Welcome to part 4 of my SepTandy Spectacular 2. In the last post I took a look at some of Radio Shack handheld games, and in this post we wrap up our look at the last game console sold by Radio Shack, The Tandy Memorex Video Information System, also known as the VIS.
Released in 1992, The VIS was an early CD-ROM based console sold exclusively through Radio Shack. But due to its high price among other factors, the system failed miserably and was discontinued within 2 years.
So why was this system made? In the early 1990's, The CD-ROM was starting to explode in popularity. The format was originally introduced in 1985 but due to the high price, wildly different formats, and speed, they could only be for databases for industrial, medical, educational, and business use.
By 1988 however, that started to change. In Japan, NEC was trying to break into the video game console market. They had released the PC Engine console in partnership with Hudson Soft the previous year, and planned to do something no other console manufacturer had done before, incorporate a CD-ROM drive into a console. they didn't waste anytime doing so, and on December 4, 1988, The CD-ROM² was released in Japan for Ұ32,800 with two launch games First CD-ROM game, any format: Fighting Street (A conversion of the rarely seen Street Fighter 1) and No-Ri-Ko (An dating sim game featuring Jpop star Noriko Ogawa).
It was the first CD-ROM based video game system and the first consumer product with a CD-ROM drive. The add on was introduced in the US with its American counterpart, The TurboGrafx 16, as the TurboGrafx 16 CD the next year in November of 1989, for $389.95.
Soon after, other companies were interested in doing similar things. Tandy took interest in using it to develop an interactive CD player that could run on an X86 based architecture and could be easily developed on any IBM PC or Compatible. They were already had a line of Multimedia PCs, so developing an interactive CD player seemed like a logical evolution of this concept.
The VIS was launched on November 15, 1992 under the Memorex brand (Which Tandy owned at the time) for $699.
Even though the systems classified as a game console, its a little bit of a stretch. Its really more of a multimedia appliance that just so happens to have a game controller. Its kind of a cross between a game console and general purpose PC, Similar to the Philips CD-I launched around the same time.
The console looks a bit like a VCR or some other piece of AV equipment. on the front is the CD tray, the Eject button and the power button.
There's also a panel underneath which reveals a memory card slot, two headphone jacks, and a volume dial.
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On the back there is an Auxillary PS/2 port for keyboards a mouse or a controller, a channel selector switch, RF input and output, composite video out, S-Video out, RCA audio out and the power cord.
There was also an optional modem you could install as well as an RS232 serial board for debugging.
The system runs on a unique version of Microsoft Windows, Known as Modular Windows. Modular Windows was a special version of Microsoft Windows 3.1, designed to run on the Tandy VIS. Microsoft intended Modular Windows to be an embedded operating system for various devices, especially those designed to be connected to televisions. However, the VIS ended up being the only product that actually used it. Microsoft eventually used it as a base for WinPad (also known as At Work for Handhelds and Handheld Windows) a Windows user interface for touch-enabled devices Development on WinPad was dropped during the Final Beta stage of development. The user interface and architecture eventually influenced the development of Windows CE.
Inside the VIS is an Intel 286 CPU clocked at 12 MHz, 1 MB of ROM containing minimal MS-DOS 3.x, a few drivers, and Modular Windows, 1 MB of RAM in a conventional PC layout 640 KB + 384 KB, a 1× (150 KB/s) CD-ROM drive, and IR interface with up to two IR transmitters (hand controllers) operating at once.
The video uses ADAC-1 chip cappaple YUV and several high-quality color modes as well as TV-specific features for handling overscan.
The sound is handled by a Yamaha YMF262 (Also known as the OPL3), the same chip used in the Adlib Gold sound card, which is also backwards compatible with the YM3812 (Also known as the OPL2), the same chip used in the original Adlib sound card.
For software, there were 84 titles released but most of them are educational titles. Yes, educational titles for kids aged 8-15. However their were a few actual games for it. One notable title is The Manhole (Or more specifically a later version known as The Manhole: New and Enhanced), originally developed and published by Cyan Inc in 1988 as a floppy disk based game for the PC and The Macintosh and later published by Activision in 1989 on CD-ROM, It was the first CD-ROM based adventure game on a Personal Computer. It has an Alice in Wonderland Type plot where the player lifts a manhole cover to discover a beanstalk leading to a fantasy world full of charming creatures. You explore the environment and interact with each thing in the environment. The game was created by Robyn and Rand Miller, who would eventually go on to create Myst.
So why did this system fail? Gee where do we begin?! First off it was way too expensive, At $699 no one would spend that much money for an interactive CD player. The second problem is that most of the titles were educational. No parent was going to buy an expensive piece of equitment like this to help their kids get ahead in school. Although Sierra was going to port a few games like Kings Quest V and Space Quest IV, due to the limited hardware it ran too slow. and third, there were already so many other cd based systems like this and all of them were on the market at the same time.
So with this its no wonder why this system was a flop. Still it is an interesting piece of history and is certainly an interesting collectors peice today.
This concludes Part 4 of my second Septandy Spectacular, join me next time as we conclude this SepTandy Spectacular by rewinding back to 1981 and and move from video games to video players take a look at Radio Shacks CED Player.
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