website/content/museum/dick-smith-vz200.md

title, categories, types, origins, years, cpus, params

title	categories	types	origins	years	cpus	params
Dick Smith VZ200	Computers	Home Computer	Australia	1982	Z80A	name image company company_name specs tabs photos adverts hardware screenshots emulators links docs comments related oc_id source VZ200 /media/museum/photos/dicksmith_vz200_system_s1.jpg /companies/dick-smith Dick Smith label value NAME VZ200 label value MANUFACTURER Dick Smith label value TYPE Home Computer label value ORIGIN Australia label value YEAR 1982 label value END OF PRODUCTION Unknown label value BUILT IN LANGUAGE Microsoft BASIC label value KEYBOARD 45 rubber keys, Basic instructions and graphic symbols label value CPU Z80A label value SPEED 3.58 MHz label value CO-PROCESSOR Motorola 6847 (video processor) label value RAM 8 KB (6 KB for user, 2 KB for video) up to 24 KB label value VRAM 2 KB label value ROM 16 KB label value TEXT MODES 32 columns x 16 lines, 8 colors (Mode 0) label value GRAPHIC MODES 128 x 64 dots, 4 colors (Mode 1) label value COLORS 8 label value SOUND built-in piezzo speaker 1 voice, 2.5 octaves, 9 note lengths label value SIZE / WEIGHT 29 (W) x 17 (D) x 4 (H) cm / 800 gr label value I/O PORTS Tape-recorder (600 bauds), TV (RF modulator), Composite video, Memory expansion port, general expansion port label value BUILT IN MEDIA None label value POWER SUPPLY external AC adaptor 9V DC 800 mA label value PERIPHERALS 16 KB RAM plug-in module, tape recorder, label value PRICE AU$299 photos adverts hardware software emulators links docs title subtitle text image LARGER VIEW /media/museum/photos/dicksmith_vz200_system_s2.jpg title subtitle text image KEYBOARD CLOSE-UP /media/museum/photos/dicksmith_vz200_keybcloseup_s1.jpg title subtitle text image ADVERT (FEB. 1984) From New-Zealand Bits & Bytes magazine /media/museum/pubs/dick-smith_vz200_pub_1.jpg title subtitle text image LASER 16K RAM EXPANSION This thing fits in the memory expansion port and adds 16k RAM. It cost 590fr in 1984. /media/museum/hardware/vtehc_laser200_16k_cart.jpg title subtitle text image LASER LIGHT PEN Cool little light pen... But the only software using it was the on demo tape sold with it ! /media/museum/hardware/vtech_laser200_lpen.jpg title subtitle text image LASER JOYSTICK Nice shape. Two joysticks and their interface cost 320fr in 1984. /media/museum/hardware/vtech_laser200_jstck.jpg title subtitle text image DR-10 / DR-20 Tape-recorder A originally designed tape-recorder available for the whole Laser family.\ It cost 590fr in 1984.. The DR-10 and DR-20 tape-recorders seem identicals in all points. Apparently, the DR-20 was sold for Dick Smith models, and the DR-10 for Laser machines... /media/museum/hardware/vtech_200_dr10.jpg title subtitle text image DR-30 Tape-Recorder Another cool tape-recorder for the Laser serie.\ This one was also found for many other computers of that time. /media/museum/hardware/vtech_200_dr30.jpg title subtitle text image DD-20 5''1/4 Disk-drive A small 5"1/4 floppy disk drive for the Laser computers. But its capacity is a bit short with only 78k per formated disk. One disk drive and its controller cost 2380fr in 1984. /media/museum/hardware/vtech_dd20.jpg title subtitle text image DD-20 The inside /media/museum/hardware/vtech_dd20_2.jpg title subtitle text image PARALLEL PRINTER INTERFACE This enables the Laser computers to use ''parallel'' printers. /media/museum/hardware/vtech_vz300_printer-interface.jpg title subtitle text image 16K RAM PLUG-IN MODULE /media/museum/hardware/dicksmith_vz200_16kram_s1.jpg title subtitle text image TAPE RECORDER /media/museum/hardware/dicksmith_vz200_taperecorder_s1.jpg title subtitle text image CIRCUS /media/museum/software/vtech_ss_circus.png title subtitle text image CRASH /media/museum/software/vtech_ss_crash.png title subtitle text image DAWN PATROL /media/museum/software/vtech_ss_dawn.png title subtitle text image DEFENCE PENETRATOR /media/museum/software/vtech_ss_defpen.png title subtitle text image DIGOUT /media/museum/software/vtech_ss_digout.png title subtitle text image DRACULA'S CASTLE /media/museum/software/vtech_ss_dracula.gif title subtitle text image DUEL /media/museum/software/vtech_ss_duel2.png title subtitle text image GALAXON /media/museum/software/vtech_ss_galaxon.png title subtitle text image GHOST HUNTER /media/museum/software/vtech_ss_ghosth.gif title subtitle text image HAMBURGER SAM /media/museum/software/vtech_ss_hamsam.png title subtitle text image HOPPY /media/museum/software/vtech_ss_hoppy.gif title subtitle text image INVADERS /media/museum/software/vtech_ss_invaders.png title subtitle text image KAMIKAZE /media/museum/software/vtech_ss_kamikaze.png title subtitle text image LADDER CHALLENGE /media/museum/software/vtech_ss_ladder.png title subtitle text image LUNAR LANDER /media/museum/software/vtech_ss_llander.png title subtitle text image MISSILE ATTACK /media/museum/software/vtech_ss_missile.png title subtitle text image PENGUIN /media/museum/software/vtech_ss_penguin.png title subtitle text image SPACE RAM /media/museum/software/vtech_ss_spaceram.png title subtitle text image STAR BLASTER /media/museum/software/vtech_ss_starblst.png title subtitle text image VZ PANIK /media/museum/software/vtech_ss_vzpanik.png title url platform text VZEM http://www.powerup.com.au/~intertek/VZ200/vz.htm MS DOS The emulator is written in Borland C++. It emulates a VZ200/300 with 34k RAM title url platform text Emulator2001 http://www.gstsoftware.co.nz/ Windows The VZ-200 has been added to this multi-emulator title url platform text James's VZ 200 emulator http://www.geocities.com/EMUCOMPBOY/ Windows Emulator for the NTSC version of this computer title url platform text WinVZ http://vzalive.bangrocks.com/emulators/ Windows Play your VZ games in Windows title url platform text MESS Project http://www.mess.org/ Multiplatform Emulates a lot of systems for all platforms. title url text Planet VZ http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/laser/184/ Useful infos here... title url text Steve75 Laser 310 page http://utenti.lycos.it/STEVE75/laser.html Pictures, info, games, emulators and online manual. title url text The VZ200 http://vz200.tripod.com/ Growing website aimed at the new modern user. title url text Tricky's VZ200 page http://www.trickynz.com/VZ200.html Photos and downloadable docs title url text Video Technology official site http://www.vtech.com Nothing remains about the old computers... title url text VZ Alive http://vzalive.bangrocks.com/ Excellent site dedicated to the VZ computers title url text VZ Online http://www.vz200-online.de.vu/ a German VZ 200 homepage title url text VZ-200/VZ-300 http://www.geocities.com/Baja/Dunes/6771/vz/ Lots of information and links about the Dick Smith VZ series. title url text Yahoo Discussion Group - The VZ Color computer mailing list http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/vzemu/ Quite active discussion group title url cover text DICK-SMITH VZ200 USER MANUAL https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-5639672 /media/museum/docs/couvs/vz200_user-manual.jpg [**DICK-SMITH VZ200 USER MANUAL**](https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-5639672)written by Video Technology  compiled/archived by Archive.org\  type of document : PDF\  source : [Achive.org](https://archive.org) title url cover text VZ-200 TECHNICAL REFERENCE MANUAL https://archive.org/details/VZ200-technical-reference-manual /media/museum/docs/couvs/vz200_technical-ref-manual_cover.jpg [**VZ-200 TECHNICAL REFERENCE MANUAL**](https://archive.org/details/VZ200-technical-reference-manual)written by Jamieson Rowe / Dick Smith  compiled/archived by Archive.org\  type of document : Online reader\  source : [Archive.org](https://archive.org/) title url cover text VZ-200 FIRST BOOK OF PROGRAMS https://archive.org/details/vz-200-first-book-of-programs /media/museum/docs/couvs/vz200_first-book-of-programs.jpg [**VZ-200 FIRST BOOK OF PROGRAMS**](https://archive.org/details/vz-200-first-book-of-programs)written by Dick Smith  compiled/archived by Archive.org\  type of document : PDF\  source : [Archive.org](https://archive.org/) title url cover text VZ-200 SECOND BOOK OF GAMES https://archive.org/details/VZ200-second-book-of-games /media/museum/docs/couvs/vz200_second-book-of-games.jpg [**VZ-200 SECOND BOOK OF GAMES**](https://archive.org/details/VZ200-second-book-of-games)written by Dick Smith  compiled/archived by Archive.org\  type of document : PDF\  source : [Archive.org](https://archive.org/) title url cover text VZ-200 FURTHER PROGRAMMING https://archive.org/details/vz200fp /media/museum/docs/couvs/vz200_further-programming.jpg [**VZ-200 FURTHER PROGRAMMING**](https://archive.org/details/vz200fp)written by Dick Smith / Tim Hartnell  compiled/archived by Archive.org\  type of document : PDF\  source : [Archive.org](https://archive.org/) title url cover text VZ200/300 ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE PROGRAMMING FOR BEGINNERS http://vz200.tripod.com/index.html /media/museum/docs/couvs/vz200-300_assembly-language-manual%5B1%5D.jpg [**VZ200/300 ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE PROGRAMMING FOR BEGINNERS**](http://vz200.tripod.com/index.html)written by Steve Olney  compiled/archived by The VZ200\  type of document : PDF\  size : 6 MB\  source : Old-Computers.com title url cover text USEFUL ROM SUBROUTINES FOR ASSEMBLY PROGRAMMING null /media/museum/docs/couvs/vz200_useful-lm-subroutines.jpg **USEFUL ROM SUBROUTINES FOR ASSEMBLY PROGRAMMING**\ written by Unknown  compiled/archived by The VZ200\  type of document : PDF\  size : 110 Ko\  source : [The VZ200](http://vz200.tripod.com) author date text Chris Tapping (Scotland / Australia) Tuesday 1st February 2022 I used to have the VZ200 with the memory expansion, tape player, color plotter and it was amazing. I used to buy a game a week with money I used to make from delivering newspapers. Unfortunately, my mother has thrown everything out at some stage.. I do recall, spending many afternoons writing the sample programs and then modifying them for a bit of fun. author date text Dave (australia) Monday 26th July 2021 Hi All, We are after retro fans to join our ''VZ200/VZ300 fans" groups on Facebook. We are after more people whom want to make the VZ community grow. We now have arduino and FPGA projects for the VZ. We even have a SD card reader with FAT32 dos running on the VZ ! We''re also trying to gather all known software and articles for the VZ and Laser computers. Do you still have old VZ software laying around on tape or disc? We want a copy of it to keep for historical purposes. Facebook search : VZ200/VZ300 fans. author date text Peter Crichton (Australia) Friday 4th June 2021 I just remember having the keyboard. Did you have to buy a cassette reader seperately? author date text Greg Bzdell (Canada) Monday 24th May 2021 I was a subscriber to the Dick Smith mail-order catalogue. IN CANADA. I was attracted to the Dick Smith VZ200, but the cost of getting to Canada was enough to deter me. I really liked the specs though. author date text J D Brantley (Kentucky, USA) Saturday 23rd May 2020 I own a Zenith VZ-200 with the 16K memory module, cassette and joysticks. The base system has 8K ROM Basic and 4K RAM (2KB user, 2KB video). I had a good start on a Sub Commander style game (never finished) with nice wave action working on the horizon. I''m digging it out again to give to my 3 year-old grandson (he LOVES keyboards!). This system (along with a T/S 80) gave me a start towards a Robotics degree and an IT career that lasted 20+ years. In my retirement I''ve moved to Arduino UNO and Raspberry PI (both together cost less than the $99.00 US I paid for the base VZ). author date text Mr. John D''Alton (Brisbane, Australia.) Monday 30th July 2018 Hobart John Web Site author date text Dave (Aus) Monday 16th September 2013 Go the VZ''s.\ Sep 2013: I''ve just managed to get the VZ''s to play WAV file samples through its internal piezo, as well as the start of a .MOD music module player - all done with assembly and easily compiled with the Z88 dev kit. I''d love it if more people were keen enough to come on board. Find me and various music programs over on the VZEMU Yahoogroups email list. Cheers to all whom read this. author date text Axel (Germany) Wednesday 26th September 2012 This modell even was sold in Germany, it was my first computer. I bought it with 64 kb extrenseion, spend many nights with programmeing. The magazine Chip posted for TRS 80 an assembler and a debugger. With a friend we changed the adresses and used the extension. Most people used Commodore or Atari, because of grafics and music. But there was no MS-Basic, and we wanted to get experience in this standard language. author date text Jeremy (Australia) Monday 16th January 2012 I still remember the different memory addresses, such as using "POKE 30744,1" to invert the colours in text mode. author date text dianne johnson Friday 7th October 2011 The vz200 was the first computer that I bought for my children as a Christmas present. They''re still active with computers. Somewhere in storage I should still have it and its big brother the 300. I have 3 grand children and they are all owners of their own laptop. life goes on. author date text Kerris (Melbourne, Australia) Wednesday 3rd November 2010 This was my First computer in 1983, it was where i learned data entry and coding, it was fun in its day, thinking back to the tapes and green screen its amazing how far its all come. 27 years on and i''m into my third year in I.T, still a passion. Thanks Dick smith. author date text Mark Baxter (New Zealand) Monday 23rd August 2010 The "horrible keyboard" was greatly improved by varnishing the keys to make them firmer (it also has the side-effect of stopping the markings wearing off as happened to to many much loved rubber keyboard machines of the ''80s). author date text Andrew Laird (Melbourne, Australia) Friday 2nd November 2007 Somehow I scraped together the cash necessary to purchase a VZ200 and then spent hours playing games and programming in BASIC. My favourite game was Defence Penetrator - after enough practice I was able to make it right through the game and back to the start. Eventually I bought a VZ300, floppy disk drive and other peripherals. Now I am collecting them again, and writing a wiki which aims at documenting the VZ. author date text Duncan Murray (Adelaide, South Australia) Saturday 16th June 2007 The VZ200 was a fantastic little computer - for the first time you could get a computer with COLOUR and SOUND for under $200 Australian - awesome stuff I learnt to program in BASIC on this, seeing that I couldn't afford to buy a lot of software at the time - if I wanted a game I had to write it (often typing in pages from magazines). One of them got sold by mail order from LYSCo - it was called "The Lost Sword" - it was my first income from selling software, and pretty exciting. author date text Mark Hill (Brisbane) Wednesday 1st March 2006 Well, an old piece of real computer history, the VZ-200. I bought one in 1983 and after my first halting steps with BASIC, actually wrote a few simple programs. The thing that turned the VZ-200 from just a little games machine to a real assest as far as I was concerned was the release of the tape based word processor. I used that machine and word-pro program for four years solid during my AAII studies and, for those years being able to have study notes printed (on a rattly Seikosha 9 pin printer) was "state of the art" for a home PC user. I mucked about with the word-pro program and wrote a new graphics (remember the hi-res option) front end to make it look like an Apple program. Well, it worked at the front end but still had the upper case only, 32 character display on screen (a Philips 14 inch colour set) but it did look pretty. Don't ask me to do that now because I would have a, "Senior's moment" and plead failing memory. Speaking of memory, I bought the 16kb expansion pack and what a difference that made. But, saving to tape, oh hell. "READ ERROR B" when trying to load again. I solved that by using metal tapes, very expensive back then but with a building library of study notes and law cases (all typed in by moi), certainty that loading would work. The BASIC. At that time in my work the first IBM PC came out and having read the manual for the VZ-200 (programming) I realised that the Dartmouth BASIC version used by IBM was very close to the VZ-200 version. I did this for fun because there was no campatibility between the two machines. Old games on the VZ-200. Yes, "Dracula" was a good one. Better I thought was the flight simulator (text only) which actually made you think about fuel loads. As a machine, I hated the rubber keyboard but became adept with what we would now call shift changes. The "guts" of the machine. Open the case and cut the wiring and then solder a shunt to a pin jack you have mounted in the case. Stops the "beep". Plug a pin jack in and the other end to an amplifier and presto, wall to wall mono sound. Tweak the colour potentiometer and change the green screen to blue (along with stuffing up the rest of the colour registers). I still have a VZ-200. Complete with the original Dick Smith manuals (both of them), tapes, original Dick Smith, about a dozen or so, and the joysticks and the bit of paper with the routine to load to enable the sticks. What did machines like the VZ-200 teach us. ? How to have a go at writing programs in BASIC for a start. Using a little PC (yes, I call it a PC) for something else other than games. Understanding the actual works "guts" of a PC and wringing the best out of a simple 8 bit machine. From the VZ-200 I moved to an Amstrad CPC464 and then to a 286, a 486, and many Pentium variations. But, we become lazy with these all singing, all dancing machines. I had more fun making a GOSUB call work and doing a POKE / PEEK memory call and actually watching a program I wrote on the VZ-200 work. Cheers.\ Mark Hill author date text Benjamin Kosta Pazolli (Perth, Australia) Monday 26th September 2005 It has been a while but I now can report that you can make tapes and they do work. I have created an article on my new website about it, and I suggest having a read of it. I was personally amazed at how powerful the VZ200 could be. VZINVADERS seems to be almost a perfect recreation of the original invaders. I also tried Missile Command but that was somewhat less impressive. I think I will try Asteriods next. I recommend it to everyone and have fun. author date text Benjamin Kosta Pazolli (Perth, Australia) Monday 18th July 2005 I inherited a vz200 from my late grandfather and was amazed by it. He had a lot of tapes but most of them were boring things like tax calculators or somthing. But I was intrested just earlier tonight to find a site that had some games and an emulator with the ability to converter the games that were compatible with it into wav format. I would imagine that you would attach the line out(headphones or speaker output) to the microphone or line in of a tape recorder and start recording and play the file. Make sure to turn the sound on and wait a while after pressing record. The site was http://homepage.powerup.com.au/~intertek/VZ200/. I also have two vz300 (one for parts). I will report back to see if it is successful. Also as an idea I could create a software archive if people created wav files of the program by doing the opposite of above. Send any questions, comments or other to bpazolli@gmail.com. Also check my website archaiccom.tripod.com. author date text Scott B (Australia) Tuesday 19th April 2005 Wow this brings back memories as a 13yo playing with the family computer. I spent countless hours typing programs in, hoping to get them save to cassette before the power flickered!!! The machine was the envy of my friends until the C64, unfortunately I never got another computer until 2000. Thinking back it was great fun and great value, you could write your own programs, get free programs by borrowing books from the library and typing them in or simply copyiny you friends cassettes. I might just still have the machine in a cupboard somewhere, maybe I will hook it up and check if it still works. My kids would be amazed at just how much computers have evolved in the last 22 years. /museum/dick-smith-vz300 /museum/salora-fellow /museum/texet-tx-8000 /museum/video-technology-laser-200-210 /museum/video-technology-laser-310 979 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20230608085933/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=979 2023-06-08

The Dick Smith VZ-200 and VZ-300 were very popular in Australia and New Zealand from 1983 to 1990. The VZ200 was the same model as the VTech Laser 200.

Despite of its poor chicklet keyboard and short RAM space, users could find hundreds of programs from local magazines, Dick Smith store or from several very active VZ user clubs.

Several peripherals and add-on were quickly available, among them, a 16 KB RAM plug-in module, a tape recorder, a mouse, a Speech Synthesiser and later a floppy disc drive unit.

See a complete review of the VZ 200 in the 'Read more' page.

We need more info about this computer ! If you designed, used, or have more info about this system, please send us pictures or anything you might find useful.