| SORCERER |
/media/museum/photos/exidy_sorcererii_system_s1.jpg |
/companies/exidy |
Exidy |
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| NAME |
SORCERER |
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| MANUFACTURER |
Exidy |
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| TYPE |
Home Computer |
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| ORIGIN |
U.S.A. |
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| END OF PRODUCTION |
1982 |
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| BUILT IN LANGUAGE |
BASIC interpreter ROM cartridge |
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| KEYBOARD |
Full-stroke keyboard, 79 keys with numeric keypad |
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| CPU |
Zilog Z80 A |
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| SPEED |
2.106 Mhz. |
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| RAM |
8 KB, later 16KB (up to 48 KB) |
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| TEXT MODES |
64 chars. x 32 lines |
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| GRAPHIC MODES |
128 programmable graphics characters |
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| COLORS |
Monochrome |
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| SOUND |
By connecting a speaker to pins 1 and 4 of the parallel port. |
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| SIZE / WEIGHT |
48.3 (W) 32.8 (D) 9.7 (H) cm |
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| I/O PORTS |
Expansion Bus (S100), Parallel Interface, Video out, Serial Interface, Tape recorder EAR & MIC (300 / 1200 bauds) |
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| OS |
CP/M (needs the extender chassis with disk drive) |
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| POWER SUPPLY |
Built-in PSU |
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| PERIPHERALS |
Floppy drive unit, S-100 bus expansion box, Intelligent tape recorder, Micromation's Doubler disk drive controller |
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| PRICE |
From $895 to $1395 |
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| EXIDY SORCERER |
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/media/museum/photos/exidy_sorcererii_system_s2.jpg |
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| RIGHT SIDE |
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/media/museum/photos/exidy_sorcerer-vm_1.jpg |
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| DINASTY SMART-ALEC |
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Compudata European version. |
/media/museum/photos/exidy_sorcerer_smart-alec_1.jpg |
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| KEYBOARD CLOSE-UP |
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/media/museum/photos/exidy_sorcererii_keyboard_s1.jpg |
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| BOTH SIDES |
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Note the Cartridge slot on the right hand side. |
/media/museum/photos/exidy_sorcererii_sides_s1.jpg |
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| ROM CARTRIDGES SLOT |
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/media/museum/photos/exidy_sorcererii_cartslot_s1.jpg |
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| REAR CONNECTORS |
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An additional TV/RF video output was added to this model, red jack, next to the expansion bus connector. |
/media/museum/photos/exidy_sorcererii_rearcon_s1.jpg |
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| COMPLETE SYSTEM |
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Complete system with the standard Exidy monochrome monitor and the FDM 180 floppy drive unit. |
/media/museum/photos/exidy_sorcererii_completesys_s1.jpg |
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| OPENED |
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The power regulation card is fastened on top of the motherboard. |
/media/museum/photos/exidy_sorcererii_opened_s1.jpg |
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| MOTHERBOARD |
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In 1978, all the functions of the motherboard - memory management and various I/O, were carried out by numerous standard logic chips.
**(1)** Character generator 2 KB ROM\
**(2)** Z80 processor, here a NEC D780 version\
**(3)** AY-3-1015 UART *Universal Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter* Manages various serial communications\
**(4)** Power regulation card connector\
**(5)** ROM cartridge connector\
**(6)** 8 KB monitor ROMs\
**(7)** 48 KB RAM chips (24 x 4116)\
**(8)** RAM banks selector switches |
/media/museum/photos/exidy_sorcererii_mainboard_s1.jpg |
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| MOTHERBOARD CLOSE-UP |
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/media/museum/photos/exidy_sorcererii_mainboard_s2.jpg |
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| TAPE DRIVE |
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Provision was made inside the monitor case for either 1 or 2 5.25" floppy disk drives or an intelligent tape drive. The monitor and tape drive could be switched on separately (2 black switches on the right hand side). The two chrome buttons allowed to adjust read and record levels. |
/media/museum/photos/exidy_sorcererii_tapemonitor_s1.jpg |
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| TAPE DRIVE #2 |
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The tape drive and card were provided by a third company called MECA. The card holds its own CPU, ROM and RAM. |
/media/museum/photos/exidy_sorcererii_monitorinside_s1.jpg |
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| USER'S MANUAL |
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User's manual and Word processor cartridge. |
/media/museum/photos/exidy_sorcererii_manual_s1.jpg |
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| THE BOX |
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/media/museum/photos/exidy_sorcererii_box_1.jpg |
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| BOOT UP SCREEN |
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Boot up screen followed by a memory dump command. |
/media/museum/photos/exidy_sorcererii_bootscreen_s1.jpg |
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| TEST SHEET |
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Final test before the system left the factory. |
/media/museum/photos/exidy_sorcererii_testsheet_1.jpg |
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| FRENCH AD (JAN. 1980) |
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/media/museum/pubs/exidy_sorcerer2_pub_voici.jpg |
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| THE COMPUPRINT PRINTER |
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/media/museum/hardware/exidy_sorcerer2_compuprint_1.jpg |
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| THE MECA DIGITAL TAPE |
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/media/museum/hardware/exidy_sorcerer2_meca-digital-tape_1.jpg |
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| THE "PENNYWHISTLE" ACOUSTIC MODEM |
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/media/museum/hardware/exidy_sorcerer2_acoustic-modem_1.jpg |
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| FDM 180 |
FDD unit |
This FDD unit was made in 1980 made by Liveport Ltd., in the UK. The FD drive was a hard sector Teac model, single sided, single density, 180 KB formatted capacity. The controller cards occupie both sides of the FD drive. |
/media/museum/hardware/exidy_sorcererii_fdm180_s1.jpg |
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| MESS |
http://www.mess.org |
Multiplatform |
MESS can emulate the Sorcerer computer |
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| TECHNICAL MANUAL |
null |
/media/museum/docs/couvs/exidy_sorcerer_doc_manual.jpg |
**TECHNICAL MANUAL**\
written by Dick Smith Electronics
compiled/archived by David Wilson\
type of document : PDF\
size : 984 KB\
source : www.old-computers.com |
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| author |
date |
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| Peter Jones (United Kingdom) |
Friday 17th February 2023 |
Correction to the size of the rompacs. 8k not 16k.The CPU could only address 64k: 0-48k for RAM, 49-56 for rompacs, 57-64 for the OS. |
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| Jeef |
Saturday 25th April 2020 |
Hello Stephany, did the Sorcerer find a good home? |
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| stephany (Tennessee US) |
Sunday 5th August 2018 |
I''ve my Dad''s Exidy Sorcerer in a hall closet for years and it''s now time to get rid of it. I have no idea if it still boots up. But it does have the original manual. He upgraded the system to have the 8-track-ish tape thing for storage.\
Anyone who is willing to pay the shipping CAN HAVE THIS FOR FREE. It is heavy. |
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| PAOK |
Wednesday 20th June 2018 |
Bolches yarboclos, Batman!!!
I''d like an Exidy Sorcerer for Xmas. |
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| Binaryben |
Monday 5th February 2018 |
I have one of these in my loft. Back in 1981 I wrote my own COS (cassette operating system) using Hitachi tape deck which had electrical controls and a opto to check for tape stop. Using this deck I could write a directory at the start of tape, and then automatically access multiple programs off a C90 cassette by letting the Sorcerer control the tape movements and get position count from opto! |
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| rod (canada) |
Tuesday 30th January 2018 |
I knew that Exidy published and developed a lot of games for various home computers and video game consoles. But I had no idea that they also made a line of computers as well.
Very interesting read... |
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| Tibsi (Gyula, Hungary) |
Tuesday 31st October 2017 |
I''m searching for a working piece of Exidy Sorcerer. |
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| Scott Adams (United States) |
Wednesday 3rd June 2015 |
My company Adventure International did support this system with a number of my games. It was a decent machine I really liked it. |
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| Scott Adams (United States) |
Wednesday 3rd June 2015 |
My company Adventure International did support this system with a number of my games. It was a decent machine I really liked it. |
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| Miles (New york) |
Monday 11th May 2015 |
I have two new exidy computers in original boxes.\
Would you like to buy them? Email me at exidy@nym.hush.com\
now before they sell out. |
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| Miles (New York) |
Monday 11th May 2015 |
I have two new exidy sorcerer computers in the original boxes. Who would like to buy them? |
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| Tyler (us) |
Friday 17th October 2014 |
I have a sorcerer complete in box working in good condition with original literature few cassette tapes a cartridge standard basic I think it is and a external cassette player I''m looking to sell this contact me via email a9163161094 at Gmail for pictures info and offErs |
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| Rob (Australia) |
Friday 27th June 2014 |
I am interested Paul, if it still boots, I am not sure if the internal battery would be good to replace if it doesn''t. Wait to hear from you, Only needs to boot to Rom, as I only ever programmed them in hex. Regards Rob |
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| Paul Hynek (Canada) |
Monday 23rd June 2014 |
I have a Sorcerer with the original box. Cleaning house. anyone want to make me an offer? |
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| Andy Holyer (UK) |
Sunday 1st May 2011 |
We had a Sorcerer as the only computer at my school (in about 1980).
Not a very good machine. Tended to freeze, and we put a sticker on the top of the case saying "hit here to unfreeze".
The wierdest thing was the "bounce-free" keyboard. To prevent bouncing, the key registered on the up-stroke of the key rather than the down-stroke. That is, you pressed a key, nothing happened. Released the key, and the character was entered.
*Not* a good idea. |
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| James Perrett (Melbourne) |
Monday 17th January 2011 |
I remember it being the first Micro Computer in Austrailia with the top 128 Characters being programable. My Homebrew was a cross between a Trs-80/System 80 and Sorcerer. With a monitor program writen by myself and a friend and Basic copied/mod-ed from TRS-80 Remember the wiz. |
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| Brian C (Vermont, USA) |
Tuesday 12th December 2006 |
The sorcerer II was my first non-mainframe computer. It totally used 8-track carts for the ROM packs. I don't remember it being terribly colorful, but that's probably because we had a mono monitor. I totally remember programming like mad in basic, and playing some of the games.. |
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| Paolo Colombo (Australia) |
Tuesday 20th December 2005 |
Is the Sorcerer really dead? I have kept my 4th Sorcerer packaged up for a number of years, and one of these days I shall start it up. It has a S100 Box, 2 Micropolis 16 hard sector drives 360Kb, 64K of memory and a modified 80x32 columns screen. It was the mightiest machine of the time before the arrival of the first XT, and besides the floppies being totally unreliable by Verbatim, my wife used to do thesis typing with an Olivetti daisywheel typewriter with the interface designed and built by me. his offered excelllent pages, miles better that the 8 dot dotmatrix printers of the time without lower case descendants. The lot cost me a fortune by todays standards, but thats all that was available. |
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| Steve Shepherd (Herts, UK) |
Thursday 27th January 2005 |
I have a Sorcerer II but don't ever remember it having any colour capabilities, only the ability to define your own mono graphics characters. I also have the Video/Disk Unit. |
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| Duncan Layne (UK) |
Wednesday 5th January 2005 |
They bought one of these at work (British Aerospace) back in 1980. I am sure that the ROM packs (seen on the right of the machine) were built into empty 8 track tape cartridges ! Was a colour version (or add on) available. I am sure that the reason work bought this was for its colour graphics (they already had a PET and Nascom which were both monochrome). I remember someone being sent out to buy a portable colour TV (costing £250, about the same as my monthly wage) to use with the Exidy. The arrival of this generated just as much interest as the arrival of the computer ! |
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| /software/chomp |
| /software/galaxians |
| /software/martian-invaders |
| /software/snake |
| /software/sorcerer-invaders |
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