ** 1 noise channel ** 6 octaves, 15 amplitude levels * RAM: 20 kB (of which 16kB is screen memory) * ROM: 8 kB expandable to 16kB

I/O ports and power supply

*I/O ports: ** TV out ** Video out (phono socket) ** Sound out (phono socket) **

Centronics Centronics Data Computer Corporation was an American manufacturer of computer printers, now remembered primarily for the parallel interface that bears its name, the Centronics connector. History Foundations Centronics began as a division ...

16-pin interface ** 8-pin DIN cassette connector * Power supply: external

Language cartridge options

* BASIC-I ** Integer arithmetic only (16 bit signed) * BASIC-G ** Graphics and sound functions * BASIC-F **

Floating point In computing, floating-point arithmetic (FP) is arithmetic that represents real numbers approximately, using an integer with a fixed precision, called the significand, scaled by an integer exponent of a fixed base. For example, 12.345 can b ...

arithmetic * FALC ** Applications package

Retail price

* UK Retail prices, December 1983 Computer & Video Games magazine, December 1983 ** Sord M5 plus BASIC-I : £190 ** BASIC-G : £35 ** BASIC-F : £35 ** FALC: £35

References

External links

Infos and photos Sord M5

More M5 images including circuit board

Sord M5 at old-computers.com
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071209022938/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=217 , date=2007-12-09 Z80-based home computers Home computers Products introduced in 1982