Talk:Compucolor

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I remember this model, but it had a nice BASIC in ROM[1]. I think it was max 48K RAM too. Was it discontinued in '93 or '83? 75.18.207.111 16:42, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This says 32KB RAM maximum. 75.18.207.111 16:46, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"The ROM contained a ripped-off version of Microsoft BASIC and a simplistic file system. Microsoft found out about them, and forced ISC to become a Microsoft distributor. They also collected royalties on all machines sold up to that time."[2]. But the BASIC had vector graphics commands, which I didn't think MS had in '77. Or maybe they did have DRAWTO or LINETO or whatever, but I can't remember. 75.18.207.111 16:53, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sheesh, I'm having a lot of trouble remembering. The owner/operator of a video arcade I frequented in '82 had one. There must have been models after the Model 5. 75.18.207.111 16:55, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The "discontinued date" was copied over from another article that I based this one on (Apple II, I think). I've fixed it now (by removal, unfortunately). The one or two "facts" in here that aren't from those external sites are from my memories, so they might not be exactly spot on. I thought our Compucolor II had 64K, but I could be misremembering. The highest reference I found was for 32K myself (or did I see a 48K?). The OS is also speculative. I do remember those BASIC vector graphics commands - they were crazy! Ben Hocking ^(talk) 17:00, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note 1: the Intecolor History website mentions "an overall 64KB operating system memory allocation"...Ben Hocking ^(talk) 17:10, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note 2: Also from that site: "By mid 1993, production of traditional 8001, 3800, 8800, AGS, were basically discontinued from production." I'm adding the 1993 date back to "discontinued." Ben Hocking ^(talk) 17:10, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

" the history depicted here is not concentrated on the Compucolor II, but on the Intecolor brand of products."75.18.207.111 02:35, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The largest memory configuration for the Compucolor II, the Model 5, was 32 KB. ROM occupied 0x0000 to 0x3FFF. There was an 8 KB hole in the memory space at 0x4000 - 0x5FFF. 4KB of video RAM was located both at 0x6000-0x6FFF and 0x7000-0x7FFF, the difference being that CPU has priority over the refresh logic in the lower address range, and the display had priority over the CPU in the higher address range. The ROM used the lower address when clearing the screen and such, and the upper range was used for most other operations -- it was slower (access could happen only during hblanking) but accesses didn't corrupt display refresh. User RAM occupied 0x8000-0xFFFF. Compucolor sold a ROM module and a DRAM module which could be plugged into the motherboard to fill that hole at 0x4000-0x5FFF, but note it wasn't contiguous with the other user RAM, and BASIC couldn't take advantage of it. One thing I can't figure out is the ROM and RAM modules are listed as supporting up to 16 KB of memory, but the hole is only 8 KB. For confirmation of this, see the Maintenance Manual, pdf page 99 for the memory map, and pdf pages 75 and 76 for mention of the add-on ROM and RAM modules.