Ryan's SepTandy Spectacular! 3: Send in the clones Part #8 - The Laser Portable Computers (Part 1)

Welcome back to part 8 of my SepTandy Spectacular 3. In the last post we took at look at the Híradástechnika Szövetkezet PTA-4000, which was a clone of the Pocket Computer 2. In this post we're going to take a look at The Laser Portable Computers.

The Laser Portable Computers (1985-1988)

Introduced in 1985, The Laser Portable Computer line was a line of simple, line of computers meant to teach people to program in BASIC and somewhat similar to the Pocket Computers.

Yep, were talking about VTech's Laser division once again! But before we do, let's have a brief recap of the history of the VTech and the Laser brand. In 1976, 2 Hong Kong entrepreneurial engineers named Allan Wong and Stephen Leung, formed VTech after they witnessed the release of the Intel 4004 and wanted to portable consumer electronics using similar technology.

Allan Wong and Stephen Leung in 1978

VTech initially focused on developing video games, and released its first product, a Pong console, in 1977. Since England used the same PAL video standard as Hong Kong, VTech decided to sell their Pong Console on an OEM basis to any perspective manufacturer in the UK, and the product was soon launched by Grandstand as the 3600 Mk III TV Game.

The Grandstand 3600 Mk III TV Game (1977)

By 1979, VTech managed to expand into the North American market by providing OEM products to retailers like Radio Shack and Sears, as well as expanding into making calculator, LED handhelds, and eventually the type of product they would become known for, kids learning computers. With their first kids learning computer, The Lesson One, being introduced at the New York Toy Fair, in February 1980, with an exclusive version offered to Sears as the Computron shortly afterwards.

Left to right: The VTech 4 in 1 (1979), The VTech Wizard/Grandstand Adam (1979), and The VTech Lesson one (1980)

In 1981, they decided to dip their toes into the water of the personal computer market by releasing the Creativision in 1982. It was a game console that  could expand the Creativision into a home computer with the addition of a BASIC Cartridge, a full sized chiclet keyboard, and interfaces for more RAM, Cassette Storage, and serial and parallel ports. VTech took it a step further by forming their own computer brand known as Laser. Initially they just sold rebadged Creativisions with the title of Laser 500, but soon began producing their own line with the Laser 100/110, Laser 200/210, Laser 310, and Laser 350.

Left to right: The VTech Creativision (1982), The Laser 110 (1983), The Laser 200 (1983), The Laser 210 (1983), The Laser 310 (1984), and The Laser 500 (1985)

When we last left off, VTech decided to abandon proprietary architectures and began producing Apple II clones, starting with the Laser 128 in 1985. This is arguably the most well known computer under the Laser brand name, as it was relatively successful since it was the only legal Apple II clone available, had lots of additional features like a built in keypad, centronics printer port, and expansion interface, and was sold for about $1,000 less than the Apple IIc.

The Laser 128 (1985)

But then they introduced a curious new computer called the Laser 50, Released in 1985, for $69.00.

The Laser 50's listing in the 1986 Sears Wishbook Catalog

On the front of the machine is the 16 character LCD display, 4 buttons for Mode, Program, and scrolling the screen left and right, and the keyboard. Much like the Laser 100 series, Its very similar to the Sinclair computer keyboards in that there's a spacebar in the spot of right shift and there's BASIC commands printed on the keys which allow you to type a BASIC commands by holding the control key, However you do have the option for typing them in manually as well.

The front of the Laser 50

On the back, There is the expansion port, power plug, and tape recorder socket.

The back of the Laser 50

On the left side, there is the power switch and one of 2 knobs on each side to extend 2 small feet to prop the unit at an angle for typing.

The left side of the Laser 50

And finally on the bottom is the 2 feet, a carry handle, a slot on for a RAM expansion, the model information stickers, and the battery compartment.

The bottom of the Laser 50

Sadly, much like the Laser 100/ Laser 110, there's no emulator for any of these models so I cant show you what it looks like running BASIC, but I can show you some footage of someone demonstrating it.

Storage wise, the cassette port is the same as the Laser 100 series, so the cables are readily available and you can either use the official DR 23 tape recorder, or your own. The DR 23 is essentially the same as the DR 10 sold for the Laser 100 series, only it has matching colors and graphics

The VTech Laser DR 23 tape recorder

Other Peripherals included The PP 40I 4 color plotter (Again the same as the PP 40 sold for the Laser 100 series, only with matching colors and graphics), The TP-20 24 character thermal printer, and a 4K or 16K RAM Expansions.

The other peripherals available for the Laser 50

For the hardware of the computer itself, It uses a Zilog Z80A CPU clocked at 3.58 MHz, 2192 bytes of RAM, 12K of ROM, a 16 character LCD display (capable of displaying graphics at a resolution of 80 x 7 pixels), a small beeper speaker for sound, and could on either 4 AA Batteries (with a 50 hour battery life), or a 6V DC external AC adaptor.

The Laser 50 Motherboard

While this computer does use a Z80 CPU, its not compatible with Pocket Computer 2 software As it has lower resolution and the BASIC dialect is different than the Pocket Computer 2 and some common commands are even missing from the dialect.

Another, flaw is that you can’t type more than about 20 words per minute or it will start either repeating characters or just skipping characters.

However considering this computer was aimed at kids, it was certainly a great machine for entertainment on a road trip and much like the Pocket Computers was also great for people in the scientific and much like the Pocket Computers would have been great for people in the scientific or engineering fields, especially those working out in the field. In fact in many ways it was even better than the Pocket Computers as it had a full sized keyboard, could be expanded to 16K (14K more than the Pocket Computer 2), and could store up to 10 BASIC programs at a time So you could setup specific BASIC programs to run whatever calculations you needed to run on a regular basis.

The Laser 50 was followed up by the Compumate Series released in 1988. There were 3 models available: The Compumate 1 which sold for $69.99, The Compumate 2 which sold for $89.99, and The Compumate 3 (Later sold as the PC 3) which sold for $119.99.

The Laser Compumate 1, 2 and 3's listing in the 1989 Sears Home Annual Catalog

Its hard to consider these machines computers, as they're really more like Rolodexes. However it was possible to get a BASIC cartridge that would work in these machines.

First computer is the Compumate 1, the low end of the range. It has 3 basic functions: A Spell Checker, A Calculator, and A Telephone Directory. Not very user friendly, but they work.

The Laser Compumate 1

Next the Compumate 2, the mid end of the range. It has 7 basic functions: A Spell Checker, A Calculator, A Telephone Directory, An Appointment Book, An Alarm Clock, A Filer and A Typing Tutor. Its odd they included the Typing Tutor, since you still can't type more than 20 words a minute, but I guess it was useful if you can't type more than 10 words a minute. One thing that has been improved is the screen as it now uses a 20x2 line display.

The Laser Compumate 2

And finally the Compumate 3 (Or PC 3), the high end of the range. It has 10 basic functions: A Spell Checker, A Calculator, A Telephone Directory, An Appointment Book, An Alarm Clock, A Filer, A Typing Tutor, A Communications Utility, A Word Processor, and an Expense Account Manager. Again, Its strange that they included the Typing Tutor, since you still cant type more than 20 words a minute, but there it is. Also an odd choice to put a Word Processor since it just has a 20x2 screen and still has the aforementioned keyboard speed limit, but I suppose could be useful in a pinch. An Interesting thing to note is that VTech offered models with a built in Modem to access Online Services. 

The Laser Compumate 3 (PC 3)

VTech would continue to produce more of these Laser Portable Computers, but will get into those models when we get to clones of the Tandy 100.

So how do I rate the first 4 models of the Laser Portable Computers series on compatibility? Unfortunately, it ranks as Incompatible due to the differing BASIC Dialects, ROM, and screen resolutions.

This concludes Part 5 of my third Septandy Spectacular, join me next time as we take a look at a Pocket Computer clone from behind the Iron Curtain.